Bishop scores healing priest, stops sessions in Pangasinan

After being banned in Bulacan province, priest Fernando Suarez is now also forbidden from conducting healing sessions in Pangasinan. “There is already a question of hysteria, not to mention credulity among the faithful. It is too much to say that Fr. Suarez resurrects the dead," Oscar Cruz, Lingayen-Dagupan archbishop, said in a statement posted on the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines Web site, Sunday. Cruz said that even without his permission, Suarez proceeded with his healing sessions at a parish in Pangasinan last December. He said Suarez’s healing Masses had been “open to abuses, like superstition, hysteria, fanaticism, and money." Also, the prelate raised questions over Suarez’s selling of rosaries, and other religious articles said to have healing powers. Cruz said that even in Canada, the bishop of the diocese where Suarez belonged had banned Suarez from holding healing Masses because of the sale of the supposedly miraculous religious articles. Also, he cited reports that solicitation letters had been circulating for the construction of Suarez’s healing center in Batangas province. “I hope he really cures — and I want that very clear — and cures as many sick people as possible, especially in this country where medicines, seeing a doctor, and hospitalization are very expensive," Cruz said. Vatican rule Cruz is the second bishop who complained that Suarez’s healing activities were conducted without permission from leaders of the Catholic Church. Earlier, Jose Oliveros, bishop of Malolos, Bulacan, said Suarez conducted two healing sessions in his diocese without asking for "explicit permission." Suarez's healing session in Sta. Rita, Bulacan, was canceled on January 30. According to Oliveros, Suarez failed to follow a Vatican rule on healing activities signed by Pope Benedict XVI, when he was still a cardinal. Oliveros said that paragraph 4 of Section 2 of the Instruction on Healing Activities of the Doctrine of Faith requires priest healers to ask “explicit permission" from a bishop before conducting healing Masses in a diocese. Cruz, whose archdiocese covers 26 parishes in central Pangasinan, said the ban on Suarez would be on a “case-to-case" basis. He said Suarez could hold healing Masses freely in Metro Manila and Batangas because the bishops there allowed him to do so. “They believe in him. And that’s okay," he said. - GMANews.TV