A day for thanksgiving

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor CHERYL CRUZ Desk Editor PATRICK PANGILINAN Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

The canonization of two former popes of the Roman Catholic Church was an event that was celebrated and hailed by members of the Church all over the world, but probably on a more personal note by the Filipino people.

Among the reasons for this is that one of them, Pope, and now Saint John Paul II was the pope who had visited the Philippines twice during his papacy. Reports during his late years had even said that he had wanted to come to the country once more, but had been strongly advised against it by his physicians. At the time he had already been showing signs of Parkinsons' Disease, the debilitating ailment that was to eventually take his life.

For the people of Bacolod, he was the pope, the only one, who had visited our city, where he spoke out against the inequalities that were driving a wedge between the haves and the have-nots that was also pushing the latter into revolting against the state.

Filipinos also realize what great changes and reforms Saint John, or Pope John XXIII had wrought on the Church during his papacy. Although initially perceived as too old for an intensively modernizing society, he became instrumental in formulating major changes and was perceived to be largely instrumental in the changes that later took place in communist countries during his time.

Their canonization also brought the “communion of saints” closer to the Catholic world, because only this generation had the privilege of having seen and lived at the same time with two men who became saints in their own lifetime. They therefore feel that they have two more intercessors, closer to them.

We therefore thank God for enabling us to have this privilege and for inspiring the present one, Pope Francis, to work for its realization.*