St. Pedro Calungsod (1654-1672) – Canonization

Welcome to INSPIRING LIVES IN THE YEAR OF FAITH, a series on the lives of Inspiring People and Witnesses of faith in the Catholic Church from around the world. These holy people lived their ordinary lives in extraordinary ways. Each of them responded to God's invitation to use his or her unique gifts. They are examples of great holiness and virtue, and they invite us to follow their paths to holiness. Their unique stories inspire us to be rooted in our faith. God calls each one of us today to inspire our brothers and sisters and to witness to our faith.
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Pope Benedict XVI canonized 7 persons on 21^st October 2012 in a special ceremony at St. Peter’s square in the Vatican. These new saints of the church came from various walks of life – lay women, catechist, religious, priests and nuns. In the coming weeks we shall listen to their inspiring lives and witnessing to faith. They help us to look at our lives from God’s perspective especially when we are celebrating the Year of Faith.
During the last week we listened to the inspiring and heroic life of Saint Pedro Calungsod, a lay Catholic from Cebu, Philippines, who accompanied Jesuit missionaries as a catechist to the Pacific Island Territory of Guam. He was martyred there in 1672 while trying to defend his fellow mission worker, Jesuit priest and now Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores. Calungsod was just 17 years of age when he witnessed to his faith by shedding his blood.
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Pedro Calungsod was born in 1654. By the age of 14, he was among the exemplary young catechists chosen to accompany the Jesuits in their mission to the Ladrones Islands. In 1668, Calungsod travelled with Spanish Jesuit missionaries to these islands, renamed the Mariana Islands the year before. Calungsod and Jesuit Father San Vitores went to the Pacific Island Territory of Guam to catechize the natives. There they suffered and died martyr’s death in 1672.
Witnesses claim that Calungsod could have escaped the attack, but did not want to leave Father San Vitores alone. Those who knew Calungsod personally believed that he could have defeated the aggressors with weapons. Father San Vitores however, had banned his companions to carry arms. After they were killed, the assassins then took the dead bodies of Calungsod and San Vitroes, tied large stones to their feet, and threw them into the sea. The immediate reason for their martyrdom was the baptism of an infant, the child of a village Chief Matapang. She was baptized with the consent of her Catholic mother, but her father was opposed to it.
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A year after the martyrdom of Father San Vitores and Pedro Calungsod, a process for beatification was initiated but only for San Vitores. Political and religious turmoil, however, delayed and halted the process. When Hagåtña was preparing for its 20^th anniversary as a diocese in 1981, the beatification cause of Padre Diego Luís de San Vitores, started in 1673, was rediscovered in old manuscripts and the cause was revived until San Vitores was beatified on 6^th October 1985. This gave recognition to Calungsod, paving the way for his own beatification.
Blessed Pope 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, and beatified him on 5^th March 2000 at Saint Peter's Square in Rome.
During the beatification ceremony, Pope John Paul II commented: “Young friends, do not hesitate to follow the example of Pedro, who "pleased God and was loved by him" and who, having come to perfection in so short a time, lived a full life.”
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On 19 December 2011, the Holy See officially approved the miracle qualifying Calungsod for sainthood by the Roman Catholic Church. The recognized miracle dated back to 2002, when a woman from the Leyte island, who was pronounced clinically dead two hours after a heart attack by accredited physicians, was revived when a doctor prayed for Calungsod's intercession.
Later Pope Benedict XVI approved and signed the official promulgation decrees recognizing the miracles as authentic and worthy of belief. And the Pope canonized Calungsod on World Mission Sunday, 21 October 2012, 340 years after his death. During his homily on occasion, Pope Benedict XVI said:
Pedro Calungsod was born around the year sixteen fifty-four, in the Visayas region of the Philippines. His love for Christ inspired him to train as a catechist with the Jesuit missionaries there. In sixteen sixty-eight, along with other young catechists, he accompanied Father Diego Luís de San Vitores to the Marianas Islands in order to evangelize the Chamorro people. Life there was hard and the missionaries also faced persecution arising from envy and slander. Pedro, however, displayed deep faith and charity and continued to catechize his many converts, giving witness to Christ by a life of purity and dedication to the Gospel. Uppermost was his desire to win souls for Christ, and this made him resolute in accepting martyrdom. He died on the second of April, sixteen seventy-two. Witnesses record that Pedro could have fled for safety but chose to stay at Father Diego’s side. The priest was able to give Pedro absolution before he himself was killed. 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!
Pope concluded his homily saying:
Dear brothers and sisters, these new saints, different in origin, language, nationality and social condition, are united among themselves and with the whole People of God in the mystery of salvation of Christ the Redeemer. With them, we too, together with the Synod Fathers from all parts of the world, proclaim to the Lord in the words of the psalm that he “is our help and our shield” and we invoke him saying, “may your love be upon us, O Lord, as we place all our hope in you” (Ps 32:20.22). May the witness of these new saints, and their lives generously spent for love of Christ, speak today to the whole Church, and may their intercession strengthen and sustain her in her mission to proclaim the Gospel to the whole world. May Calungsod inspire us all in this year of faith to witness what we believe in.By P.J. Joseph SJ