2nd place of honor for Pedro’s picture
There was an extra moment of pride for Filipinos in St. Peter’s Square yesterday.
The portrait of Pedro Calungsod hanging on a tapestry in front of St. Peter’s Basilica occupied the second highest place of honor among the seven candidates for sainthood, said Msgr. Ildebrando Leyson of the Cebu Archdiocese.
Pilgrims in Rome and viewers worldwide were introduced to the new saints through the full-color tapestries unfurled on the balcony.
Calungsod’s image hung third from the left facing the basilica.
His portrait was next to that of Jacques Berthieu, a Jesuit missionary in Madagascar who was martyred. The priest occupied the center balcony and most important spot.
The assigned areas correspond to a hierarchy, according to Leyson, vice-postulator and lead advocate of the canonization of Calungsod, in his book “Pedro Calongsor Bisaya”.
“Rank one takes the central balcony; rank two takes the inner left balcony (if one were to face the facade); rank three takes the inner right balcony;rank four takes the outer left balcony, and rank five takes the outer right balcony.”
The ranking follows guidelines of the Vatican that provide that “a group (for example a company of martyrs) takes precedence over a solo candidate; clerics take precedence over non-clerics, and reigious men and women take precedence over lay people.”
Calungsod, a teenage lay catechist, was second in rank to a martyred Jesuit priest. The third place of honor was ocupied by Italian priest Giovanni Battista Piamarta, founder of the congregation of the Holy Family of Nazareth.
In 2000, when Calungsod was beatified along with 43 “servants of God”, his portrait hung at the leftmost spot, being fourth in rank.
But Calungsod was raised to the altar as a saint 12 years later ahead of the others. CBCP News/ Eileen Mangubat
