Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines president, has provoked a storm of outrage after he called the Christian god “stupid” and a “son of a bitch”.
In a televised speech Mr Duterte questioned the wisdom of the deity said to have created Adam and Eve only to see them succumb to Satan’s temptation and destroy the purity of humanity.
“Who is this stupid god? This son of a bitch is then really stupid,” he said. Mr Duterte leads a country where about nine in 10 people are Christian, and the vast majority of those Catholic.
It was only the latest in a string of controversial public remarks by the president, who has admitted murder; advised citizens not to wear condoms despite an HIV crisis; told soldiers to shoot female rebels in the vagina; and claimed he would be “happy to slaughter” millions of people in his bloody crackdown on drugs.
He was branded a “madman” by Arturo Bastes, a Catholic bishop, who called on the faithful to pray for Mr Duterte’s “blasphemous utterances and dictatorial tendencies” to end.
“Duterte’s tirade against God and the Bible reveals again that he is a psychological freak, a psychopath, an abnormal mind who should have not been elected as president of our civilised and Christian nation,” he added.
The president also used his speech to pour scorn on the concept of original sin – the idea that humans’ souls are marked by the fall of Adam and Eve, and that people require redemption by God if they are to enter heaven.
“You were not involved but now you’re stained with an original sins. What kind of a religion is that? That’s what I can’t accept,” Mr Duterte said on Friday.
His spokesman defended the remarks, saying the president had the right to express his opinion on religion.
Mr Duterte said in another speech on Monday: ”I was given my own mind by God.”
The 73-year-old shocked Filipino Catholics in 2015 when he cursed the visiting Pope Francis for having triggered huge traffic jams in Manila.
He later apologised but has lashed out at bishops and the dominant Catholic church, which has criticised his drugs policy.
