The 250-year-old St. Dominic Parish Church in San Carlos, Pangasinan has been designated as a minor basilica by Pope Francis.
The Archdiocese of Lingayen-Dagupan said the official title of the church will be changed to the Minor Basilica of St. Dominic. The date of the liturgical rites is yet to be announced.
The designation of a basilica and minor basilica are assigned by the Holy Father to certain Catholic churches because of their antiquity and historical significance as centers of worship.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines said the first Dominican church in Pangasinan was a simple chapel of bamboo and nipa built in 1587 in Binalatongan, now the city of San Carlos. The original site was moved to higher locations three times in the 17th and 18th centuries due to seasonal flooding.
After the Palaris Revolt in 1765, a new church on its current site was built and completed in 1773.
“The parish has offered 34 sons to the Church to become priests in recent history,” the archdiocese said.
Santo Domingo Ybanez de Erquicia who received the crown of martyrdom in Japan’s Nagasaki and San Francisco Gil de Federich who died for the faith in Vietnam’s northern region of Tonkin were both Dominican missionaries who ministered in the Parish of Saint Dominic, the CBCP said.
Bishop Mylo Hubert Vergara, earlier, also announced the Vatican’s approval of their petition to grant the Archdiocesan Shrine of St. Anne in Taguig City a minor basilica status.