Aquinos attend nine-day Masses

MANILA, Philippines - The children of the late President Corazon Aquino yesterday went to various churches in Metro Manila to attend the nine-day Masses offered for their mother.

Mrs. Aquino’s daughters Ballsy Aquino-Cruz and Viel Aquino-Dee and grandchildren Jonty and Gia attended the Mass at the Edsa Shrine yesterday morning.

“There is no place that can accommodate all the mourners so we decided to go to them,” Aquino-Cruz told reporters.

Her siblings attended other Masses in the metropolis.

The eldest daughter of Mrs. Aquino also thanked the public for continuously offering Masses for their mother.

Meanwhile, Aquino-Cruz said Fr. Catalino Arevalo, a close friend of Mrs. Aquino, planned to hold a private Mass at the Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque City yesterday but was told that there were still many sympathizers who visit the tomb of the former president every day.

“We will just visit her any time next week,” Aquino-Cruz said.

In his homily, Fr. Nilo Mangusad, Edsa Shrine rector, said the late president used the power of prayer to accomplish her goal, saying all her decisions during her term were done with prayers.

“With all her sacrifices for the nation there was prayer. And at the moment of her death, there was prayer. This is the real prayer power… this is the foundation of EDSA people power,” he said.

Meanwhile, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines- Episcopal Commission on Canon Law (CBCP-ECCL) Chairman Bishop Leonardo Medroso said the road to sainthood for Mrs. Aquino would be a tough one.

In an interview over Church-run Radio Veritas, Medroso explained that one of the most significant criteria in the canonization of an individual is whether he or she has performed a miracle during his or her lifetime.

Earlier, Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz said people proposing the sainthood of Mrs. Aquino should wait for one to three years before pushing it.

Cruz, a former CBCP president, said this was a reasonable wait before an application for Mrs. Aquino’s sainthood could be filed with the Vatican.

Vatican holds the sole power to declare an individual as a saint, Medroso stressed.

Calls for the canonization of Mrs. Aquino began even prior to the burial of the former president, with her supporters even declaring her as a patron of democracy.

Canonization is the act by which a particular Christian church declares a deceased person to be a saint and is included in the canon, or list, of recognized saints.

The process of canonization occurs at the conclusion of a long process requiring extensive proof that the person proposed for canonization lived and died in such an exemplary and holy way that he or she is worthy to be recognized as a saint.

The first Filipino to be named a saint was Lorenzo Ruiz, venerated in the Roman Catholic Church after he was martyred during the persecution of Japanese Christians under the Tokugawa Shogunate in the 17th century.

Ruiz was beatified by the late Pope John Paul II in Manila on Feb. 18, 1981 and was canonized on Oct. 18, 1987 at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Mrs. Aquino died last Aug. 1 after more than a year of battling colon cancer. — Helen Flores