Bishop Mylo Hubert Vergara of Pasig formally opened the diocesan inquiry for the cause for sainthood of the late catechist Laureana “Ka Luring” Franco on Wednesday, Aug. 21, recalling how she had influenced him as a young priest to live a life of holiness. Vergara led the Mass for the opening of Franco’s cause in her home city of Taguig, over a month after the “nihil obstat” granted by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints that gave her the title “Servant of God.
” “ Sa totoo lang, mabibilang ng ating sampung daliri ang mga diyosesis sa Pilipinas na nagpapadala sa Roma ng mga pangalan para ihanay sa proseso ng pagiging santo o santa. Kaya napakapalad natin dahil mayroon na tayong Servant of God sa katauhan ng isang mabuti at banal na katekista— si ‘Ka Luring,’ ” Vergara said in his homily during the Mass at the Archdiocesan Shrine of St. Anne in Taguig.
(In fact, we can count on our 10 fingers the dioceses in the Philippines that have submitted names to Rome for the process of becoming a saint. So we are very blessed because we now have a Servant of God in the person of a good and holy catechist— “Ka Luring.”) Franco, who died after battling cancer in 2011, had served as a volunteer catechist beginning in the late 1960s, and whose reputation for holiness and simplicity was known to then Manila archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin, who gave her the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice award on behalf of Pope St.
John Paul II in 1990. Vergara recalled ho.