Filipinos pray God wills Leo XIV’s return to PH
While he has been to the Philippines several times before he became Pope Leo XIV, Robert Francis Prevost’s return to the country is highly anticipated, this time as the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church.
Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, one of the three Filipino cardinal electors and president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, raised the invitation right after the second day of the conclave that elected the 267th Pope.
Fortune favors the bold
When the cardinals lined up to congratulate him, David told the new Catholic pontiff: “Holy Father, I hope and pray that you get to visit us in the Philippines. My home province in Pampanga was evangelized by the Spanish Augustinian missionaries.”
The Pope smiled and replied, “Who knows? If God wills it, why not?”
When he recounted his first interaction with Pope Leo XIV during the post-conclave press conference on Friday evening in Rome (Manila time)—and again in his Facebook post on Sunday—David could only describe it as his gutsy self talking.
“How bold of me to invite the Pope when he is a State visitor when he visits us, isn’t it?” he realized while laughing, with the two other Filipino cardinals—Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle and Cardinal Jose Advincula—giggling on his feat.
For Filipino Augustinians and countless faithful across the islands, Pope Leo XIV is not a distant figure from Rome but a familiar friend.
Previous visits
Long before ascending to the Chair of St. Peter, Cardinal Prevost had trod Philippine soil many times.
As prior general of the Order of St. Augustine from 2001 to 2013, he presided over provincial chapters, blessed friaries and chapels, and celebrated milestones with the Filipino faithful.
In Cebu, the beating heart of Philippine Augustinian life, his presence was frequent and warmly remembered, the Inquirer earlier reported.
“We have a Pope who knows us,” said the Province of Santo Niño de Cebu. Pope Leo XIV’s footprints are imprinted in places like Consolacion, Tolotolo, Talisay and the hallowed Basilica Minore del Santo Niño de Cebu.
Prevost was the one who blessed the Augustinian religious community’s friary in Barangay Mohon, Talisay City, on Jan. 31, 2004.
In 2008, Prevost was in Cebu to lead the blessing of the Santo Niño Spirituality Center in Consolacion, marking the silver jubilee of the Augustinian Province of Santo Niño de Cebu-Philippines.
