TAKING A STAND

Catholic Church Blasts Rodrigo Duterte Over Drug Policies

At a sermon delivered Sunday.

Leaders of the Catholic Church in the Philippines blasted President Rodrigo Duterte in in a sermon on Sunday over his drug policies which have resulted in the deaths of at least 7,000 people in the last seven months. The sermon was read from a letter drafted by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. The letter characterizes Duterte’s relentless campaign against drug dealers—in which suspected dealers are killed—as a “reign of terror in many places of the poor.” Filipinos largely support Duterte, but the message is likely to hit home in many corners of the country because more than 80 percent its citizens are Catholic.