All roads lead to Manila Cathedral

The “incorruptible” heart relic of Saint Padre Pio was brought yesterday to the University of Santo Tomas, the Royal Pontifical University, for veneration by devotees.

The relic of the pious priest has arrived in the Philippines on 5 October and will be transferred today from UST to the Manila Cathedral in Intramuros until 11 October.

The Manila Cathedral will be open to devotees 24/7 while the relic remains there.

“We will go straight to UST where we will be welcomed by the clergy,” said Rev. Fr. Jojo Gonda, rector of the National Shrine of St. Padre Pio in Sto. Tomas, Batangas on radio.

“We will have conferences for the Year of the Clergy and we needed to be at UST to give talks about Father Pio,” he added.

Gonda said devotees had flocked to the National Shrine of St. Padre Pio in Batangas to see the relic. The relic will stay in the country until 26 October, with stops scheduled in Cebu and Davao City.

Padre Pio is one of the better known saints of the Catholic Church having carried the stigmata, the wounds of Christ that appeared in the priest’s body.

He had also been sighted in his lifetime in different places at the same time, a phenomenon known as bilocation.

Several shrines honoring Padre Pio had been constructed in the Philippines, including one in Quezon City.

Padre Pio was born on 25 May 1887 and died on 23 September 1968. He was proclaimed a saint on 16 June 2002.