POPE LEO XIV composite image from Inquirer, AFP file photos, Fray Ricky Villar, and Seminario San Agustin
MANILA, Philippines—Yes, Robert Francis Prevost, who is now Pope Leo XIV, has already been in the Philippines, but his connection to Filipinos is even deeper than just his visits to a land once evangelized with the Catholic faith.
Born in Chicago, Illinois on Sept. 14, 1955, Prevost entered the novitiate of the Order of Saint Augustine (OSA) in 1977 and professed his solemn vows in 1981 before becoming a priest of the Order, which is credited as the “first apostles” of the Catholic faith in the Philippines.
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This, as the Augustinians, led by Fray Andres de Urdaneta, were the first missionaries to arrive in the Philippines with Miguel López de Legazpi in 1565, impelled by the Order’s spirit of becoming foundation stones of the church.
As stated by the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño de Cebu, Urdaneta was with five other Augustinian friars, and had established presence in Cebu, but they soon expanded their “apostolic activities” to other districts and islands and a little later, to almost all principal regions.
From six missionaries, the Augustinians in the Philippines grew to 130 and established 44 monasteries, which even increased to 50 religious houses with 155 priests and 13 lay brothers in the first 25 years of the 17th century.
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The OSA, as of 2023, has 183 solemn professed friars, who are serving the two Augustinian provinces in the country—the Province of Santo Niño de Cebu and the Province of the Most Holy Name of Jesus.
GRAPHIC: Ed Lustan/INQUIRER.net
As the Order’s prior general from 2001 to 2013, Prevost had been with these almost 200 Filipino Augustinian missionaries, overseeing their governance, leading their missions, and making certain that they all adhere to the Rule of St. Augustine.
Robert Francis Prevost, OSA, now Pope Leo XIV, with Fray Ricky Villar, curator of the San Agustin Museum, who served as the Master of Ceremony for the Mass celebrated by the then prior general of Order at the San Agustin Church in 2010. PHOTO COURTESY OF FRAY RICKY VILLAR AND SEMINARIO SAN AGUSTIN
It was stated in an Augustinian website that the identity of the Order can be highlighted as “The Search for God Together”—“a Community through which we share our faith and life […] and out of which is mutually generated our wholehearted service to society, the Church and world.”
Based on data from the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño de Cebu, by the end of the Spanish regime, 2,368 Augustinians had come to the Philippines and had founded 385 towns and ministered to over two million souls.
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Looking back, as the Augustinians arrived in 1565, the kaplag, or the “providential finding” of the image of the Santo Niño de Cebu took place, decades after the death of Ferdinand Magellan, who reached the Philippines in 1521.
From that year on, the Augustinians, who were with Legazpi, brought the devotion to the Santo Niño to other parts of the Philippines such as Manila and Iloilo, where the second and third oldest images of the child Jesus can still be seen.
The Basilica Minore del Santo Niño de Cebu, which is still facilitated by the Augustinians, has always been the sanctuary of the miraculous image since its discovery in a shack, spared by fire.
As pointed out by the late Pope Francis in 2015, the image of the Santo Niño, which is taken care of by the Order, accompanied the spread of the Gospel in the Philippines from the beginning.
The website of the Augustinians of the Philippines stressed that the existence of the two Augustinian provinces “signifies a broader and greater commitment” to fulfill the Order’s mandate of proclaiming the Word of God to the people of the Philippines and the world.
After over 400 years since the arrival of the first Augustinian missionaries,the Filipino Province, Augustinian Province of Santo Niño de Cebu, was canonically established in 1983 to continue the Augustinian spirit of service to the Catholic Church in the Philippines.
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The Province of the Most Holy Name of Jesus was established in 2019, and is based in the San Agustin Church in Intramuros, Manila, which is the oldest church in the Philippines, constructed by the Augustinians and completed in 1607.
The church, which has several distinct architectural characteristics and where Miguel Lopez de Legazpi has been laid to rest, is an inscribed World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization./TSB