Palma flooded by 3,000 visa requests for Rome
Suddenly, Pedro Calungsod has too many relatives in Cebu
In Cebu, everybody, it seems, is a relative of soon-to-be saint Blessed Pedro Calungsod.
This was the light-hearted observation of Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma, who said he has signed over 3,000 letters of endorsement for visa applications to the Italian embassy ahead of Calungsod’s canonization on Oct. 21.
Palma, who is also president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, told the media in Manila last week that the Italian embassy in Manila even sent him a letter reminding him that he’s been signing too many supporting documents.
“In fact, I must have signed 3,000 applicants for a visa that the Italian Embassy wrote to me about it. They said: Archbishop you are signing too many endorsements. I said to them it’s my duty to sign it’s your duty to screen,” Palma said.
The prelate said the number of those who want to be witness to Calungsod’s canonization in St. Peter’s Square reflects the fervor of Filipino faith.
He also observed in jest that sainthood draws a lot of people claiming to be Calungsod’s descendants.
“Over in Cebu we usually say sainthood is relative. If you become a saint you discover that you have many relatives,” he said.
Palma said an 85-year-old man from Cebu would not let his frailty stop him from witnessing his ancestor’s canonization.
“An old man who is 85 said ‘I have to go to Rome’, but his children said he is too weak,” Palma said. “He said ‘No, he is my relative I should go.’ His children were forced to accompany him,” said the Cebu prelate.
Palma was referring to Jaime Calungsod of Ginatilan town, an Army reservist whom Cebu Daily News featured in its front page last Aug. 29.
The retiree, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1986, attributes his good health to not just medicine but constant prayers to the young Pedro Calungsod, whose intercession he sought even before the teenage martyur was beatified in 2000.
“I kept on praying. Blessed Pedro is from Cebu. I’m related to him,” said Jaime when CDN visited him in his modest bungalow in Poblacion, Ginatilan last week.
He and son Gilbert said that during a to the United States for a checkup, he was pronounced cured.
According to Fr. Ildebrando Leyson, rector of the Calungsod archdicosean shrine in Cebu City who did extensive research to support the cause for Calungsod in the lengthy Vatican process, the exact hometown of the teenage mission helper.
Calungsod, who was killed in Guam in the 17th century, cannot be traced by a baptism certificate or the few old Spanish documents in archives other than references to him as an “indio Bisaya”.
Today the surname “Calungsod “can be found in different parts of the Visayas, in Mindanao, in Luzon said Fr. Leyson in his book “Pedro Calungsor Bisaya: Prospects of a Teenage Filipino”.
“However the ‘Calungsod’ families are densely found in the Visayas towns of Ginatilan in Cebu, Hinundayan and Hinunangan in southern Leyte, and in Molo district of Iloilo City in Panay.”
The boy’s name was spelled “Calungsor” in the earliest documents, probably due to difficulty of Spanish writers pronouncing the name, said Leyson.
Proving to be a relative of Calungsod, a teenage Catholic martyr who is poised to become the second Filipino saint after San Lorenzo Ruiz, would be difficult.
There were also very few details on his early life and there were no illustration of his likeness.
According to Church data, Calungsod was born in 1654 in the Diocese of Cebu, which then encompassed the islands of Panay and Mindanao, as well as the Pacific island of Guam. At age 14, Calungsod and some Jesuit priests went to Guam as missionaries.
Three years later, at age 17, Calungsod and Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores, were killed by angry natives. The Catholiic Church in the Philippines has held Calungsod as patron of altar boys, Filipino catechists, migrant workers, and the youth.
Pope Benedict XVI will declare Calungsod a saint on Oct. 21, 2012 at the Vatican.
If they could not go to the Vatican, Palma urged the faithful to join the national celebration in Cebu City in the South Road Properties.
“If you could come, please be with us in Rome, but if because of your very important work you could not be in Rome, please be with us in Cebu on November 30, for the Thanksgiving Mass,” he said. INQUIRER with Reporter Ador Vincent Mayol
