By Malou Guanzon Apalisok

A Cebuano priest took on his biggest research assignment  tracking down evidence about Pedro Calungsod, a near-forgotten teenager in the 17th century.

Here is the backstory of how  Msgr.  Ildebrando Leyson encountered Pedro and pursued a  trail which was described by an earlier clergy investigator as  “a lost cause.”

Leyson is rector of the  San Pedro Calungsod Shrine  in Cebu City and vice postulator of the cause for Calungsod’s canonization. His book “Pedro Calongsor Bisaya: Prospects of a Teenage Filipino” is the most comprehensive writing to date about the life and martyrdom of the Philippine's second saint.

 In 1990, Ildebrando Leyson, still in his 20s, was taking up a doctorate in theology in Rome.  His ordination to the priesthood was to happen three years later. 

 A year after his ordination, a Filipina nun in Rome who just arrived from the Philippines gave him a stampita (prayer card) with a drawing of Pedro Calungsod by national artist Eduardo Castrillo.

 She was surprised that the Cebuano priest was clueless about who the boy was and the developments in the Cebu Archdiocese where the process leading to the beatification of Pedro Calungsod had started to take place.

 “Uy, wa diay ka mahibawo?  Naa unya moy bag-ong santo” (Didn’t you know? Very soon you will have a new saint).

 Leyson wasn't excited by the  thought of a new saint on top of numerous ones in the Catholic canon.

 “After that conversation, I lost track of where I placed the stampita,” he said.

 Towards Christmas in 1996, Leyson received a call from the secretary of then Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, Fr. Dennis Villarojo.  Leyson was winding up his stay in Rome and was about to finish his studies in a couple of months.

 Villarojo told him not to pack up yet because Cardinal Vidal would be calling him for an important task in Rome.

 Pressed for details, Villarojo told Leyson that Cardinal Vidal had been granted authority to open an investigation into the life and virtues of Pedro Calungsod, a young Visayan catechist who was martyred in Guam in  1672 along with a Jesuit missionary, Fr. Diego de San Vitores. 

 Cardinal Vidal first got to know about the “indio Bisayo” in 1985 through the late Archbishop Flores of Guam, who shared with him a small book that mentioned the boy's death in the documentaiton of Fr. De San Vitores who was beatified that year.

 With some relucatance, Leyson accepted his  new role as Vice Postulator of the Cause for the Beatification of Pedro Calungsod, a job that meant  he would have to initiate all inquiries in places outside of Rome. 

 The Cebuano priest was dismayed by the prospect of a lengthy and tedious process associated with the scrupulous ways of  the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, an office in the Roman Curia which oversees the complex process that leads to the canonization of saints.

 Leyson was looking  forward to rejoining his family in Cebu City after seven years of studying in Rome with no home visit in between.

 He also felt uneasy about the assignment. He  was young and inexperienced unlike other vice postulators who were mostly canon lawyers and well-connected in the Vatican.

 The following day, Cardinal Vidal called Leyson to give him  marching orders, undeterred by his doubts.

 The young priest voiced his reservations but Vidal was firm:  “Well, go to the Vatican and ask them if they will believe you.”

Before embarking on the assignment, Leyson called up Villarojo once again to plead that he be allowed to come home to say his first misa cantada.  Cardinal Vidal gave permission, but Leyson was not to stay long in Cebu because the matter of Pedro’s beatification was a high priority.

 Armed with authority from Cardinal Vidal, Leyson went to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints shortly before Christmas in 1996.  Sure enough, the first question Congregation officials asked Leyson was “What course did you finish?”

 Leyson told Vatican officials that he had to successfully defend his thesis in a month’s time (January 1997) before getting his doctorate in Theology. To his surprise, Congregation officials were very encouraging.

“Well, you can do this, because the process involves research, writing and defense.  It’s like working on your thesis,” he was told.

Leyson said the words of Vatican officials boosted his confidence  because thesis work was still fresh in his mind. Since Leyson was about to earn his doctorate, the Vatican office also exempted him from a  6-month orientation of the process leading to canonization.  

“It would have been different if I was a layman,” according to Leyson. 

In February 1997, Leyson came home to say his first Misa Cantada at the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral.  The mass had all the trimmings that a newly ordained priest could ask for.  Aside from the presence of Cardinal Vidal, there was Msgr.  Rudy Villanueva, renowned composer of litrugical music, who composed the Canon of the Mass. 

After the reception, Leyson walked Cardinal Vidal to his car. Just before  closing the car door, Vidal asked him: “When do you fly back to Rome?”

LIKE A JIGSAW PUZZLE

After settling back in Rome in April 1997, Leyson said he gathered all available literature and read it. One of the first things he found out from the archives of the Jesuits in Rome was that Pedro’s surname was recorded as “Calongsor”.

 This was most likely due to the Spanish  authors' difficulty in pronouncing the nasal “ng” and hard “d” of the Visayan language, thereby ending up with   pronunciation they were more familiar with.

