THE Archdiocese of Manila’s Office of Exorcism has welcomed the Court of Appeals’ decision dismissing the criminal case against exorcist priest Fr. Winston Cabading, who was accused of “offending religious feelings” over his remarks questioning the 1948 Marian apparitions in Lipa City, Batangas.
“It is with great joy that we announce this news on the Feast Day of Our Lady of the Rosary La Naval de Manila,” the office said in a statement on Monday, October 6, 2025.
“The Lord weaving things in His own time! Praise be Jesus and Mary!” it added.
The court’s 12th Division, in a 28-page decision dated September 29, 2025, and reported to the media on Monday, cleared Cabading of the charge.
It upheld the 2024 ruling of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court that earlier dismissed the complaint filed by retired Sandiganbayan Justice Harriet Demetriou, a devotee of Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace, reportedly.
Demetriou lodged the case in 2022, accusing the Dominican priest of offending believers of the Lipa apparitions, which the Vatican has declared “not supernatural.”
Cabading was arrested and detained from May 13 to 15, 2023.
The appellate court said Cabading’s remarks on his social media program were not made during a “religious ceremony."
“The same is similar to a show, broadcast, or dialogue and does not connote a formal or solemn act prescribed by the ritual of a religious procedure,” the court said.
The Lipa apparitions reportedly took place in 1948 at the Carmelite Monastery in Lipa City, where novice Teresita Castillo claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary, who introduced herself as “Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace.”
The visions were said to be accompanied by showers of rose petals and other “miraculous” signs.
Notable cases invoking Article 133 of the Revised Penal Code include the 2010 conviction of the late cultural worker Carlos Celdran, who protested inside the Manila Cathedral against the Catholic Church’s opposition to the reproductive health bill.
In 2023, drag artist Pura Luka Vega was similarly charged under the same provision for performing as Jesus Christ and the Black Nazarene to a rock remix of the “Our Father” and a Taylor Swift music.
Vega was acquitted in June 2025. (Ronald Reyes/SunStar Philippines)