Archdiocesan Museum of Cebu

This guide to the Archdiocesan Museum of Cebu centers on Julio Cardinal Rosales, the first Filipino cardinal, who spent the 1960s gathering relics sent to him from church leaders around the world into what became one of the country's largest collections. It follows the coral-stone convent that houses them back to its likely builder, Bishop Santos Gomez Maranon, the same churchman behind the cathedral across the plaza, and through a century of quieter uses as rectory, classroom and even cooperative store. Bombing raids battered downtown Cebu in 1944, and this modest house was among the very few structures left standing.