Pope in Cebu City?

CEBU, Philippines - Officials of the Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño  are  preparing for the  possibility of Pope Francis dropping by Cebu en route  to  Palo, Leyte, where he will dine with survivors of the earthquake and super typhoon Yolanda come January.

Apart from the usual arrangements by the exe-cutive committee for the huge Catholic celebration in 2015, a contingency plan is in the works considering the spontaneous nature of the Pope who is known to sometimes defy protocol and official itinerary to personally meet with devotees and ordinary folks.

“If the Lord wills that he visits Cebu, the cradle of Christianity, then the Pope cannot do anything about it. He has to follow the will of God. He is the kind of Pope who will take into consideration the welfare of those who need his prayers and presence,” Fr. Harold Rentoria told The FREEMAN.

 Rentoria is chairman of both the Commission on Cultural Heritage of the Augustinian Fathers and the Commission on Cultural Heritage of the National Cultural Commission for the Arts.

He assured that local Catholic authorities are ready for the Pope possibly joining the Fiesta Senyor and Kaplag Festival acti-vities in 2015.

“We are prepared just in case the Pope decides to drop by Cebu. We’ll be notified days prior by the Va-tican or the CBCP (Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines) anyway since the visit is national if this pushes through. We have plans to check on the possible areas to receive the Pope,” Rentoria said.

Possible areas considered to accommodate the Pope include the South Road Properties and the Basilica complex, among others.

Authorities are likewise preparing special security and traffic management plans should this possibility come true.

Basilica rector Fr. Jonas Mejares revealed that two letters were sent to the Vatican inviting the Pope.

The first communication was sent last year for the Kaplag 2015 celebration activities, which include the 450th commemoration of the finding of the miraculous image of the Holy Child at the present Basilica location, the 450th year of Augustinian presence in the Philippines, as well as the 50th year since the church housing the original image of the Sto. Niño from the first evangelizers was declared a Basilica Minore.

The most recent one, sent just this September, invited the Pope anew for the Sinulog 2015 celebration following official announcement of the Papal visit from Sri Lanka in the same year.

“There has to be a Plan B so that we will be prepared should the Pope decide to include Cebu in his visit. As far as initial itinerary is concerned, Cebu is not in the list. But we remain hopeful that he will realize that Cebu is an important place as far as Christianization is concerned, being the cradle of Christianity in the Philippines,” Mejares said.

The rector added that he has been meeting with the Sinulog Foundation Inc. led by Ricky Ballesteros, the Cebu City government and the Philippine National Police for this possibility.

Should a stopover at the Mactan Cebu International Airport be done, Rentoria said they will consider the possibility of bringing the original image of the Sto. Niño to the airport for the Pope to bless.

The last time that a pope visited Cebu City was in 1981 when Saint John Paul II —then Pope John Paul II— came to the Philippines to beatify San Lorenzo Ruiz, the first Filipino saint.

On February 19, 1981, a day after the beatification, he celebrated a Mass attended by thousands at the then Lahug airport, where the business process outsourcing hub Cebu IT Park now stands.

He also led some 7 million Catholics in a Mass at the closing of the World Youth Day in January 1995 held in Manila.

However, his first visit to the Philippines was actually in 1976, two years before he became the pope, he was then carrying his original name Kraków Archbishop Karol Cardinal Wojtyla.

Saint John Paul II served as pontiff from 1978 until his death in 2005.  —/BRP (FREEMAN)