OMG! Church link connects readers to porn site

Critics of the Catholic Church had a field day on Monday after one of the links on a religious website  redirected readers to a pornographic site for transvestites.

An advisory on the installation of new Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle  as the 32nd Metropolitan Archbishop of Manila was posted on the parish’s website, rcam.org, on Monday morning.

At the bottom of the web page, the link “www.tvmaria.com” was posted to direct readers to a live-streaming page for people who wanted to watch Bishop Tagle’s installation rites, scheduled for 9 a.m. on Monday.

However, readers were redirected to a pornographic site featuring a man dressed in women’s lingerie lying on a couch.

While it was suspected at first to be the work of Internet hackers, the confusion was likely a mistake since changing the link “www.tvmaria.com” to “www.tvmaria.net”  sent readers to the correct website.

The site link was finally corrected to “www.tvmaria.net” by 3 p.m. on Monday.

A Church communications officer immediately apologized for the mistake.

Peachy Yamsuan, head of the Archdiocese of Manila’s office of communications, admitted she committed an “honest mistake” when the link to the live-streaming of Tagle’s installation led to a porn site.

“Please be informed that I was the one who committed the mistake of putting in our website story the wrong TV Maria website for live streaming and I’m sorry for the confusion it has caused,” Yamsuan said.

She said she learned about her mistake after priests complained that the link led to a porn site.

Yamsuan expressed regret that the mistake may have clouded Tagle’s installation Monday morning.

Critics of the Catholic Church were also quick to take advantage of the mistake on social networking sites.

Tour guide Carlos Celdran, an outspoken critic of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, appeared to promote the erroneous link by posting its address on Twitter.com.

“The CBCP booboo has made it to the news,” Celdran said in a “tweet.”  Paolo G. Montecillo and Philip C. Tubeza

Originally posted: 5:46 pm | Monday, December 12th, 2011