San Pedro Calungsod church in Cebu City may be next national shrine

CEBU may soon have a third  national shrine.

Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma yesterday announced that the process is underway for the Archdiocesan Shrine of San Pedro Calungsod in Cebu City to be elevated  to the status of a national shrine.

The church located inside the Archbishop’s compound along D. Jakosalem Street was built after Calungsod was beatified in 2002.

Since then, it has become a  center of devotion to the Visayan martyr.

“I’m hoping this church will eventually become a national shrine,” Palma told  church goers during yesterday’s Mass celebrating the feast of San Pedro Calungsod.

The honor of a national shrine is given  by the national conference of Philippine bishops  in recognition of a  church’s special historical, cultural, and religious significance.

Cebu has two national shrines: St. Joseph Church in Mandaue City, and the Our Lady of the Rule church in Lapu-Lapu City.

The proces involves a number of steps and certifications, Palma said.

“It has to follow certain requirements like the number of devotees who visit the church. There has to be a natural growth to its own devotion, and there should be enough priests to administer the sacraments,” Palma told reporters.

The church dedicated to Calungsod is “relatively small” but “usually the space is not  a big factor.”

Msgr. Ildebrando Leyson is  the shrine’s rector.

People flocked to the church  yesterday to mark the martyr’s feast, his third since his 2012 canonization.

Palma presided over the 9:30 a.m. Mass. In the afternoon, Archbishop Emeritus of Cebu Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, who started the cause for the sainthood of Calungsod, celebrated the Mass which was followed by a procession.

In his homily, Palma urged the faithful to practice the Christian faith each day and to emulate the virtuous life of Calungsod.

“When confronted by death, only faith allows a martyr to offer his life to God. And so let us treasure and celebrate the faith. Let us transmit the faith, and bear witness to it,” he said.

Calungsod, along with Jesuit priest Fr. Diego de San Vitores, was killed by two angry natives in Guam who opposed the Catholic teachings on April 2, 1672.

Calungsod’s  feast  should have been celebrated on on April 2, but since  the day falls on Maundy Thursday this year,  an earlier date was chosen.

Palma said the Philippines, particularly the Visayas, was  blessed to have  an intercessor in heaven.

“Out of the 42 persons who were beatified on March 5, 2000, only  Pedro   Calungsod  advanced to be declared a saint. And of the seven saints who were canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on Oct. 21, 2012, only  Calungsod  has an image, in the form of a  mosaic , inside the St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome,” he said.

After Mass, devotees sang the hymn to  Calungsod  as they gathered to touch the glass case that contained the image of the Visayan martyr.

Calungsod  is the country’s second saint after San Lorenzo Ruiz de Manila.

Palma said Msgr. Leyson, the vice postulator of the cause for sainthood of  Calungsod  and the rector of St.  Pedro   Calungsod  Shrine, will soon publish a book that will show several testimonies of people who claimed to have received graces and healing from the Lord through the intercession of the Visayan martyr.