PH CONSULATE JOINS FEAST OF FIRST FILIPINO CATHOLIC SAINT IN SAN FRANCISCO
Consul General Neil Frank Ferrer and the officers of the Philippine Consulate General in San Francisco attended the Eucharistic celebration of the feast day of San Lorenzo Ruiz de Manila at St. Mary of the Assumption Cathedral in San Francisco on 24 September 2022. Deputy Consul General Raquel Solano, Consul Rowena Pangilinan-Daquipil, and Vice Consul Adrian Baccay also attended the mass.
The feast day mass was organized by the Archdiocese of San Francisco’s Filipino Ministry and was presided over by Reverend Father Jerald Geronimo, the first Filipino American priest to be ordained in the auspices of the Archdiocese.
San Lorenzo Ruiz, the first Filipino Catholic saint, was martyred in Nagasaki, Japan in 1637 amid the persecution of Christians during the years of the Tokugawa Shogunate. He was beatified by then Pope John Paul II in 1981 in Manila, in what was the first beatification ceremony held outside the Vatican. He was canonized as a saint in 1987, with his feast day celebrated every September 28. (San Francisco PCG photo)