Caceres to Open New Parish

The Archdiocese of Caceres will have another parish on October 18, 2009 with the canonical erection of St. Peregrine of Laziosi with its seat at Sto. Domingo, Calabanga Camarines Sur. This will be the 79^th parish of the archdiocese. The parish will be composed of barangays Sto Domingo, San Bernardino, Pagao, Dominorog, Balatasan, Punta Tarawal, Balongay, Carigsa and San Lucas, all within the municipalities of Calabanga, Bombon and Magarao CS.

Fr. Joseph Collada Olin will be the first parish priest of this rural parish of the vicariate of Our Lady of La Porteria. He will be formally installed as parish priest by the Archbishop, Msgr. Leonardo Z. Legaspi. OP, DD. on Oct. 18 at 8:30am at the Union Elementary School within the Holy Mass.

The establishment of new parishes is a sign of growth of the local church and its effort to reach out to all the people in remote places of the archdiocese.  When the pastoral need arises, that is, the population of an existing parish is already too big to constitute one parish, we can begin to consider creating a new one. We discuss the feasibility in the Presbyteral Council and confer with the Parish priest/s of the mother-Parish concerned.

St. Peregrine was born in 1260 at Forlì, Italy to an affluent family. He lived a comfortable life as a youth, and politically opposed the papacy.  After he was inspired by and experienced the forgiveness of St. Philip Benizi, he changed his life and joined the Servite order.  He was ordained a priest, and later returned to his home to establish a Servite community.  There he was widely known for his preaching, penances, and counsel in the confessional.  He was cured of cancer, after he received a vision of Christ on the cross reaching out His hand to touch his impaired limb.  He died in 1345 and was canonized in 1726.  He is the patron of cancer patients.

Recently, the archdiocese has welcome the birth of another parish in  Binanuaanan Pequeno , Calabanga under the titular patron Black Nazarene with Fr. Rex Palaya as its first parish priest.

The Archbishop said that God willing, the archdiocese will have 80 parishes before the end of the year. This is a fitting gift of the archdiocese to the people of God as we also celebrate the 300^th year of Devotion to Our Lady of Peñafrancia.