Vatican starts studying Calungsod’s miracles

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints is now studying the “miracles” of Cebuano martyr Blessed Pedro Calungsod.

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

A female patient who suffered cardiac arrest and was declared brain dead after open-heart surgery survived, after her doctor invoked Blessed Pedro Calungsod to help the patient.

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

Blessed Pedro Calungsod was declared the first Visayan martyr in 2000.

Though he has yet to be canonized, people especially Cebuanos have started praying to Calungsod.

Mylah Pastor, 41, an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) who works in Bahrain, said she has been a devotee of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Immaculate Concepcion and Blessed Pedro Calungsod.

When her mother was diagnosed with cancer seven year’s ago, it strengthened her faith.

“It was one of the hardest trials we had to endure,” Pastor said.

She said she goes to church every Sunday and prays every night to ask the saint to give him a job in the country so she can be with her mother.

“Somehow, I feel a strong connection in praying to another Cebuano faithful,” Pastor said in Cebuano.

Jeanette Armie Umpad, 23, a teacher said Blessed Pedro Calungsod is declared a saint, it would be a source of great pride for Cebu, the largest archdiocese in the Philippines.

Though she is not a devout Catholic, Umpad admitted that the miracles of Calungsod should be recognized and acknowledged.