Cebu, Philippines - CEBU Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal turned 79 on Saturday—even as a controversy over which religious order should manage a popular shrine in a monastery in Sibonga continued to hound his archdiocese.
The Marian Monks Eucharistic Adoration are running the shrine, but a member that the monks have expelled—Venancio Cabillon—claims the monastery should be run by another and more deserving religious order.
Cabillon, the former Brother Paul Mary of the popular Lidogon Shrine—and a self-confessed gay—was expelled from the Marian Monks on Jan. 10 last year, and allegedly for violating his religious vows. But Cabillon claims he resigned his post at the monastery four days earlier, on Jan. 6, because of a brewing conflict with other monks.
Vidal, a native of Marinduque, celebrated his birthday with friends and parishioners from the Archdiocese of Cebu, which he has been serving for 27 years.
Vidal is among the respondents that Cabillon sued for libel and perjury before the Cebu Provincial prosecutor’s office last October, and they include Abelio Mangila or Brother Martin Mary, Cabillon’s father superior, and Monsignors Cristobal Garcia and Marnell Mejia, the business manager and editor in chief, respectively, of the newsletter Ang Bag-ong Lungsoranon.
It was the newsletter that published Cabillon’s expulsion from the congregation, but the case arising from his removal is now under mediation.
Cabillon claims that he decided to leave the Lindogon Shrine because of the corruption within the monastery—including the staging of a beauty pageant that he had joined against his will but in which he was declared first runner-up.
He hopes will mediate in the conflict and decide what to do with the management of the Lidogon Shrine, which started to draw thousands of devotees after the statue of the Virgin Mary allegedly shed tears on Sept. 8, 1998.
Vidal should investigate the Marian Monks for possible violations of monastic requisites, he says, because as caretakers of the shrine, they may not have the numbers required of a religious congregation. A religious order should have at least 20 members, he says.
No one from the order would comment on Cabillon’s comments.
Cabillon claims that the name of the order was changed twice by the congregation, “just like a business,” and that it was Manguila the Brother Martin Mary who initiated the changes.
The order was based in Pampanga and was known as the Brothers of Mary of the Child Jesus before it moved to Cebu in 2002.
It became the Marian Brothers of the Eucharistic Adoration, and finally the Marian Monks, when Mangila started reporting on the supposed miracles produced by Mother Mary’s icon.
“Instead of attaining union with God and practicing the strictest self discipline, the monks inside are sinful, with the process of becoming a monk cut short instead of the slow and extensive progression,” Cabillon said.
The archdiocese should deal with the order as it could simply be another cult whose members are getting rich by misleading the public, Cabillon said. He says he is pushing ahead with his libel case.
Monsignor Binghay, the episcopal vicar of the Cebu Archdiocese, says the church is still investigating the case, and that the investigation could take a few more months.
“For now, the visitations of the Our Lady to other towns in the province are still suspended,” he said.
Leticia Saycon, a devotee, says she has been seeing less people people visiting the shrine compared with those last year. But Edwin Fonghe, a surgeon who has been helping Cabillon in his case, says no one can shake the faith of the people who believe in Mary.
“Out of that faith I served the shrine as music ministry head at no cost for eight years, but I left when I sensed that there were inhumane acts being practiced by the very people who were managing the shrine,” he said.