“We can’t stay idle anymore,” Phra Methee Dhammacharn said yesterday. It was time the monks rose up to defend Thailand’s Buddhism, he said on Facebook.

The controversies surrounding the classic Mercedes-Benz car, the Sangha Supreme Council and the Sangha Act are parts of a plot to undermine the clergy, he said.

On behalf of Buddhist organisations and allies, he said his network planned to bring monks together.

“Let’s get ready and wait for our signal,” he said.

He did not mention Somdet Chuang, the acting Supreme Patriarch, in his Facebook post.

However, his latest move is widely seen as a response to the Department of Special Investigation deciding last Friday to press charges against Somdet Chuang for owning an allegedly illegal vintage Mercedes-Benz.

He said that what was happening in Thailand’s ecclesiastic circles was abnormal.

“Various groups of people have come together to put the Sangha in a tight corner. They have slandered the Sangha and made it seem like the clergy has engaged in all the bad things,” he said.

Those groups intended to reform the monastic order the way they wanted, he added.