NUEVA Segovia (Ilocos Sur) Archbishop Marlo Peralta has expressed confidence Bishop Alfredo Verzosa will still be declared a saint.
The bid for Verzosa’s sainthood started seven years ago.
“It will happen. But, as to when, we do not know. We trust in God’s wisdom. We trust in God’s own way of doing things, in God’s own time,” the CBCP News quoted Peralta as saying at the Vigan Cathedral during Verzosa’s 69th death anniversary last week.
He said the cause for sainthood “really takes time… years.”
But he said there had been no hurdles to the bid to have Verzosa canonized.
“The status of the cause of Bishop Verzosa, so far, has not encountered any serious problems. It is ongoing and only needs to be followed up,” Peralta said.
It was back in 2013 when the cause for sainthood of Verzosa was initiated, marked by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints issuing a “nihil obstat” or a declaration of no objection in 2014.
The diocesan inquiry ended in 2016 with the cause of Verzosa brought to the Vatican.
The “Roman Phase” of the cause officially began when the Congregation for the Causes of Saints issued the “decree of validity” in 2017.
Verzosa was born in Vigan City in December 1877, and was ordained a priest for the then Diocese of Nueva Segovia in December 1904.
From September 1916 to February 1951, he served as the bishop of the then Diocese of Lipa.
In 1923, he established the diocesan religious congregation for women called the Missionary Catechists of the Sacred Heart which petitioned then Nueva Segovia Archbishop Ernesto Salgado for the opening of the cause of beatification and canonization.
Verzosa retired in February 1951 at the age of 73, and died in June 1954.
