San Pedro Calungsod

The year is ending with news late last week that the Vatican finally recognized the miraculous recovery of a woman in a Cebu hospital in 2003 through the intercession of Beato Pedro Calungsod.This is clearly a most welcome news not just for Cebu but for nearby islands in the Visayas and Mindanao where the Calungsod family name continues to be borne by countless individuals.

While writing the biography of His Eminence Ricardo Cardinal Vidal last year, there was one brief moment in our interviews with him when we delved into the chances for canonization of the young Calungsod. The cardinal was tight-lipped and did not even divulge the name of the woman or her location as this was vital to keeping the evidence for canonization as pristine and as untainted as the Vatican was wont to have it. All we got was that she had suddenly been brought back to life, her vital signs all normal, four hours after she slipped into a coma. Apparently one of the unnamed woman’s doctors prayed to Beato Pedro to intercede with the Almighty for her recovery.

Calungsod’s life was violently cut short with a machete while accompanying and protecting the Jesuit missionary, Fr. Diego Luis de San Vitores. Both lost their lives in Guam on Saturday, April 2, 1672. Within days after their martyrdom, the Jesuits were already talking about their heroic virtues. The process for the beatification of San Vitores started as far back as 1673. Alas, it took so long that the Jesuit priest was beatified only in 1985, which also revived interest in the martyrdom of Calungsod. I say revived because even during the late Spanish period, his martyrdom was already mentioned in some books and essays.

It helped that on Jan. 25, 1983, Pope John Paul II issued the Apostolic Constitution, “Divinus Perfectionis Magister”, which ordered a thorough revamp of the rules of saint-making. The Vatican simplified the process by empowering the local bishop, in our case, Cardinal Vidal at the time, to begin the process of determining the saintly  virtues of a candidate. This is how Calungsod’s eventual elevation to sainthood began, which blossomed finally in 2000 with the grant of the title “Beato” or “Blessed” before his name.

There is an interesting sidelight to the whole process of Beato Pedro’s recognition by the Vatican. At the center of this whole intense drama is Msgr. Ildebrando Jesus Leyson. He was training to be a canon lawyer in one of the universities in Rome in the 1990s when the cardinal visited him and assigned him to immediately begin developing the “positio” (more like a Master’s thesis full of historical documentation) for Calungsod’s cause. Leyson, then a young priest, was shaken by the call because he had as yet no experience in facing canon lawyers of the Vatican where the “positio” would be presented and where he would be grilled no end, most probably in Latin by stern-faced old clerics whose job was to read thousands upon thousands of “positios” every year—which can be  excruciatingly boring work for the untrained and unprepared.

Indeed Calungsod’s cause was but one of so many that were pending until his beatification in 2000. (Under the new saint-making process, Calungsod’s martyrdom for the faith is counted as a first miracle.) And now, this announcement affirming the findings of the five or six doctors and scientists assigned by the Vatican to look into her case quietly and away from the scrutiny of media.

My felicitations, therefore, to the cardinal and to the monsignor for this most remarkable work. And of course to His Excellency, Archbishop Jose Palma, in whose time this canonization will become an important milestone not just for the Visayas but for the rest of the Philippines. Meanwhile, the cause of another Cebuano, the late Archbishop Teofilo Camomot, awaits its turn.

Let me end the year with a wish that the coming one will be far better than what we went through. With the intercession of San Pedro Calungsod, perhaps this country might fare much, much better.

Happy New Year to us all!