Pinoy bishop implements the law!

And I thought it was an April fool's joke because I never expected to read this in UCANews.

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A Filipino Catholic bishop has denied funeral rites to a parishioner who was a Freemason. [Which is the right thing to do.]

Bishop Florentino Cinense [God bless the bishop!] of the Diocese of Tarlac in the northern Philippines said that his refusal to allow Christian rites for Dr. Manuel Yu of the parish of Saint Jude was in accordance with Church law. [In other words, he is just doing his job folks.  So stop the anti-Catholic hysteria!]

Bishop Cinense said all churches in the diocese have been advised not to give Church rites to Yu, who was laid to rest today at Paniqui Memorial Park.

A Mass was, however, held in the family’s residence hours before Yu was buried.

It is not the first time the Philippine Catholic Church denied funeral rites to a Freemason.

The late Governor Rafael Nantes of Quezon province, a known Freemason and “born-again Christian,” was also denied Catholic funeral rites by Bishop Emilio Marquez of the Diocese of Lucena.  [He is not even Catholic.  Even if he were not a Mason, he will not be given the funeral rites since HE IS NOT A CATHOLIC.]

Bishop Marquez, a known critic of Nantes, said the Church’s Code of Canon Law denies Catholic burial rites for the likes of Nantes “unless some signs of repentance before death had been shown.”

The bishop said the governor’s death in a helicopter crash in May last year was sudden and unexpected and there was no way for the Church to determine whether he had repented.

“We did not in any way forbid prayers for the eternal repose of his soul or to bless the mortal remains of the governor,” Bishop Marquez said. [Praying for the repose of the soul of a dead, Catholic or not, is a charitable way to do.]

He said the Church did not prohibit the celebration of Mass for the late provincial executive “as long as his (Nantes) body was not there.”

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Thank God that we have bishops in the Philippines who are in their dioceses doing their job the way they are expected to do it.

Nah...don't say I am pertaining to one bishop.

.....................yeah, maybe.

God bless you Bishop Cinense!