the buzz: Filipino bishops to counter Islamic State group

Leaders of the Philippine Roman Catholic Church, Asia’s largest, vowed yesterday to counter extremist religions such as that espoused by Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq. Archbishop Socrates Villegas, who heads the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, also asked the country’s bishops to collect donations for Christians who have been displaced by the militants and whose places of worship have been razed “by a godless rage with which no genuine religion can ever identify.”
Citing brutal actions by the Islamic State group, including the beheading of American journalist James Foley, Villegas said the Philippine Catholic church will “do our part to counter the defacement of religion.” “Those who kill and slaughter, wound and maim, destroy and burn in the name of God send the world the awful message that religion divides, that faith is oppressive, that belief can engender so much unkindness,” he said in a statement.