The Calungsods hail mostly from the Visayas.  The Calungsods in Ginatilan town, Naga, Hinundayan in Leyte and Molo in  Iloilo claim to be related to the young saint.  

“We don’t claim to be historians.  But language could evolve or change,” Leyson said.

Data sourced from Vatican documents, mostly from the archives of the Jesuit Congregation, was incomplete.  The documents provided some details but the whole thing looked like a jigsaw puzzle.

“When I tried to piece together the story, I became very interested about Pedro Calungsod,” said Leyson.

Questions needed to be answered by painstaking research:

Who was Pedro Calungsod?  Was he really a martyr?  Why was he killed? What was the motive behind his killing?

If the intention was due to his failure to pay back money owed, then the motive was ill will.

On the part of Calungsod, did he offer his life for the faith?  Or was he forced to do it?  Was he mistaken for somebody else?

Archives mention  that one of the natives in the Ladrones islands named Matapang was angry  at the Jesuit mission because they tried to convert the Chamorros which eroded the influence of Matapang and his cohorts over the indigenous tribe. 

Matapang was said to have trashed to the ground the cross that the mission, led by Jesuit priest Diego de San Vitores carried with them.

In the same documents, Matapang was invited to attend the catechesis conducted by Fr. San Vitores.  The tribesman became mad and said that he was fed up with the presence of the missionaries in the island.

At the moment Calungsod was killed, he had the chance to escape but he did not want to leave the priest. He tried to avoid the spears, but eventually he was killed. 

 According to Leyson, this part of Calungsod’s story disturbed him because it raised the question whether the youth was really willing to give up his life for the faith.

 He consulted the Vatican office and was told that “Pedro’s biggest mistake was not fleeing.  He should have run and saved his life.” 

 Leyson recalled how the process was “very tedious and required a high degree of meticulousness.”

 “For example, when you do the footnotes and index, you have to read the materials again and again to ascertain the highlights.”

 “Kuti kaayo” (It was taxing), but surprisingly, there was little hassle.  I worked alone and stayed in the Colegio Filippino during summer,”  he said referring to the residence of Filipino priests studying in Rome.

“Way samok.  I stayed in my room and no one could disturb me.”

LAPSES

 Monsignor Leyson found out there had been lapses in the process before he took over as vice-postulator.

A Jesuit priest who worked for the beatification of Fr. Diego de San Vitores shared with the Archdiocese of Cebu documentation related to the Jesuit priest. Cardinal Vidal presented it to Pope John Paul II, who asked him to bring it to the Congregation of the Faith.  The documentation was supposedly in support of the Archdiocese’s efforts to have Pedro Calungsod beatified but the Vatican office did not accept it.   

“The Archdiocese would have to undertake the documentation (not the Jesuit order).  In effect, I was back to square one when I began research about Pedro,” said Leyson.

Before Leyson came in, Cardinal Vidal had  commissioned a Jesuit, a doctor of canon law and moral theology in Rome. According to Leyson, the canon lawyer gave up because he became tired and frustrated by the bureaucracy in the Vatican.

He also complained about the lack of documents on Calungsod and pointed out that the Cebu Archdiocese “cannot even produce a baptismal certificate”.

“This is a lost cause,” said the canon lawyer.

That’s when Cardinal Vidal tasked Leyson to become the vice postulator.

“So I started all over again.  When I presented myself to the Congregation as being sent by Cardinal Vidal to work on the process of beatification, an official called out (with some amusement) to other members of the office and announced, “Hey, there’s somebody here who will work for the Calungsod beatification.' The rest of the officials rushed out to see me.  One said, “Calungsod, again?”

 
PILGRIMAGE TO TOMHOM

In January 1999, Leyson made plans to visit Guam, the site of Calungsod's martyrdom. Cardinal Vidal would go with him so the Bishop of Guam had to be informed because the trip was an official, high level visit.

The Cebu Archdiocese asked Jesuit priest Jose “Joe” Quilongquilong to arrange the welcome preparations and itinerary in Guam.  Fr. Quilongquilong, a Cebuano, was more than happy to take care of it.

Leyson described the presence of Cardinal Vidal in Guam as “a blessing because instead of me going through records in the archives of the University of Guam, the university laid out everything and presented the data to us when we arrived there.”

According to Leyson, he didn’t find any significant data about Calungsod in the University of Guam because most of the original documents had been sent to Rome but he was able to gather pictures that he used in the documentation.

“When I went to Guam, I had with me a very old map drawn by the group who went with Fr. Diego to the island.  I gave the map as drawn by the Jesuit missionaries to a professor in the University of Guam and we compared it to the present day map.  The place is no longer the same as before, but we were able to trace the place where Calungsod and San Vitores was killed.  Our travel to the place of Calungsod’s martyrdom was like a pilgrimage, with me narrating the events, and Cardinal Vidal saying prayers in between.”

Tomhom Bay was a a typical tropical beach area full of trees, vegetation  –  and  snakes.

