Manila’s Sta. Ana Church elevated to national shrine

MANILA – The Sta. Ana Church in the City of Manila is now a national shrine.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) news website on Thursday reported that Manila Apostolic Administrator Bishop Broderick Pabillo led the ceremony for the occasion on Wednesday.

The church is now called the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Abandoned.

The event was held more than a year after the CBCP approved the petition to raise the church as a national shrine during their plenary assembly in January 2020.

In its decree dated Nov. 1, 2020, the CBCP said the devotion to Our Lady of the Abandoned “became very popular and enduring over the centuries”.

It added “miracles of every kind” attributed to Our Lady from cures to illnesses, the conversion of sinners, her reported “visitations” to devotees, and numerous petitions answered through her intercession.

The CBCP said the devotees and pilgrims from across the country continue to flock to Sta. Ana Church all year round “to pay homage, to seek the loving gaze, and ask the maternal intercession of Our Lady of the Abandoned.

The parish is the first Franciscan Mission established outside Manila in 1578. The construction of the church started in 1720 and was completed five years later.

It houses the 300-year-old miraculous image of Our Lady of the Abandoned also known as “La Gobernadora de Manila”.

The Sta. Ana Church is the 27th church in the Philippines to be declared as a national shrine.