MANILA, Philippines—The first shrine to John Paul II in the Catholic Philippines will be inaugurated next month to coincide with the late pope’s beatification, the organizer of the project said Friday.
The shrine will be in a small town about three hours’ drive from Manila where John Paul II said mass for thousands of Vietnam War refugees during a visit in 1981, Bataan Technology Park vice president Amado Sanglay told AFP.
Sanglay said the shrine, which was being built with the support of the local Catholic community, would feature a statue of John Paul II and a replica of the stage from where he celebrated mass.
“(We want) to venerate the Pope John Paul II for what he has done in the processing center,” Sanglay said, adding the shrine would be inaugurated on May 2, a day after John Paul II’s beatification in Rome.
Thousands of refugees from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia stayed at the United Nations-funded processing center after fleeing the conflict in their homelands.
The site has since been turned into the Bataan Technology Park, a local business hub that also has a museum recollecting the site’s refugee history.
Monsignor Pedro Quitorio, a senior member of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, said the shrine was the first of its kind in the Philippines.
“It’s an encouraging and inspiring initiative,” Quitorio told AFP.
John Paul II made two visits to the Philippines, a bastion of Catholicism in Asia, while pope. His second visit was in 1995 when the Philippines hosted the World Youth Day Catholic festival.
About 80 percent of people in the Philippines are Catholic, a legacy of the country’s Spanish colonial past.