Readings in Philippine Church History

444 Pages·1979·16.576 MB·English

by  John N. Schumacher, SJ

READINGS IN
HILIPPINE CHURCH HISTOI
JOHN N. SCHUMACHER, S.J.
QUEZON CITY
LOYOLA SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY
ATENEO DE MANILA UNIVERSITY
1979
PCPM S.P. No. 669
Copyright 1979 by the Loyola School of Theology, Ateneo de Manila University,
P.O, Box 4082, Manila, Philippines
PREFACE Vll
I. The Spanish Church in the Indies ........................... 1
The Age of Discovery
The Papal Bulls
Justice to the Indians.
^atfonato Real de las Indicts
II. Christianity Comes to the Philippines.................... 12
Pre-Hispanic Filipino Religion
beginnings of Evangelization
jOrganization of the Church, 1579-1595
III.
The Struggle for Justice................................................. 22
Augustinians vs. Conquistadores
The Synod of Manila Defends the Filipinos
Bishop Salazar is Champion of Filipino Rights
^Acceptance of Spanish Sovereignty
IV. 39
Evangelization
-Methods and Motives
‘‘Obstacles to Christianization
- Adaptation to Filipino Culture
.^Building the Christian Community
Success of the First 50 Years
9B
V. Obstacles and Setbacks
Resistance in the South
The Dutch Wars, 1600-1648
Disruption of the Christian Communities in Luzon
The “Moro Wars” in the Visayas
VI. .......................................... 114
Jurisdictional Struggles
Church vs. State
Bishops vs. Religious Orders
Episcopal Visitation Enforced
VII. 1620-1760 ........................ 141
The Established Church,
Education
Works of Charity
The Church in Manila
^ The Church in the Provinces
Missionaries and Vernacular Literature
The Church and Material Development
Missionary Outreach
VIII.
Development of a Filipino Clergy......................................... 193
Initial Obstacles
Hesitant Beginnings, 1720-1767
Twisted Growth, 1767-1820
Political Suspicion, 1820-1872
The Nationalist Clergy, 1849-1872
IX.
The Church and Filipino Nationalism............................... 231
4 Nineteenth-Century Religious Conditions
The Antifriar Character of the Nationalist Movement
Church Policy of the Revolutionary Government
The Filipino Clergy and the Revolution
X. .............................................. 292
The Church in Disarray
A Church Without Leadership, 1899-1903
v The Coming of Protestantism
The Aglipayan Schism
XI.
Adjusting to a New Order............................................................. 334
Reorganization of the Church, 1903-1910
The Church on the Defensive, 1910-1925
j Adaptation and Resurgence, 1925-1941
War and Destruction, 1941-1945
sources............................................................................................................................... 385
.............................................................................. 402
appendices
............................................................... 405
GLOSSARY
....................... 411
SUGGESTIONS for further reading
416
INDEX
429
MAPS AND FIGURES
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to acknowledge gratefully permission to reprint the
following materials:
Dr. Daniel Doeppers and the Ateneo de Manila University Press,
for materials taken from “Changing Patterns of Aglipayan Adherence,
1918-1970,” Philippine Studies 25 (1977): 270.
Dr. Jose N. Endriga, for a passage from “The Friar Lands
Settlement: Promise and Performance,” Philippine Journal of Public
Administration 14 (1970): 412-13.
The Program Agency of the United Presbyterian Church in the
U.S.A. for a passage from James B. Rodgers, Forty Years in the
Philippines.
Fr. Frederick Scharpf, S.V.D., for a passage from “Why Did We
Not Do This Much Sooner!,” Ilocos Studies 7-8 (1975-1976): 80-83.
Fr. Pedro S. de Achutegui, S.J., for the diagram in Figure 1.
Dr. Daniel Doeppers and the Academic Press Inc. (London) Ltd.
for the maps in figures 2 and 3.
Dr. Daniel Doeppers and The Geographical Review for the map
in figure 4.
PREFACE
As I write this preface, the celebration of the fourth centenary
of the erection of the diocese of Manila has already begun. Four cen­
turies after the Church was juridically organized in our country, it is
ironic, and sad, to have to acknowledge that there is no adequate his­
tory of the Philippine church. Though this book has no pretensions
to filling that lamentable deficiency, it aims to provide at least a
sketch of such a history, which may satisfy some of the immediate
needs for a knowledge of our Christian past. Whether one is a believ­
ing Catholic or not, the development of the Filipino nation cannot
be understood without a knowledge of the major, often decisive, role
that the Church has played, well or ill, in that process, and continues
to play.
This book is frankly modeled on the well-known and much-
appreciated work of the late Fr. Horacio de la Costa, Readings in
Philippine History. The format he employed — selections from
primary historical sources accompanied by a running commentary
weaving the whole into a continuous narrative — has seemed also
to me effective for giving the reader who is not a professional histo­
rian something of the flavor of the original sources, while at the same
time enabling him to synthesize these disparate pieces into some kind
of a pattern of development. As De la Costa said of his book, it is an
attempt at “a history of [the Church in] the Philippines by those
who made it, or who saw it made.” In this way it may be hoped that
it will serve the cause of both historical and theological understand­
ing.
The book owes more than its inspiration to Father de la Costa.
The nucleus from which I have developed it over' the past ten years
was a short collection of readings which he had compiled for a series
of lectures on the Church in the Spanish period, given to the students
of San Jose Seminary in 1964, shortly before my arrival from grad­
uate studies to take up the post of professor of church history at
that institution and at its academic successor, the Loyola School of
viii PREFACE
Theology of the Ateneo de Manila University. I produced my own
