Pedro Calungsod

A Chinese man named Choco, a criminal from Manila who was exiled in Guam, began spreading rumors that the baptismal water used by missionaries was poisonous. As some sickly Chamorro infants who were baptized eventually died, many believed the story and held the missionaries responsible. Choco was readily supported by the macanjas (medicine men) and the urritaos (young males) who despised the missionaries.

In their search for a runaway companion named Esteban, Calungsod and San Vitores came to the village of Tumon, Guam, on April 2, 1672. There they learnt that the wife of the village's chief Mata'pang had given birth to a daughter, and they immediately went to baptize the child. Influenced by the calumnies of Choco, Chief Mata'pang strongly opposed;[12] to give him some time to calm down, the missionaries gathered the children and some adults of the village at the nearby shore and started chanting with them the tenets of the Catholic faith. They invited Mata'pang to join them, but he shouted back that he was angry with God and was fed up with Christian teachings.

Determined to kill the missionaries, Mata'pang went away and tried to enlist another villager, a pagan named Hirao. The latter initially refused, mindful of the missionaries' kindness towards the natives, but became piqued and eventually capitulated when Mata'pang branded him a coward. While Mata'pang was away from his house, San Vitores and Calungsod baptized the baby girl, with the consent of her Christian mother.

When Mata'pang learnt of his daughter's baptism, he became even more furious. He violently hurled spears first at Calungsod, who was able to dodge them. Witnesses claim that Calungsod could have escaped the attack, but did not desert San Vitores. Those who knew personally Calungsod considered his martial abilities and that he could have defeated the aggressors with weapons; San Vitores had however banned his companions from bearing arms. Calungsod was struck with a spear in the chest and fell to the ground; Hirao immediately charged towards him and finished him off with machete blow to the head. San Vitores quickly absolved Calungsod before he too was killed.

Mata'pang took San Vitores's crucifix and pounded it with a stone whilst blaspheming God. Both assassins then undressed the corpses of both Calungsod and San Vitores, tied large stones to the feet, and after loading these on their proas, dumped the bodies out in Tumon Bay.[11]

The Catholic Church considers Calungsod's martyrdom to have been committed In Odium Fidei ('In Hatred of the Faith').[13][14]

A month 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 halted the process for centuries. In 1981, as Hagåtña was preparing for its 20th anniversary as a diocese, the 1673 beatification cause of San Vitores was rediscovered in old manuscripts and revived until he was finally beatified on October 6, 1985. This also gave recognition to Calungsod, paving the way for his own beatification.[15]

In 1980, then-Archbishop of Cebu Ricardo Cardinal Vidal asked permission from the Vatican to initiate Calungsod's beatification and canonization cause. In March 1997, the Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints approved the acta of the diocesan beatification process. That same year, Cardinal Vidal appointed Fr Ildebrando Leyson as vice-postulator for the cause, tasked with compiling a Positio Super Martyrio ("position regarding the martyrdom") to be scrutinized by the Congregation. The positio, which relied heavily on the documentation of San Vitores's beatification, was completed in 1999.[16]

Wanting to include young Asian laypersons in his first beatification for the Great Jubilee in 2000, Pope John Paul II paid particular attention to the cause of Calungsod. In January 2000, he approved the decree super martyrio ("concerning the martyrdom") of Calungsod, scheduling his beatification for March 5 of that year at Saint Peter's Square in Rome.

Regarding Calungsod's charitable works and virtuous deeds, John Paul II declared:[17]

...From his childhood, Pedro Calungsod declared himself unwaveringly for Christ and responded generously to his call. Young people today can draw encouragement and strength from the example of Pedro, whose love of Jesus inspired him to devote his teenage years to teaching the faith as a lay catechist. Leaving family and friends behind, Pedro willingly accepted the challenge put to him by Fr. Diego de San Vitores to join him on the Mission to the Chamorros. In a spirit of faith, marked by strong Eucharistic and Marian devotion, Pedro undertook the demanding work asked of him and bravely faced the many obstacles and difficulties he met. In the face of imminent danger, Pedro would not forsake Fr. Diego, but as a "good soldier of Christ" preferred to die at the missionary's side.

A 2012 stamp of the Philippines dedicated to the canonization of Pedro Calungsod

On December 19, 2011, the Holy See officially approved the miracle qualifying Calungsod for sainthood by the Roman Catholic Church.[18] The recognized miracle dates from March 26, 2003, when a woman from Leyte, pronounced clinically dead two hours after a heart attack, was revived when an attending physician invoked Calungsod's intercession.[19][20][21]

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 had 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 February 18, 2012, after the Consistory for the Creation of Cardinals, Cardinal Amato formally petitioned the pope to announce the canonization of the new saints.[22] On October 21, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI canonised Calungsod in Saint Peter's Square.[23] The pope wore papal vestments used only on special occasions. Cardinal Ricardo Jamin Vidal, the Archbishop Emeritus of Cebu, concelebrated at the canonization Mass.

