Pope proclaims Pedro a saint

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI canonized the second Filipino saint yesterday, giving one of the church’s top honors to the 17th century teen martyr Pedro Calungsod before throngs of Filipinos in St. Peter’s Square.

Cheers went up in the crowd of about 80,000 when Benedict declared Calungsod a saint and worthy of veneration by the entire Catholic Church.

Benedict named six other saints yesterday, some of them missionaries like the devout boy from Cebu province.

Many Filipino faithful are particularly devoted to Calungsod, who as a teenager went with some Spanish Jesuit missionaries to Guam in 1668 to convert the Chamorros people. He was killed when the natives resisted.

“May the example and courageous witness of Pedro Calungsod inspire the dear people of the Philippines to announce the kingdom bravely and to win souls for God,” Benedict said in his homily.

Rome’s Filipino expat community came out in droves for the canonization, including Marianna Dieza, a 39-year-old housekeeper who said it was a day of pride for all Filipinos.

“We feel very happy and proud,” Dieza said. “We are especially proud because he is so young.”

Vice-President Jejomar Binay arrived in the Italian capital last week to head the government delegation for the Mass, saying the canonization was particularly important to the Philippines, Asia’s largest predominantly Roman Catholic country.

Thousands of Filipinos at home celebrated Calungsod’s sainthood with masses, processions, stage plays, religious shows and the launching of postal stamps bearing his image and a map of his journey as a young Catholic missionary to the Pacific islands, where he was killed while spreading his faith.

“We join the Catholic world on this day of solemn commemoration and celebration,” said President Aquino, who declared Sunday a “national day of celebration.” 

Binay led a big congregation to the rites in the Vatican.

“The canonization of Saint Pedro Calungsod is a major and historic event for the Catholic Church and our predominantly Catholic nation,” Binay said in a statement from Rome. “The event fills us with pride as Catholics, yet it calls on us to exercise humility and reflect on the supreme sacrifice made by Saint Calungsod in defense of his faith.”

“We are proud to be Filipinos,” said one of about 5,000 Filipino pilgrims who were accompanying the Philippines’ Roman Catholic Church leaders to the ceremony.

The Coro de San Jacinto, a choir composed of students from Tuguegarao City and led by Fr. Rannie Aquino, dean of San Beda College of Law and vice president for academic affairs of Cagayan State University, performed during the pre-canonization activities and Masses for Blessed Calungsod since Oct. 18.

A delegation from the diocese of Ilagan in Isabela composed of Msgr. Marino Gatan, Fr. Paco Albano, Fr. John Bartolome, and Fr. Roseller Martinez and several provincial government workers were also present during the canonization.

Celebrations across the Philippines were centered in Manila and in Cebu’s town of Ginatilan, where Calungsod is believed to have been from. Large screens were installed in church compounds to allow Filipinos to watch Calungsod’s canonization.

Calungsod’s portraits were displayed in churches and many bought and carried his statues.

Local television networks ran documentaries about Calungsod’s life and sainthood, and newspapers ran stories of his canonization, portraying him as a model for young Filipinos.

Details of Calungsod’s life are scarce, but according to legend, when he and the mission superior, the Rev. Diego Luis de San Vitores, tried to baptize a baby in 1672, the child’s father angrily refused and, with the help of other natives, began throwing spears at them.

They were both killed and their bodies thrown into the ocean.

Other new saints

Also canonized was the first Native American, Kateri Tekakwitha, informally known as “Lily of the Mohawks,” who has been a symbol of hope for American Indians for centuries.

Under a bright autumn sun, the pope delivered a homily praising all seven new saints, saying they “lived their lives in total consecration to God and in generous service to their brothers.”

Thousands of people, including Filipinos and American Indians, gathered on the square outside St. Peter’s Basilica, which was decked with portraits of those being canonized.

The other new saints include a French missionary to Madagascar, a German migrant to the United States who took care of lepers, and a Spanish nun who campaigned for women’s rights.

Vatican watchers said the choice of the saints was linked to the Roman Catholic Church’s efforts to highlight the need for a “new evangelization” as church pews stand empty in Europe and the United States.

The canonizations come during a synod of 262 bishops from around the world.

Tekakwitha, who was born in 1656 to an Algonquin mother and a Mohawk father, was converted by Jesuit missionaries as a child. After surviving smallpox and being orphaned, she earned a following for her deep spiritualism before dying at the age of 24.

Another well-known figure from North America who was canonized is German-born Franciscan nun Maria Anna Cope, who was born in 1838 and became known as “Mother Marianne of Molokai” because she looked after lepers on the island of Molokai in the Hawaii archipelago.

A French Jesuit, Jacques Berthieu, who was executed in 1896 in Madagascar by rebels from the Menalamba movement, was also canonized.

The missionary refused to renounce his faith and is being considered the first saint of Madagascar, where he lived for 21 years.

A German laywoman, Maria Schaeffer, who was from the Pope’s German home state of Bavaria, was also rewarded.

Schaeffer, who died in 1925, was badly burnt after falling into boiling water and spent the rest of her life bedridden.

She was credited for spreading the word of God in local villages.

An Italian priest, Giovanni Battista Piamarta, who devoted his life to helping young people during the industrial revolution and founded a religious congregation in the late 19th century, was also among those canonized.

The seventh new saint, Spanish nun Maria del Carmen, also founded a congregation and worked to better the lot of poor women in the 19th century, defending their social rights and helping their children’s education.

The new canonizations bring to 44 the number of saints named by Pope Benedict XVI since the start of his pontificate in 2005.

Catholic saints have to have two miracles to their names, which have to be certified by the Vatican in a years-long procedure.  – AP, Charlie Lagasca