PHILIPPINES
Rappler
BY ARIES RUFO
POSTED ON 06/06/2013
MANILA, Philippines – This is the second in a series of excerpts from the upcoming book Altar of Secrets: Sex, Money, and Politics in the Philippine Catholic Church by veteran journalist Aries C. Rufo that Rappler is running this week. The book will be launched on Friday, June 7, at The Forum, FullyBooked at The Fort, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig, Metro Manila. Launch price is at P400; regular price at P450.
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They had many things in common: both were protégés of Manila Cardinal Jaime Sin; both were former auxiliary bishops of Manila; both at one time worked and taught at the San Carlos Seminary — Bishop Teodoro Bacani as former dean and professor of theology and Bishop Crisostomo Yalung as former rector.
Both were also forced to resign after committing indiscretions involving the opposite sex.
Bacani and Yalung were both promising prelates before their fall from grace. The former was a most-sought-after inspirational speaker, a media personality in his own right, and a public figure largely active in political affairs.
Yalung, for his part, was very popular among parishioners but most feared by young priests and seminarians. A rising star in Church circles, he was nurtured by Sin as a potential Church leader, appointing him as treasurer of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Manila (RCAM) when it was hit with financial scandals. Among his contemporaries, his only rival to Sin’s attention and favor was Socrates Villegas, who would become archbishop a few years later. (Sin had prophesied that Villegas would one day become the Archbishop of Manila.)
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