1 The Apostolic Delegation in the Philippines during the Second World War Aaron James R. Veloso The Japanese Occupation of the Philippines was one of the most trying periods in the nearly 500-year presence of the Catholic Church in the Philippines – perhaps, even worse than the anti-friar movement in the twilight years of the Spanish colonial era. Despite this, there is a great dearth of literature on this specific epoch of Church history in the Philippines. In this paper, I want to look into the pastoral ministry of Archbishop Guillermo Piani, S.D.B., the Apostolic Delegate in the Philippines, during those eventful years in Philippine and Church history. Background Archbishop Guillermo Piani was born to Alessandro and Luigia Cantoni on 16 September 1875 in Martinengo, Bergamo Province, in the Lombardia region of Italy. He joined the Salesian Oratory in Turin on 1 October 1887 to study Humanities and Rhetoric. In September 1890, he entered the Salesian Novitiate on his third year of high school receiving there the habit from Bl. Michael Rua, the Rector Major, and made his first and perpetual profession as a Salesian on 3 October 1891. He was later sent to the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome for his doctorate in Philosophy degree which he obtained in 1895. 1 The young Guillermo desired very much to go to the Salesian missions in Brazil and petitioned the Rector Major to be assigned there. In 1896, he was sent to Latin America, but not to the missions in Brazil but to the Salesian seminary of Las Piedras to teach Philosophy. There, he was ordained a priest on 15 May 1898 by Archbishop Mariano Soler of Montevideo, Uruguay, after three years of theology. He celebrated his first mass in the Church of Saint Isidore in the Salesian community of Las Piedras, later becoming rector of this community and Master of Novices two years later. He went on to become the superior of the College of Philosophy and Theology in Mangna, Montevideo. 2 Father Piani was elected provincial of the Salesian Province of Mexico and Central America on 4 December 1911, amidst the religious persecution in the area. In December 1921, he was nominated Auxiliary Bishop of Puebla and titular Bishop of Paleopoli, but the official announcement of his appointment was not made due to the death of Pope Benedict XV on 22 January 1922. When Ambrogio Achille Cardinal Ratti assumed the papacy as Pope Pius XI (1922- 1939), the Holy See announced that Father Piani was to be appointed Apostolic Delegate in the Philippines and initially assigned the titular see of Drama. 3 Giovanni Cardinal Cagliero, 1 Golden Sacerdotal Anniversary of Mons. Piani (Souvenir program, Manila, 1947. See also Gregorio E. Bicomong, Jr. S.D.B., The Arrival of Don Bosco in the Philippines: Requests made to the Salesians, 1891-1951 (Makati City: Don Bosco Press, 2001), 69-70. 2 Golden Sacerdotal Anniversary, op. cit. Also, Bicomong, op. cit. 70. 3 Golden Sacerdotal Anniversary, op.cit. Also, Bicomong, op. cit. 71. He would later on be designated titular Bishop of Nicosia on 27 April 1934.