“I didn’t tell Cardinal Vidal that the place abounds in snakes. I felt uneasy, so I asked the professor if this reputation was true.  At the beach, he sternly told me to keep quiet:  'Do you not notice that even the birds are quiet?' I didn’t know what that meant at the time.”

The site of martyrdom of Fr. San Vitores and Calungsod was pinpointed.

After the missionary and his assistant  were killed n 1672, their bodies were thrown into the sea.  But their blood spilled on the ground, so the natives burned the ground because they believed that the blood of the missionaries could start an epidemic. 

Jesuit missionaries who went to Tomhom after the killing, had a big cross planted in the ground and built a chapel. Today a shrine stands in honor of the martyrdom of Blessed Diego de San Vitores.  The Bishop of Guam has assigned Filipinos living in Guam to tend to the shrine.  They go there every Saturday.

PROPHETIC WORDS

In October 1997, Leyson was in a huddle in Rome with a group of veteran postulators who looked at him with amusement.

“They told me that the process for beatification, let alone sainthood, takes a very long time.  Some postulators even die without seeing their candidates beatified.”

Leyson replied that it was just as well that Calungsod wouldn't be beatified yet because the façade of  St. Peter’s Basilica was still covered with scaffoldings.  The basilica was being spruced up in preparation for the 2000 Jubilee year.   

 Leyson’s remark was meant as a joke, but it proved prophetic because Pedro Calungsod was among the first to use the façade in March 5, 2000, as one of 44 martyrs beatified by Pope John Paul II.

 Asked if the Visayan saint had manifested himself  during the course of his research, Leyson answers, “Definitely” but don't expect a dramatic revelation about apparitions.

 He credits Calungsod for the almost obstacle-free and swift course of the project.

  “Calungsod gives you an opportunity to do something which you think you cannot do, but yet you are able to do it, not because of your own capacity, or perhaps you do have that capacity and discover something more.  Calungsod is there to assure, 'I will help you, anyhow.'”

  “I sensed his presence during the entire process,” Leyson said.

 “He was there constantly.   Wa gyud ko pul-i. Dili man unta ko ganahan, but I discovered things that got me interested.  Sometimes, you don’t get what you need right away, i-agi pa gyud ka niyag thrilling-thrilling.”

 Leyson said he took the research assignment about the teenage martyr out of obedience to Cardinal Vidal.  Leyson had no  particular devotion to Pedro Calungsod at the start.

FAMILY TRAGEDY

 Tragedy surfaced in the middle of the work.

 In July 1999,  Leyson  made a surprise visit to Cebu to see his  mother who was to celebrate her birthday.

 He arrived late at night, with little time to converse with his elderly parents. At daybreak, his mother complained that she wasn’t feeling well and asked her son to bless her. Leyson instead took her to the hospital for a checkup.  She died of leukemia two weeks later. 

 In September 1999,  Leyson returned to Rome to continue with his work.

 “Before my mother died, everything went rather slowly, but after she passed away, things went very fast,” he said.

 In Oct. 5, 1999,  Vatican historians gathered to discuss the merits of Calungsod.  There was only one round of discussion.  They accepted the documents submitted by Leyson, calling them authentic proof that Calungsod died a martyr.

 In December, Leyson was pressed by the Vatican to edit the documents in time for another gathering of theologians   on Jan. 4, 2000, the start of the Jubilee celebration.  By then, Leyson was already thinking that the beatification could happen in 2001.

 Events unfolded faster than he thought. The Congregation for the Causes of Saints gathered in Jan. 11, 2000.  The cardinals unanimously voted that Calungsod died a martyr.  In Jan. 27, Leyson was told to attend a meeting with Pope John Paul II. There he was told that all documentation about the young Visayan had been examined and affirmed that  indeed Calungsod was a martyr for the faith.

 It usually takes six months to prepare for a beatification, so Leyson eyed a June 2001 date at the earliest or October 2001 at the latest.

 “I was surprised when they told me that the date was March 5, 2000.”

 Cardinal Vidal, who was in Manila, was in near tears when Leyson called him with the urgent news that they had about a month to prepare for the beatification.

 “It went like a marathon, at the pace of a youth,” Leyson later wrote in his book about the nearly six-year process for the the cause of beatification.    About 70,000 gathered at St. Peter's Square for the beatification rites, where the hymn “Way Sukod”, a song written in 1983 by Msgr. Rudy Villanueva, was sung as Pedro's portrait was unfurled in St. Peter's Square.

 Twelve years later on Oct. 21, 2012, Calungsod was entered in the canon of saints, the only youngster and Asian alongside six European and American beatos. He had by then run ahead of his batchmates, 43 other servants of God who were beatified with him in March 5, 2000.

 Filipinos were the biggest contingent in St. Peter's Square, cheering “Viva San Pedro!”

 Who would have known that an “indio Bisayo” of the 17th century would surface in archives as a role model for youthful  commitment and daring, so urgently needed today?

 The boy in a hurry to inspire souls continues to reach out across time in a continuing journey that began, at one point, as a  young priest's reluctant assignment that found its complete  mission “in the fullness of time.”