In Angeles, 177 years of devotion to Dead Christ

ANGELES CITY—Everything about the book “Apung Mamacalulu” (The Santo Entierro of Angeles City) is about healing by a community whose devotion to the Dead Christ, on its 177th year, remains intense despite being marred by a feud that dragged until 2010.

For one, the book takes off from a well-deserved closure. San Fernando Archbishop Paciano Aniceto, on Aug. 15 last year, lifted the ban imposed by former Archbishop Oscar Cruz 25 years ago.

Aniceto’s act saw the resumption of Masses and other sacraments in a chapel in Barangay Lourdes Sur in Angeles, where a replica of the image is kept and displayed for veneration.

The ban was a result of past conflicts. Padre Macario Paras, who had the image made, gave it as gift to the Catholic Church. A feud ensued over the inheritance of the image within the family of his nephew after his death in 1876.

In 1928, the heirs took the original image and its “caro” (carriage) out of the “pisambang maragul” (Holy Rosary Church) on Holy Friday, transferring it to a barn-like structure on a property of Don Clemente Dayrit. A year before, Fr. Juan Almario asserted that the Union Angelina, whose founders included Dayrit, had no authority over funds intended for the Apung Mamacalulu.

By 1929, the Supreme Court, through a petition filed by the Archdiocese of Manila (which covered the Diocese of Pampanga then), ordered the heirs to return the image and the carriage to the church.

In the 1930 feast of the Apung Mamacalulu, two images surfaced and two processions were held. What the church held was the original that was turned over by one of the heirs in compliance with the court order.

In 1933, Manila Archbishop Miguel O’Doherty turned down the request of Dayrit to have Masses celebrated in the chapel for the latter was not a property of the church. Despite this, the faithful trooped to the chapel, making the replica more famous than the original. Around the place, a flea market sprouted every Friday, the day of Apung Mamacalulu.

Cruz issued the ban in 1985 when the Paras-Dayrit clan ignored efforts by the Catholic Church to settle the issue about the administration of the chapel and devotional activities performed there.

On the day of the lifting of the ban, descendants of the Dayrit family donated to the church one of the lots on which the chapel stands, helping protect it from demolition for the right-of-way of the NorthRail project. The parish’s fund-raising campaign enabled it to buy five lots or redeem these from banks. The chapel is proposed to become an archdiocesan shrine.