Catholic faithful in Cantabaco, Toledo hold feast for Blessed Pedro Calungsod

CEBU, Philippines - Today is the 12th and the last Beatification Anniversary of Blessed Pedro Calungsod before his scheduled Canonization on October 21 this year.

To celebrate the momentous event, Catholic faithful in Cantabaco, Toledo City where the first church dedicated to Calungsod was constructed, will hold a feast.

Shortly after the beatification of Blessed Pedro on March 5, 2000, Nonnie Mapeso and his wife Jo donated a one-hectare lot to the Archdiocese of Cebu. On that piece of land now stands the still unfinished Blessed Pedro Calungsod parish church.

Aside from donating the land, Nonnie, an architect, designed the church. With their own money and various contacts, the couple started the initial work on the church. The church is halfway done today.

The Blessed Pedro Calungsod parish church in Cantabaco is the very first church in the entire Philippines dedicated to Blessed Pedro.

This may be the last anniversary of the martyr’s beatification before the Canonization but this doesn’t mean, Msgr. Ildebrando Leyson said, that the beatification anniversary will no longer be celebrated.

“March 5 will always -- and should always – remain a very memorable day because it marked the end of the 328-long years of forgotten memory of the Visayan proto-martyr,” the priest said.

In 1672, 17-year-old Calungsod and Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores were caught and murdered by natives after baptizing an infant girl and mother who converted to Roman Catholicism.

He was beatified on March 5, 2000 by then Pope John Paul II along with Father San Vitores and 43 other individuals that the pope declared as Servants of God. – (FREEMAN)