Various areas in the Visayan islands make the claim that Pedro Calungsod was born and raised there. An extensive research provided by the census research of Ginatilan, Cebu provided a longstanding record of Calonsor and Calungsod natives from their area, from which a strong claim had the most Calungsod natives originating since Filipino-Spanish era since the late 1700s. According to the Parish Pastoral Council William Pancho of Ginatilan, Cebu, there is a strong claim that in the mid-1600s, there were three Calungsod brothers:

• Valerio Calungsod who migrated to Iloilo
• Casimiro Calungsod who migrated to Bohol
• Pablo Calungsod who remained in Ginatilan, Cebu, and was the father of Pedro Calungsod.

In a public televised interview with ABS-CBN chief correspondent and newscaster Korina Sanchez, Cardinal Ricardo Jamin Vidal emphasized his dismay that when the original beatification of Pedro Calungsod began in the 1980s, no province except for Ginatilan, Cebu, wanted to make a claim on his place of birth. Consequently, when the canonization was approved, Catholic bishops from the provinces of Cebu, Bohol, Leyte, Samar, and Iloilo and various Mindanao provinces wanted to claim Calungsod's official birthplace.

As a result, Cardinal Vidal ruled that he will not establish a definitive judgment on his birthplace, since Spanish records only indicate the words "Pedro Calonsor, El Visayo" as his native description. Furthermore, he stated that all Visayan provinces were under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Cebu during the Filipino-Spanish era.

Calungsod is often portrayed holding a Catechism book, notably the "Doctrina Christiana". Only known surviving copy by Fray Juan de Plasencia. Library of Congress, Washington D.C. Circa 1590s.

It is not known what Calungsod looked like, as no contemporary depictions survive. The writer Alcina, who was a contemporary of Pedro Calungsod, described the male Visayan indios of his time as usually more corpulent, better built and somewhat taller than the Tagalogs in Luzon; that their skin was light brown in color; that their faces were usually round and of fine proportions; that their noses were flat; that their eyes and hair were black; that they – especially the youth – wore their hair a little bit long; and that they already started to wear camisas (shirts) and calzones (knee-breeches). Pedro Chirino, S.J., who also worked in the Visayas in the 1590s, similarly described the Visayans as well-built, of pleasing countenance and light-skinned.[26]

Calungsod is often depicted as a teenaged young man wearing a camisa de chino that is sometimes bloodied, and usually dark, loose trousers. His most popular attributes are the martyr's palm pressed to his chest and the Doctrina Christiana. To indicate his missionary status, he is depicted in mid-stride, occasionally also bearing a rosary or crucifix. In some early statues Calungsod is shown with a spear and catana (cutlass), the instruments of his death.

• Arevalo, Catalino. Pedro Calungsod, Young Visayan Proto-Martyr, Archdiocese of Manila Youth Ministry 1998, New edition from the Daughters of St. Paul, Manila 2000
• Leyson, Ildebrando Jesus. Pedro Calonsor Bisaya, Prospects of a Teenage Filipino, Cebu City, Claretian Publications 1999.
• Leyson, Ildebrando Jesus A. Pedro Calonsor Bissaya: Prospects of a Teenage Filipino. Second Edition. Cebu: Basic Graphics, 2000. ISBN 971-501-834-3
• Putzu, Fr. Salvatorre, "Pedro Calungsod, Young Catechist & Martyr", Second Edition, Manila, Word & Life Publications, Inc., 2012
• Bersales, Jose Eleazar Reynes, "San Pedro Calungsod: The Canonization Album", University Of San Carlos Press, Cebu, 2012
• Agualada, Jr., Salvador G., "Pedro Calungsod: Patron for the Filipino Youth", Claretian Publications, Inc., Manila, 2012
• Orbeta, Ruben, "The Liturgical Cult of San Pedro Calungsod: a Filipino Response to the Universal Call to Holiness", STL University Of America, New York, 2019

• List of Filipino Saints, Blesseds, and Servants of God
• Roman Catholicism in Guam

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pedro Calungsod.

• Pedro Calungsod Official website
• The Archdiocese of Cebu
• Website by the Postulatio Causae Beatificationis seu Canonizationis Beati Petri Calungsod