THE COURT OF Appeals has dismissed the perjury case filed against Dominican exorcist and La Naval Shrine rector Fr. Winston Cabading, O.P., ruling that the charge did not prove that the priest made a false claim in a legal filing.
In the 38-page decision on Jan. 26, the appeals court nullified the Dec. 9, 2024, and March 14, 2025 orders of a Quezon City Regional Trial Court (RTC), which had denied Cabading’s motion to quash the perjury case.
It said the trial court committed grave abuse of discretion by allowing the case to proceed despite defects.
The perjury charge arose from Cabading’s counter-affidavit in a separate case on “offending religious feelings,” which had earlier been dismissed by another court for lack of merit.
Despite the dismissal, former Commission on Elections chairperson Harriet Demetriou filed two successive perjury complaints.
Demetriou, a devotee of the Lipa apparitions, accused Cabading of falsely claiming the existence of a 1951 Vatican decree declaring the 1948 Lipa apparitions as non-supernatural, and said the Dominican did not attach the document in his counter-affidavit to support his position.
“The truth is out, and no one can deny it. Conspiracy theories may be there, and people can fabricate or concoct fairy tales to keep a declared non-supernatural apparition alive. But the fact remains that the Church ruled against the apparition,” Cabading told the Varsitarian.
The court ruled that the perjury case failed to allege the essential element of a “willful and deliberate assertion of falsehood.”
“I believe this verdict is the vindication of the Church of the truth of the decree’s existence,” Cabading said.
The 1951 decree
Cabading said doubts over the decree’s existence persisted for years because the document had not been publicly available, despite certifications from the Apostolic Nunciature and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) that it was kept in the Vatican Archives.
The decree was a declaration approved by Pope Pius XII, rejecting the 1948 Lipa apparitions as having non-supernatural origin and character.
The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) and the CBCP made the 1951 decree public in April 2024.
“It was a handwritten note, much like a memo, rather than the usual typewritten one on an official letterhead. Nonetheless, canon lawyers had no issue recognizing this as a valid decree,” Cabading said.
On April 11, 1951, a separate local decree issued by a committee of six Filipino bishops echoed the Vatican’s findings and concluded that no supernatural intervention occurred during the apparition.
Cabading viewed the series of cases filed against him, including one for offending religious feelings and two perjury complaints, as attempts to silence discussion of the Vatican’s definitive ruling on the non-supernatural character of the apparition.
“These cases were all about stopping the Church and her ministers from fully implementing the succeeding effects of the definitive judgment,” he said.
“By questioning her authority, they just insist on their subjective understanding without the guidance of the Magisterium,” he added.
The DDF issued a new decree on Dec. 11, 2015, specifically to nullify a local approval of the apparition by Lipa Archbishop Ramon Arguelles, reiterating that the 1951 decision was final.
The CBCP allows continued veneration of the Marian title “Mediatrix of All Grace” provided the devotion is disassociated from the 1948 events. With reports from Vince Alfred M. Pillagara
