Vatican congregation probes Blessed Pedro ‘healing’

THE Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints is now probing if a healing attributed to the intercession of teenage Visayan martyr Pedro Calungsod is “supernatural.”

Msgr. Ildebrando Leyson, vice postulator of the cause of Blessed Pedro Calungsod, said the event under study happened last 2003 in a Cebu hospital.

A female patient who underwent open-heart surgery suffered cardiac arrest and was declared brain dead.

Leyson said she suffered Glasgow Coma 3 or a deep coma where a person is almost dead.

Leyson said the doctor assured the patient that the operation would be successful and “invoked Blessed Pedro Calungsod.

“The patient recovered after a few days, though she admittedly did not know who Pedro Calungsod is.”

The ongoing probe is the first investigation towards the canonization of Calungsod, he said.

He said this is a big development since the Vatican would not investigate a phenomena unless it has “validity.”

“Many submitted cases but until now, there’s only one which is closely followed by Vatican,” Leyson told Cebu Daily News.

“They saw that there’s a big possibility but it can’t be declared a miracle yet.”

Vatican officials would check if the healing was “supernatural.”

Leyson said verifying the miracle would be a long process conducted by medical doctors, theologians, cardinals and finally the pope.

“Only the pope can declare that it’s a miracle,” Leyson said.

Blessed Pedro Calungsod was declared the first Visayan martyr in 2000. His birthplace could not be traced, since his birth record was lost. He is only known through the documents of Fr. Diego Luis de San Vitores, the Spanish priest he accompanied in Marianas.

The two were executed by natives for being Christians and for spreading the Catholic faith on April 2, 1672, in the village of Tomhom on the island of Guam.