CUTUD LENTEN RITES

If the festivities linked to Holy Week are legion in the Philippines, San Pedro Cutud, a barangay in the city of San Fernando, north of Manila, has acquired a most atypical (not to say "gory") reputation. Indeed, every year on Good Friday, believers, mostly men, flock there, wearing crowns of thorns, to reenact the Passion of Christ with scourging and other crucifixions. The Church itself does not support this practice, mentioned here for information purposes rather than as an incentive, of course.