San Vidal, the patron saint Cebu City forgot

SAN VIDAL AND HIS FAMILY. The image of San Vidal can be found in a retablo on the Gospel side of the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral. San Vidal is at the center of the retablo along with his martyr wife, Saint Valeria on top and their children Saints Gervasius on his right and Protasius on his left, Behind San Vidal’s statue is a bas relief depicting his martyrdom, which was exposed when the image was taken out and placed near the altar for the fiesta.

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City marked last April 28 the feast day of St. Vitalis of Milan or San Vidal, its patron saint. But there was little fanfare outside the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral, where a mass was presided over by Cebu Auxiliary Bishop Midyphil Billones.

A few blocks away, a bigger crowd at the Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño joined the 458th commemoration of the Kaplag or the discovery of the image of the Sto. Niño.

That contrast is a reversal of how it was when Cebu was under Spanish rule. Back then, San Vidal was widely celebrated with festive civic and religious parades, according to historian Dr. Michael Cullinane in his paper “In the Shadow of the Santo Niño: San Vidal’s Sojourn in Cebu City, 1565–2018.” Cullinane said the feast of San Vidal was celebrated with days of cockfights, horse races, masses, and processions.

St. Vidal’s link to Cebu

San Vidal’s link to Cebu is by accident of date. Spanish conquistador Miguel Lopez de Legazpi took possession of Cebu for Spain on April 28, 1565, and, as was their custom, placed it under the patronage of a saint commemorated on that day – the martyr San Vidal.

Until the Vatican designated a feast day for the Sto. Niño in 1721, Cebuanos venerated Him every April 28, the feast day of San Vidal. Jesuit Fr. Pedro Chirino wrote that in around 1600, Cebu venerated the Sto. Niño on the “day of the glorious martyr San Vidal . . . which that city has as its patron,” Cullinane wrote in his paper.

“Most Cebuanos today are unaware that (San Vidal) was and is the patron of Cebu City and a titular saint of the cathedral, a reality that indicates that ‘a popular devotion to the saint did not develop,’” Cullinane quoted National Artist and historian Dr. Resil Mojares.

Several priests in Cebu, including a bishop, all said in separate interviews that San Vidal is the patron saint only of the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral. Fr. Marion Mejia said that while San Vidal was made patron of Villa San Miguel, the settlement founded by Legazpi, its territory has shrunk to what is now the Cathedral parish.

A Facebook post by the official page of the Archdiocese of Cebu describing St. Vitalis as “also considered the patron of the City of Cebu” is the only recent acknowledgment of that fact by the local Church.

Several historians and historical documents, however, describe San Vidal as the patron saint of Cebu City.

Breve Reseña de lo qu fue y de lo que es la Diocesis de Cebu en las Islas Filipinas, the much-cited account of the church in the region published in 1886 by Felipe Redondo, described the cathedral as having the Guardian Angels as titular patron, with the “glorious martyr” San Vidal as patron saint of the city.

Bishop Juan Lopez, the fourth bishop of Cebu, told the Spanish king in 1665 that the church had a wooden statue of “the patron of the city, San Vidal,” Cullinane said, The statue, however, was already moth-eaten.

Cullinane summarizes the complicated situation in his paper published in 2019. He wrote that in 1598, Bishop Agurto, the first bishop of Cebu, “administered a diocese named after the Santo Niño, a parish dedicated to San Vidal, and a church dedicated to the Holy Guardian Angels, with all these sacred personas located in a city dedicated to San Vidal as its patron, but generally referred to as the Ciudad del Santísimo Nombre de Jesús.”

Devotion to San Vidal waned after the Spaniards were driven away from the country. The saint was so closely identified with the colonial government that his banner was destroyed by revolutionaries.

The image of San Vidal is decked with flowers and displayed near the altar of the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral for His feast day last April 28.

Buried alive

But who was San Vidal?

He was said to be a wealthy citizen of Milan in the early years of Christianity when its followers were persecuted in the Roman Empire. San Vidal reportedly encouraged a wavering St. Ursicinus to be steadfast and not renounce his faith in the face of death. After St. Ursicinus was beheaded, San Vidal gave him a Christian burial. The action betrayed San Vidal as a follower of Christ and he was ordered tortured on the rack and buried alive.

The references to giving Christian burial and being buried alive is the reason why San Vidal’s statue at the Cathedral holds a shovel.

San Vidal, whose status as patron has always depended on the advocates in the diocese, now counts at least one top church official as being behind his cause – Auxiliary Bishop Ruben Labajo. He played a key role in the move to revive his devotion, organizing the Cofradia de San Vitalis.

Labajo said in an interview that the late Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal was reluctant to promote a devotion to the saint fearing people might misconstrue the move because of the similarities in their names

As part of his devotion, Labajo visited Basilica di San Vitale in Ravenna, reportedly built on the site of San Vidal’s martyrdom. They only talk about the architecture there, Labajo said, and not the life of St. Vitalis.

To honor the life and martyrdom of San Vidal, the Cofradia took as its apostolate the visiting of wakes of parishioners, especially the poor and those who were killed in the bloody drug war under President Duterte, Labajo said. The Cofradia also published comics on the life of San Vidal.

But the devotion to San Vidal is small and the Cofradia counts as its members only about 30 mostly older parishioners.

Marcelina Pugoy, who has been selling religious images near the cathedral since the 1970s, said images of the Sto. Niño are very popular and she couldn’t even estimate how many she has sold. In the thousands, she said.

She was surprised when asked about San Vidal. You’re the only one who asked about Vitalis, she said during a visit to her store. Pugoy said that in all her years of selling religious images, she has only sold one statue of San Vidal – to then Monsignor Labajo when he was still assigned at the cathedral.

Pugoy sells religious images across the Chancery of the Archdiocese of Cebu, which is located in a building named, at Labajo’s suggestion, after St. Vitalis.   /rcg

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