Thursday, January 15, 2004
Basilica closed for 9 hours
By Charmaine Y. Rodriguez
FOR the first time, the historic Basilica del Sto. Niño was closed for nine hours starting last night, and will be opened to the public after a “re-consecration” mass at 5 a.m. today.
Fr. Ambrosio Galindez, prior of the Augustinian community at the basilica, said they did it to comply with church laws as per advice of Fr. Melchor Mirador, a Canon lawyer.
Desecration
According to Canon 1211, worship should not be held in sacred places “desecrated” by acts contrary to the sacred character of the place until the harm is repaired by means of the penitential rite prescribed in liturgical books.
Since Sunday, all masses were held at the Pilgrim Center while Augustinian fathers sought the opinion of Mirador, Galindez said.
Stay-in worker Michael Capacite was shot dead inside the church last Sunday dawn by security guard Ricardo Talisic who claimed he saw Capacite tampering with the donation box.
Capacite, who has been working in the basilica for over a year, concealed his identity by covering his face with a shirt.
Re-consecration
Msgr. Cris Garcia, head of the archdiocesan commission on worship, said the re-consecration of the basilica will be in April yet as they have to prepare for it.
Today’s activity will be done so that the church will be available for use since the feast of the Sto. Niño, Cebu’s patron, will be on Sunday already.
A basilica, he explained, is under the pope’s authority so they had to inform him regarding the re-consecration, and it has to be done by Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal himself.
“What will happen today will only be cleansing. (A church) will lose its consecration if human blood has been shed, whether namatay or wa,” Garcia told Sun.Star.
The 6 a.m., 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. masses inside the basilica will resume only after the special mass that will be said by Bishop Isabelo Abarquez at 5 a.m.
Msgr. Esteban Binghay, episcopal vicar, said this could be the first for the centuries-old basilica and could be the second time in Cebu in years.
A parish was once re-consecrated after an armed person committed suicide inside it, Binghay recalled.
Violence
Garcia also said that a church in San Francisco, Camotes Island was also re-consecrated after a political violence occurred there.
The ritual, which is scheduled in April, will include the anointing of walls, lighting of candles, burning of incense and the Eucharist, he said.
Binghay, for his part, said today’s ceremony will be “simple” and will include a prayer for “cleansing.”
“We invoke to the Lord to clean the House of God, which is a house of prayer, faith, love and peace since it was desecrated. We have to make it a proper place for visiting. (We’d also ask that) May the soul of the person who died would rest in peace,” he added.
(January 15, 2004 issue)
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