PHILIPPINES
National Geographic
Posted by Bryan Christy in A Voice for Elephants on September 26, 2012
“Blood Ivory: Ivory Worship” is generating keen interest in the Philippines. The country’s ivory trade has been the cover story of the Philippine newspapers this week and is receiving similar attention across the country, especially on the island of Cebu.
Earlier today Jose S. Palma, Archbishop of Cebu, held a press conference, “Ivory Worship and Msgr. Cris Garcia” (see below), in which he reportedly announced that ivory collector Monsignor Garcia had been suspended and stripped of his position in the archdiocese of Cebu on orders of the Vatican. Palma emphasized that this move was not the result of my investigation, which features Garcia, but rather is the result of Garcia’s sexual abuse of minor boys while serving in Los Angeles, California in the 1980s. The case was exposed by Brooks Egerton of the Dallas Morning News as part of that newspaper’s 2005 series, “Runaway Priests: Hiding in Plain Sight.” My story cited the Dallas Morning News story and reiterated Garcia’s past.
“Let it be made clear that the Church supports the ban on ivory,” Palma says in his written statement for the press today. He then opened the door to an important possibility for elephants and the Africans who risk their lives to protect them: “…in the past ivory was one of the materials used in the adornment of liturgical worship…in no way does [the Church] encourage the use of ivory for new implements.”
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