Bishop Calls for Calm, Prayer in Aftermath of Attack on Church

CAGAYAN DE ORO City, August 29,2010-The bishop of the Diocese of Malaybalay called on the faithful Sunday to remain calm and pray in the aftermath of the Sunday morning grenade attack on a church in Bukidnon that wounded two parishioners.

Bishop Jose Araneta Cabantan also urged the faithful, especially the relatives of the wounded parishioners of the San Vicente Ferrer Parish in Kalilangan, Bukidnon to let law enforcement authorities solve the case and not take justice into their own hands to prevent bloodshed.

"I urged all the faithful in Bukidnon, especially in Kalilangan, to pray and remain calm and not let this isolated incident sow tension and discord among the Christians and Muslims here," he told this reporter in the vernacular.

Cabantan, former social action director of the Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro, also urged the faithful to continue the interfaith dialogue that he had just started after his elevation to the bishopric of Malaybalay last May 30, 2010.

This after Cabantan narrated the theory of the police that the grenade attack on the San Vicente Ferrer Parish past 8:00 Sunday morning was a case of irate Maranao Muslims trying to avenge the death of a Maranao Muslim boy who was killed after he was run over by a Rural Transit of Mindanao, Inc. (RTMI) bus driven by a Christian driver.

"The police theorized that that attack on the church could be tied to the attacks on the RTMI and that the attackers were just exacting revenge on the Christians for the killing of the Muslim boy by a bus driver," he said.

The San Vicente Ferrer parish has more than 20,000 parishioners.

Kalilangan is one of the more progressive towns of Bukidnon. It is the boundary town of the provinces of Bukidnon and Lanao del Sur.

Sunday morning's grenade attack on the church in Kalilangan town was the first in the history of the Malaybalay diocese.

The attack on the San Vicente Ferrer church was carried out by two teenage boys riding in tandem on a motorcycle while parish priest, Fr. Art Paraiso, was saying mass.

As the parishioners were reciting the "Prayers of the Faithful," one of the boy, whom witnesses said was only 12 years old, disembark from the motorcycle and threw two fragmentation grenades onto the church.

Fortunately, only one of the grenades exploded near the entrance of the church.

However, two parishioners sitting on the last pews of church were hit on the legs by shrapnels. They were immediately rushed to the town's hospital, police said.

"According to the police, the one who threw the grenades was more or less 12 years old who immediately escaped on board the waiting the motorcycle," Cabantan said.

He said policemen who were inside the church hearing mass helped Fr. Paraiso in calming the parishioners down.

"They then all went outside the church and Fr. Paraiso proceeded to say the mass outside," he added. (Bong D. Fabe)