Fr. Rodulfo Galenzoga, Lanao peace builder, dies at 75
Rodulfo Galenzoga —CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
LINAMON, Lanao del Norte, Philippines — Parishioners here remembered Catholic priest Fr. Rodulfo Galenzoga as a peace builder and champion of interfaith dialogue, who brought Muslims and Christians together since the 1970s when conflicts threatened to tear them apart.
This legacy will always be how leaders of different churches and residents here mourned the passing of Galenzoga on Sunday.
The priest suddenly developed pneumonia just as he was about to be discharged from the Mercy Hospital in this town after recovering from COVID-19, his brother-in-law Panfilo Labunog told the Inquirer by phone.
Galenzoga was 75.
Even after his retirement five years ago, he chose to live in a secluded place of Dapit Alim in the village of Tanguegueron in Tubod town, Lanao del Norte province, where he built a chapel for people of different faiths, said Monsignor Alberto De Lara, parish priest of Kolambugan town’s Holy Cross Parish and vicar general of the Diocese of Iligan.
De Lara described Galenzoga as a man who loved peace and who worked for unity among different cultures and religions in this part of Mindanao.
Love for theater arts
After retiring from church duties at age 70, Galenzoga served as consultor and member of the presbyterial council of the Iligan Diocese.
Mayor Lorenzo Mañigos of Kolambugan town remembered the early 1970s when Fr. Dong—as Galenzoga had been known to friends and parishioners alike—organized the Kolambugan theater arts guild and held a series of stage plays whose casts were young Muslim and Christians from Kolambugan town.
“They went from one place to another, including [the provincial capital town of] Tubod, his hometown. He staged a total of 135 plays around the country in mid of 1970s,” the mayor said.
Born on April 13, 1945, in the province’s capital town of Tubod, he was ordained priest on Dec. 23, 1969, at the town’s San Isidro Labrador parish, the first homegrown priest in the province.
Labunog, husband of the priest’s sister, said the body of Fr. Dong would be brought to the interfaith chapel of Dapit Alim, where Iligan Bishop Jose Ramirez Rapadas III would preside the funeral Mass at 3 p.m. on Friday, before he would be laid to his final resting place.
