What can the church do about cults?

Today is the 97th anniversary of the apparitions of our Lady of Fatima, when the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared before three children, Lucia do Santos, Jacinta and Francisco Marto. It's been 97-years since our Blessed Lady asked the Pope to consecrate Russia into her Immaculate Heart so that she would triumph and Russia will be converted, otherwise Russia would spread her errors.

It is crystal clear to me that this request of the Blessed Virgin Mary was never acted upon by the Vatican and our proof of the pudding is in the eating. Just open your cable TV to the international satellite networks or read the newspapers that Russia today continues making errors to threaten world peace. Pope Francis should consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary so we can avert another world war.

*  *  *

I've been observing that story about that Mr. Casiano "Tatay Boy" Apduhan Jr. a cult leader of the Dios Amahan who has been in and out of the news so often that I felt that it is about time to bring this issue up so we could warn our fellow Catholics about the presence of so many cults not just all over the world but even in your friendly next door neighborhood.

Last April, Tatay Boy was in a hot water because he illegally detained a woman and buried a 14-year old boy in Barangay Buanoy. I recall that Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma was so concerned about this that he sent a team to investigate the incident. We have yet to see the results of that investigation.

Apparently Tatay Boy Casiano Jr. was in the news again, this time because Mr. Eleuterio Repuela, a farmer apparently was taken in by the Dios Amahan group and believed that the world would have ended in the year 2013.  So he sold his house and livestock and you can guess who got the money. Apparently the National Bureau of Investigation filed a case of murder against Tatay Boy for the killing of the farmer's son. Obviously, those people who were followers of Tatay Boy have awakened to the realization that the group Dios Amahan is nothing but a cult who prey on its blind followers for more than obvious reasons to profit from their loyalty.

At this point, I would like to believe that it is high time for the Cebu Archdiocese to follow through with its investigation and perhaps even widen it because of the presence of so many cults within Cebu. There are people I know who insist that they are still Catholic but are involved in a cult. How do we know that they are members of a cult? Simple. All one has to do is ask who is their master or leader and chances are they would be highly secretive about it. If it were a Charismatic organization, then it would be "normal" for people to talk and meet with its members and leaders.

Just a couple of weeks ago, National Geographic came up with a documentary "How I escaped a cult." The pattern is crystal clear and very much the same. Members of the cult are very secretive, yet they are allowed to go about and worship in Catholic churches if they are Catholic. But in the end, they tend to worship their master more than God.

But when you read between the lines, the real purpose of their cult is to get money from the cult members, who blindly follow their master's objective, even to the point of fighting with one's family because family ties no longer matter when you are a cult member as the master is the most important being on this planet to the cult members.

So this is a challenge to the Archdiocese of Cebu to come up with a list of cultic organizations in Cebu so that we could warn people that if they join these innocent-sounding groups, they could be in for more trouble than they bargained for. The Dios Amahan is our best example to date.

*  *  *

A few days ago, another high ranking member of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People's Army and the National Democratic Front was arrested in Davao City by combined police and military agents as reported by Capt. Albert Caber. This time the rebel leader was identified as Roy Erecre alias Toto/Payong who was identified as the Secretary General of the Central Visayas Regional Committee of the CPP-NPA. Wow! That's us in Region 7!

This comes at the heels of the stunning arrest of the top leadership of the CPP-NPA-NDF, Mr. Benito and his wife Wilma Tiamzon who were both arrested by elements of Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in Barangay Zaragoza, Aloguinsan, Cebu. The Tiamzons were living in a quiet life in San Fernando, Cebu, but they must have been planning for a comeback in the Province of Cebu because we have been declared as "insurgency free" since 2007.

*  *  *

Email: [email protected] or [email protected]