OLOPSJ History & Background |
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When & Where
Nuestra Señora de la Paz y Buen Viaje y Buen Viaje (Our Lady of Peace and Safe Journey) Catholic Church is a parish of the Archdiocese of Agana and was erected as a parish on the 25th of December 1959. We are geographically located in the village of Chalan Pago-Ordot on the eastern side of central Guam. (see map) Since the time of the first missionaries in the 16th century, there has been a continuing Catholic presence in the village of Chalan Pago.[1] Before World War II, the image of Nuestra Señora de la Paz y Buen Viaje was venerated at a road-side chapel built by farmers; after World War II it was rebuilt as a mission chapel, preparing the groundwork for the local Catholic community which exists today.
The devotion of the people of Chalan Pago to Our Lady of Peace and Safe Journey is one that is rooted in the importance of Mary in the Catholic Church. During World War II, under increasingly dangerous conditions, the people who fled to their ranches in Chalan Pago built a shrine to Our Lady of Peace in order to ask her intersession for their welfare and protection. At the completion of the war, the people who settled in Chalan Pago began to build a more permanent chapel with the help of Naval Chaplain Father Richard Thomas Peeters and the Navy Seabees. During the immediate post-war period Msgr. Oscar Lujan Calvo was assigned as a temporary pastor to the people of Chalan Pago. In 1959 a permanent location for the Church was donated by Tun Antonio and Tan Carmen Cruz, a short distance from the location of the first Chapel. Father Canice Cartmell, a Capuchin priest, took charge of the construction of the Church which was built by the hands of the parishioners themselves. On December 25, 1959 the Church was dedicated, soon after it would be assigned its first permanent pastor, Father Antonio Cruz. Today, Our Lady of Peace and Safe Journey Catholic Church continues to be a community of believers truly devoted to Christ and his Mother. On Christmas Day 2009, the parish celebrated it's 50th Anniversary.
The devotion of the people of Chalan Pago to Our Lady of Peace and Safe Journey is one that is rooted in the importance of Mary in the Catholic Church. During World War II, under increasingly dangerous conditions, the people who fled to their ranches in Chalan Pago built a shrine to Our Lady of Peace in order to ask her intersession for their welfare and protection. At the completion of the war, the people who settled in Chalan Pago began to build a more permanent chapel with the help of Naval Chaplain Father Richard Thomas Peeters and the Navy Seabees. During the immediate post-war period Msgr. Oscar Lujan Calvo was assigned as a temporary pastor to the people of Chalan Pago. In 1959 a permanent location for the Church was donated by Tun Antonio and Tan Carmen Cruz, a short distance from the location of the first Chapel. Father Canice Cartmell, a Capuchin priest, took charge of the construction of the Church which was built by the hands of the parishioners themselves. On December 25, 1959 the Church was dedicated, soon after it would be assigned its first permanent pastor, Father Antonio Cruz. Today, Our Lady of Peace and Safe Journey Catholic Church continues to be a community of believers truly devoted to Christ and his Mother. On Christmas Day 2009, the parish celebrated it's 50th Anniversary.
[1] According to the book Phoenix Rises, the village of Pago was one of about five original Reduccíones established by Bld. Diego Luis de San Vitores and his fellow Jesuit missionaries.
