GUAGUA, Pampanga – President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is expected to join thousands of her fellow Kapampangans in commemorating the 100th birth anniversary of Rufino Cardinal Santos on August 26 in this town where he was born.
Malacanang has confirmed the President’s participation in the celebration, which “honors the legacy” of the first Filipino cardinal who was a native of Barangay Sto. Nino here.
Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales will celebrate the Mass at the Immaculate Conception parish church in downtown, a few meters from the ancestral house of Santos. His concelebrants are various bishops from Central Luzon, led by San Fernando Archbishop Paciano Aniceto.
The celebration was initiated by the Holy Angel University Center for Kapampangan Studies, in cooperation with the Archdiocese of San Fernando and the municipality of Guagua.
The President, assisted by Holy Angel University president Dr. Arlyn Sicangco-Villanueva, will unveil a six-foot statue of Cardinal Santos and a marker donated by Holy Angel University. The statue was sculpted by Kapampangan artist Edillardo Paras.
An exhibit of Cardinal Santos memorabilia, loaned by the Archdiocese of Manila and the Kapampangan Museum at Clark, will follow the unveiling ceremonies.
Cardinal Santos became Archbishop of Manila in 1953 and was made a cardinal by Pope John XXIII in 1960.
Pampanga historian Robbie Tantingco said Santos is credited for having defended the Church against modernism and radicalism in the 1950s and 1960s, and for establishing the Catholic Charities, now known as Caritas Manila, the Radio Veritas, the Guadalupe Minor Seminary, a hospital that was later named after him, and many other organizations aimed at helping the poor and promoting Catholic spirituality.
During World War II, he was arrested and sentenced to die by firing squad, but was rescued by Liberation forces on the very eve of his execution, Tantingco noted.
“He supervised the implementation of the Second Vatican Council reforms in the Philippines and the first papal visit on Philippine soil,” he also said.
The cardinal died in 1973 at age 65.
