Saint Pedro Calungsod
Second Newly Canonized Filipino Saint
(Young migrant, student, catechist,
Missionary, faithful friend, carpenter,
martyr,)
Canonization – October 21, 2012
Feast Day – April 02
Saint Pedro Calungsod (c. 1654 –
April 2, 1672) was a young Roman Catholic Filipino sacristan and missionary
catechist, who along with Spanish Jesuit missionary Blessed Diego Luis de San
Vitores, suffered religious persecution and martyrdom on Guam for their
missionary work in 1672. Calungsod was beatified on March 5, 2000 by Blessed
Pope John Paul II. On February 18, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI officially announced
at Saint Peter’s Basilica that Calungsod will be canonised on October 21, 2012.
Very little is known about Pedro
Calungsod. Historical records never mentioned his exact place of origin or who
his parents were. He was merely identified as a teenage native of the Visayas
in the Philippines. Historical research identifies Ginatilan in Cebu,
Hinunangan and Hinundayan in Southern Leyte, and Molo district in Iloilo as
probable places of origin. Loboc in Bohol also makes a claim.
Moreover, no one even really knows how
Calungsod looked like. Calungsod is often depicted as a young man wearing a
camisa de chino. He holds the martyr’s palm, indicating his death, or sometimes
a crucifix, catechism book or rosary, representing his missionary work.
Few details of his early life prior to
missionary work and death are known. It is probable that he came to one of the
schools run by Jesuits, where he learned Catechism and Spanish language.
Nevertheless, we can be certain of
Calungsod’s ecclesiastical provenance since the entire Visayas region was under
the old Diocese (now Archdiocese) of the Most Holy Name (Cebu).
MISSIONARY WORK
Pedro was just one of the boy
catechists who went with San Vitores from the Philippines to the Ladrones
Islands in the western North Pacific Ocean in 1668 to evangelize the Chamorros,
according to www.pedrocalungsod.org.
In that century, the Jesuits in the Philippines used to train and employ young
boys as competent catechists and versatile assistants in their missions. The
Ladrones at that time was part of the old Diocese of Cebu.
Calungsod, then around 14, was among
the young exemplary catechists chosen to accompany the Jesuits in their mission
to the Ladrones Islands (Islas de los Ladrones or “Islands of Thieves”). Around
1667, these were later named Marianas (Las Islas de Mariana) in honor of Queen
Maria Ana of Austria who supported the mission.
Life in the Ladrones was hard. The
provisions for the Mission did not arrive regularly; the jungles were too thick
to cross; the cliffs were very stiff to climb, and the islands were frequently
visited by devastating typhoons. Despite the hardships, the missionaries
persevered, and the Mission was blessed with many conversions. The first
mission residence and church were built in the town of Hagåtña in the island of
Guam.
MARTYRDOM
According to Jesuit Martyrs in Micronesia
written by Francis X. Hezel, SJ, the Jesuit mission in the Mariana Islands was
the first in Oceania; it soon also proved to be one of the bloodiest. On 15
June 1668, San Vitores and a band of five other Jesuits arrived on Guam, the
southernmost and largest island in a cordillera of fifteen volcanic islands.
With the missionaries came a garrison of thirty soldiers, many of them
colonials from the Philippines, whose responsibility was to protect the
missionaries and to pacify the local people if need should arise.
At this time, Spanish missionaries
were actively converting Chamorros to Roman Catholicism. This relationship was
peaceful at the beginning with the Spaniards, who were led San Vitores. The
initial reception of the missionaries by the Chamorro people was enthusiastic
and reassuring. However, that changed over time when Chamorros grew resentful
of the way their language and other customs were being replaced. Chamorro
deaths had also increased due to foreign-borne illnesses. (www.guampdn.com)
Very soon, a Chinese quack, named
Choco, envious of the prestige that the missionaries were gaining among the
Chamorros, started to spread the talk that the baptismal water of the
missionaries was poisonous, www.pedrocalungsod.org
explained. And since some sickly Chamorro infants who were baptized died, many
believed the calumniator and eventually apostatized. The evil campaign of Choco
was readily supported by the Macanjas who were superstitious local herbal
medicine men, and by the Urritaos, the young native men who were given into
some immoral practices. These, along with the apostates, began to persecute the
missionaries, many of whom were killed.
The most unforgettable assault
happened on April 2, 1672, Saturday just before the Passion Sunday of that
year. At around seven o’clock in the morning, Pedro – by then already about
seventeen years old, as can be gleaned from the written testimonies of his
companion missionaries – and San Vitores came to the village of Tomhom [Tumhon;
Tumon], in Guam. There, they were told that a baby girl was recently born in
the village; so they went to ask the child’s father, named Matapang, to bring
out the infant for baptism. Matapang was a Christian and a friend of the
missionaries, but having apostatized, he angrily refused to have his baby
christened.
Meanwhile, despite the growing
distrust and animosity between Chamorros and the Spanish, San Vitores and
Calungsod visited Matapang’s home and baptized Matapang’s daughter. It is
unclear whether San Vitores came unannounced or if he had been invited into the
home by Matapang’s wife.
To give Matapang some time to cool
down, Padre Diego and Pedro gathered the children and some adults of the
village at the nearby shore and started chanting with them the truths of the
Catholic Faith. They invited Matapang to join them, but the apostate shouted
back that he was angry with God and was already fed up with the Christian
teachings.
