(Nailed to Cross) Faith and ritual mix on Good Friday in RP

CUTUD, ANGELES CITY - Dozens of Catholic devotees were nailed to crosses, scores more whipped their backs and others chanted the Passion of Jesus Christ as Filipinos mixed faith and gory ritual on Good Friday.

Frowned on by church authorities, the voluntary crucifixions in villages north of the capital Manila are one of the most extreme displays of religious devotion in Asia's largest Roman Catholic state.

Monsignor Pedro Quitorio, spokesman of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, said the church discourages such rituals because the penitents were expecting rewards for hurting themselves.

"We only encourage the faithfuls to fast, pray and confess their sins," Quitorio told Reuters. "We can't stop the practice. It is not necessary, but the church has no police power. These rituals challenge us to guide our flock on the true teachings of the Catholic church."

In the small village of Cutud in Angeles City in Pampanga, about 80 km (50 miles) north of Manila, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was re-enacted in a colorful street play with dozens of men carrying wooden crosses as heavy as 50 kg (110 pounds) and scores whipping their backs to a bloody pulp.

After walking barefoot for more than a kilometer around the village in scorching heat, the drama ended at a man-made hill where 11 men were nailed to crosses with three-inch nails driven into their hands and feet.

Correct...if they really want to experience Rome's most favored form of public execution they should have studied it more. Crucifixion was meant not only to prolong an antagonizing death but to also strip the crucified of every dignity and put him/her to extreme humiliation. These people are hardly being humiliated.

Though the Roman executioners gave Jesus and other Jews when they were crucified back their garments to satisfy Jewish religious codes of modesty and to not cause riots, persons in other Roman providences (such as the early martyrs like St. Peter) would have been crucified naked. Their hands would have been nailed at the wrists and their feet at the ankles against each side of the cross with the knees slightly bent to produce more agony whey the muscles of the chest began slowly asphyxiating the crucified and caused him/her to struggle to stand and relieve pressure. For crucified men, usually their genitalia was also nailed to the cross so when they stood it would rip. Crucified persons usually lasted only about a half of day of torture but those who went longer, all the better. And, if the executioners were in a hurry to get it over with, they broke the legs of the crucified so that they could not stand to relieve pressure--this was done to the thieves on the cross with Jesus as sundown was approaching but not to Jesus as He was already dead.

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