1st Filipiniana altar for Pinoy saints unveiled in Rome

GUAGUA -- Willy Layug, Presidential Merit Awardee for Ecclesiastical Art, led the installation and unveiling of the first Filipiniana altar in Rome, Italy in time for the canonization of Pedro Calungsod on Sunday.

The altar is dedicated to St. Calungsod and St. Lorenzo Ruiz and is now available for viewing at the prestigious Pontificio Collegio Filippino.

Pontificio Collegio Filippino is the college of Filipino diocesan priests studying at pontifical universities in Rome. It was formally established as an institution with pontifical rights by Pope Blessed John XXIII on June 29, 1961 through the Papal Bull Sancta Mater Ecclesia. 

Layug's altar celebrates the life of the two martyred saints. Layug has donated the altar as part of his commitment to bring part of Kapampangan religiosity to Rome in the form of ecclesiastical art. 

He said Betis craftsmanship in ecclesiastical art will be in the same stage with classical masters whose works adorn major churches and shrines in Roman Catholic churches a few blocks away.

The altar was made by Layug with his team of eight highly skilled sculptors from his workshop at Batis District of this town.

The 10 feet altar shows St. Lorenzo Ruiz being tortured, hanging upside down a pit, while another panel shows St. Calungsod hacked by natives of Guam. The altar also features angels in Filipiniana attire.

Layug said the altar is a fitting honor to St. Pedro Calungsod, who was canonized Sunday to sainthood by Pope Benedict XVI. 

St. Pedro Calungsod was a young Roman Catholic Filipino sacristan and missionary catechist, who along with Spanish Jesuit missionary Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores, suffered religious persecution and martyrdom on Guam for their missionary work in 1672. He was beatified on March 5, 2000 by Blessed Pope John Paul II.