By: Augusto Urbano II
The Diocese of Antipolo receives a rare gift from Pope Francis, the holy father of the Catholic Church. Photo courtesy of GMA Integrated News.
The Diocese of Antipolo is currently garnering a lot of blessings since the start of the new year as they receive two important honors from the Vatican, namely a Golden Rose for Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage and a Crown for Our Lady of Fatima de Marikina. On February 26, the Golden Rose was presented to the image of Our Lady by Archbishop Rino Fisichella, one of the two prefects of the Dicastery for Evangelization as gifted by the Supreme Pontiff, Pope Francis. Historically, the Pope offers a Golden Rose to Catholic royals, nobility, and areas that show the most loyalty to the Church. Today, the Golden Rose is considered to be the highest honor the Pope could personally give to a Shrine or to an Image of Our Lady. The archbishop also led the thanksgiving mass on the declaration of the cathedral as the first international shrine in the Philippines and Southeast Asia, which was announced in Last January Two weeks before the declaration of the Antipolo Cathedral as an International Shrine, the Vatican also announced the upcoming Canonical Coronation of Our Lady of Fatima de Marikina. Archbishop Vittorio Francesco Viola, O.F.M., secretary of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of Sacraments, decreed last January 24 that the Supreme Pontiff granted the Image of Our Lady of Fatima of Marikina City her Canonical Coronation. Following these significant events, the Diocese of Antipolo is set to become one of the best places to go for pilgrimages. The diocese already has six “Coronadas” and is near the status of becoming the country’s Spiritual Pilgrimage Capital.