"Come out and make a stand!"
Archbishop Socrates Villegas, head of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, made the rallying cry on Sunday as he urged Filipinos to oppose the planned restoration of the death penalty in their country.
"We cannot be disunited or indifferent," Villegas told Catholics. "On this pro-life issue, let us truly unite," he added as reported by Reuters.
Villegas and other Catholic leaders have renewed their opposition to President Rodrigo Duterte's plans to reintroduce the death penalty in the Philippines, arguing that God does not support the death penalty and that executing convicts has proven ineffective in deterring crime.
This came about after a congressional committee passed a bill seeking to bring back state-sanctioned executions. Earlier reports said the House of Representatives was set to approve the measure before Christmas. However, it was later reported that lawmakers decided to defer the approval of the death penalty bill to early next year, the Philippine Star reported.
The Philippines' leading prelate, Manila Archbishop Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, has added his voice to the call for Filipinos to reject the impending passage of the death penalty bill.
"There is in our land a cry for vengeance and a move to fill up death rows and kill offenders but disguised as a call for justice," he said in a prayer read in Philippine churches on Sunday.
"Let true and lasting justice spring forth," he said.
Duterte has insisted that capital punishment is needed to tackle his country's major drug trade problem.
"The bleeding hearts, the priests and all, said there was death penalty before, and nothing happened. Then I can simply say, death penalty didn't work because it wasn't imposed," Duterte said in a speech in September, according to The Christian Post.
"Every president along the way would just say, one because of the Catholic Church; second the bleeding hearts, because only God can kill. The problem there, I ask you, what if there is no God? So we allow the criminals?" asked Duterte, who has been accused by U.S. President Barack Obama and other foreign leaders of carrying out thousands of extrajudicial killings against drug dealers and users.
Duterte is strongly supported by Christian boxing icon and Senator Manny Pacquiao, who has claimed that the Bible supports the death penalty.
"[The] death penalty is lawful, moral and sanctioned governmental action. Having read the Bible on a regular basis, I am convinced that God is not just a God of mercy, but He is also a God of justice," Pacquiao said in August.
