A 32-year-old Filipino football star who believed his penis was driving him to sin sliced it off with a machete in a fit of religious fervor, family members and doctors said on Friday.

Relatives said they found the former football star lying on the floor, covered in blood and with a portion of his penis missing when they went to his house on Negros island in the southern Philippines on Monday.

"Until then we was a good son, and one of seven children, He indulged himself by reading the Bible,'' his mother told reporters in Bacolod City 300 miles south of Manila, where the man is now in hospital. "His act was probably triggered by the book of Matthew 18:8,'' she said. The verse, from the New Testament, reads ``If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.''

Family members said they rushed the man to a nearby hospital in Bacolod where doctors said they had stitched up and reconstructed his penis, although it is now 20 percent shorter. Relatives said they were unable to find the severed portion.

Doctors said the man's penis showed several wounds, indicating that the man had hacked at it several times before it detached. "The mere act of cutting his penis signifies that he is psychotic,'' the doctor said, but did not indicate whether the man would undergo psychiatric evaluation.

He is now in stable condition and his wounds were expected to heal in two and a half weeks, doctors said. The man will still be able to have children, the doctor added.

The man's mother said her son had been depressed and obsessed with the Bible since his wife moved to Manila to work as a housemaid, leaving their young child to live with her family. "He said he wanted to be nailed to a coconut tree,'' the man's mother said. "He had memorized the Bible and preaches with the pastors in our place. "He also advised other people to remove nude photos from their walls so that small children will not become sex maniacs later,'' the mother said.

Today newspaper quoted the man as saying he had no regrets about cutting off his penis because it was driving him to sin. Local radio and newspaper reports said the man had visualized his penis as a "cobra'' drawing him toward women.