Bacani back by end of the month

Embattled Novaliches Bishop Teodoro Bacani may be back by the end of the month.

This was what his spokesman, Monsignor Romulo Rañada, revealed during a forum at the National Press Club in Manila yesterday.

"I do not know when he will be back but I think it will be towards the end of the month," Rañada said.

He added that Bacani recently had a spiritual retreat in Kansas, USA, where he had been staying with his mother shortly after news of the sexual harassment case filed against him by his personal secretary broke in early June.

Rañada, rector of the Good Shepherd parish in Novaliches where Bacani used to celebrate Mass, revealed that the beleaguered bishop underwent spiritual retreat for two weeks and has been "stabilized" though reportedly in "poor health."

Fr. James Reuter, director of the National Office for Mass Media, said that if Bacani returns he can stay in his old room at the Diocese of Novaliches although he will still not exercise any administrative functions.

San Fernando, La Union Bishop Antonio Tobias is the Novaliches Diocese’s Apostolic Administrator and will remain so as long as there is no order from the Vatican.

Reuter said Tobias will most likely stay until September, the time he anticipates Bacani’s case to be finished. He explained that it is summer now in the Vatican and hardly anything gets done during this season, although he said Bacani’s case was very important.

Meanwhile, newly elected Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) Davao Archbishop Fernando Capalla yesterday said that the Church is for both sinners and saints.

"Remember, everyday we all ask pardon, including priests when we pray ‘I confess to Almighty God and to you my brothers and sisters’, so we have all sinned," Capalla told The STAR.

He instead asked for fairness from everyone in as far as the frailty of the priests is concerned.

Capalla conceded that the sex scandal issue hounding the clergy would linger for a long time but said the Catholic church will not go after a certain group believed to be behind the move to discredit the church.

"We will not go after them. I believe in the Cebuano saying kung manglabay ka ug hugaw, kana mobalik kanimo (The garbage you throw out will return to you). Let the one who has no sin cast the first stone," Capalla said.

Fr. Oscar Ornopia of Cebu City was the latest priest to resign from the clergy after admitting he had sired two sons with the woman he loved since his college days. — With Edith Regalado