Determined to kill the missionaries,
Matapang went away and tried to enlist in his cause another villager, named
Hirao, who was not a Christian. At first, Hirao refused, mindful of the
kindness of the missionaries towards the natives; but, when Matapang branded
him a coward, he got piqued and so he consented.
When Matapang learned of the baptism,
he became even more furious. He violently hurled spears first at Pedro. The lad
skirted the darting spears with remarkable dexterity. Witnesses said that Pedro
had all the chances to escape because he was very agile, but he did not want to
leave Padre Diego alone. Those who personally knew Pedro believed that he would
have defeated his fierce aggressors and would have freed both himself and Padre
Diego if only he had some weapon because he was a valiant boy; but Padre Diego
never allowed his companions to carry arms. Finally, Pedro got hit by a spear
at the chest and he fell to the ground. Hirao immediately charged towards him
and finished him off with a blow of a cutlass on the head. Padre Diego could not
do anything except to raise a crucifix and give Pedro the final sacramental
absolution. After that, the assassins also killed Padre Diego.
Matapang took the crucifix of Padre
Diego and pounded it with a stone while blaspheming God. Then, both assassins
denuded the bodies of Pedro and Padre Diego, dragged them to the edge of the
shore, tied large stones to their feet, brought them on a proa to sea and threw
them into the deep. Those remains of the martyrs were never to be found again.
The companion missionaries of Pedro
remembered him to be a boy with a very good disposition, a virtuous catechist,
a faithful assistant, a good Catholic whose perseverance in the Faith even to
the point of martyrdom proved him to be a good soldier of Christ. (www.pedrocalungsod.org)
BEATIFICATION
A year after the martyrdom of San
Vitores and Calungsod, a process for beatification was initiated but only for
San Vitores. Political and religious turmoil, however, delayed and eventually
killed the process. In 1981, when Agaña was preparing for its 20th anniversary
as a diocese, the 1673 beatification cause of Padre Diego Luís de San Vitores
was rediscovered in the old manuscripts and taken up anew until Padre Diego was
finally beatified on October 6, 1985. It was his beatification that brought the
memory of Pedro to our day.
Beatification is the act by which the
Church, through papal decree, permits a specified diocese, region, nation, or
religious institute to honor with public cult under the title “Blessed” a
Christian person who has died with a reputation for holiness.
In 1994, then Cebu Archbishop Ricardo
Cardinal Vidal asked permission from the Vatican to initiate a cause for
beatification and canonization of Pedro Calungsod. In March 1997, the Sacred
Congregation for the Causes of Saints approved the Acta of the Diocesan Process
for the Beatification of Pedro Calungsod. That same year, Cardinal Vidal
appointed Fr. Ildebrando Jesus A. Leyson as vice-postulator for the cause and
was tasked with the compilation of a Positio Super Martyrio to be scrutinized
by the Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome. The positio, which
relied heavily on the documentation of San Vitores’s beatification, was completed
in 1999.
Blessed John Paul II, wanting to
include young Asian laypersons in his first beatification for the Jubilee Year
2000, paid particular attention to the cause of Calungsod. In January 2000, he
approved the decree super martyrio (concerning the martyrdom) of Calungsod,
setting his beatification on March 5, 2000 at Saint Peter’s Square in Rome. (www.wikipedia.com)
SAINTHOOD
On December 19, 2011, the Holy See
officially approved the miracle qualifying Calungsod for sainthood by the Roman
Catholic Church. The recognised miracle dates from 2002, when a Leyte woman who
was pronounced clinically dead by accredited physicians two hours after a heart
attack was revived when a doctor prayed for Calungsod’s intercession.
Cardinal Angelo Amato presided over
the declaration ceremony on behalf of the Congregation for the Causes of
Saints. He later revealed that Pope Benedict XVI approved and signed the
official promulgation decrees recognising the miracles as authentic and worthy
of belief. The College of Cardinals were then sent a dossier on the new saints,
and they were asked to indicate their approval. On 18 February 2012, after the
Consistory for the Creation of Cardinals, Cardinal Amato formally petitioned
Pope Benedict XVI to announce the canonization of the new saints. The Pope set
the date for 21 October 2012 (World Mission Sunday).
After Saint Lorenzo Ruiz, Calungsod
will be the second Filipino declared a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. The
Roman Catholic calendar of Martyrology celebrates Calungsod’s feast along with
Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores every 2 April.
Sources for this article were taken from: www.wikipedia.com
Prayer
My Lord, In Your grace,
You have shown through Your servant,
Beato Pedro Calungsod,the sublime prize of following You;
Through his
martyrdom, You have shown us that age and
race will not hinder us from serving and loving You;
His youthful
fervor in defending the faith earned him
the title to be called Blessed; Thus in
confidence,
I humbly call unto him to pray with me, and to intercede for
this urgent favor (make a request)
and that through his glorious life, I may try
to emulate him, together with Mother Mary, who
have without reserve said yes to Your will.
Amen.
You have shown through Your servant,
Beato Pedro Calungsod,the sublime prize of following You;
race will not hinder us from serving and loving You;
the title to be called Blessed; Thus in confidence,
I humbly call unto him to pray with me, and to intercede for
this urgent favor (make a request)
to emulate him, together with Mother Mary, who
have without reserve said yes to Your will.