collection for a regular two-unit course in 1968, which in turn devel­
oped into a three-unit course for which I assembled a larger mimeo­
graphed collection in 1970. With the intention of filling a growing
need for a textbook in Philippine church history felt in other semi­
naries and universities, I subsequently accompanied the readings
with commentary so that it might be used by others than myself.
This was completed for the first half of the readings in the edition of
1976, and for the entire volume in this first printed edition. The long
period of gestation which the work has undergone, has, I trust, been
of benefit to it. The comments, as well as the difficulties, of my
students in San Carlos Seminary, Manila; Divine Word Seminary,
Tagaytay; Mindanao Regional Seminary, Davao; and especially at
Loyola School of Theology, have done much to help me rewrite it.
In the early stages of this work, I made considerable use of
selections from the monumental compilation of Blair and Robert-
.son._ But as I became increasingly aware how deficient many of the
translations in that collection were, I have retranslated from the Span­
ish originals all but a very few texts whose originals were not avail­
able to me. All translations unless otherwise noted, therefore, are my
own, except for a certain number earlier translated by Father de la
Costa (marked H1C in the reference notes). While attempting to
avoid the archaisms not easily intelligible to the ordinary student,
I have generally tried to keep fairly close to the originals, especially
in the sixteenth and seventeenth century documents, in the hope of
conveying to the reader something of the feeling of the text. In the
case of Tagalog selections, I have preserved the original, inasmuch as
the book is written for Filipino readers, but have included an English
translation in an appendix for those who need it. Trends in seminary
education have made it unwise to continue the practice of Father de
la Costa’s first compilation, in which most of the readings were pre­
sented in their original Latin and Spanish.
It should be emphasized that this book cannot pretend to be a
definitive history of the Philippine church, even within the limit­
ations imposed by a one-volume work. It has other limitations as
well, and I am only too conscious of them. I would like to mention
three.
It is limited, first, to the Roman Catholic Church, at least
directly. Though one could wish for an ecumenical history, my lack
of thorough familiarity with the sources for other churches and
denominations made me judge it better to limit myself to what I
know better. Some may find the selections concerning Protestantism
and Aglipayanism in the early part of this century rather harsh. They
are not meant to be offensive; the facts of that period, at least as
seen by the participants, were harsh, and the inclusion of such selec­
tions is not meant to pass any judgment on later developments, still
less on the present. A fuller history of other denominations, would,
PREFACE ix
I am sure, make clear their later contributions to Filipino Christian­
ity, but that is outside the scope of the present work.
The second limitation is what may seem to some an undue pro­
portion of Jesuit sources, particularly for the late nineteenth and the
twentieth centuries. This is certainly so in some respects, and occurs
for two reasons. One is the fact that due to the circumstances of the
Revolution, the Jesuits came to occupy a unique position in the
Church for some time, both because of their relative numbers, and
because of the fact that, of the older and established religious orders,
only they had emerged relatively unscathed from the anticlericalism
which followed from the Revolution. The second, more subjective,
reason is that Jesuit archives and other Jesuit sources have been more
accessible to me for the modern period, and hence I have had to de­
pend on them more.
The third limitation is the fact that this history ends with 1945.
There is much that deserves to be written about in the post-inde­
pendence period if we are to understand today’s Church and its
problems. But representative sources are not as easy to come by for
recent events. Given more time, this lack could be remedied, at least
to some extent, as could the other limitations mentioned above. But
given the urgent need for a textbook in the present situation, it has
seemed to me better to publish this basic text rather than wait to
produce something more perfect in an as yet unforeseen future.
If it comes to another edition, I hope to be able to lessen these
limitations. If its deficiencies may stimulate someone else to improve
on it, I will be more than happy too. Meanwhile, I hope that it may
serve to give seminarians and university students in particular, an ap­
preciation of the mighty works of God in our land, as well as to give
understanding of the human limitations of His servants which have
placed obstacles to, or deflected the direction of, His work.
For a sound theology today, as Vatican II emphasized, must be
based not only on the written Word of God in the Scriptures, but
also on the living experience of the Church down through the centu­
ries, including the signs of the times perceptible in the experience of
the People of God today. In the light of that principle, the history of
the Church is an important ingredient in any theology which is to
escape being mere abstract speculation. By the same token, the incul-
turation of theology which the post-Vatican II Church, especially in
the Third World, sees as an imperative of any real evangelization,
must needs root itself in the history of the local church. It was with
this in mind that I have worked on this book, in the hope that it
would serve especially, though not solely, Filipino students and
professors of theology in their efforts to root their theological reflec­
tion in the lived experience of the Filipino People of God during
these past four centuries. But I hope that fellow historians will also
find it useful, as well as all those who are interested in the history of
X PREFACE
our people, in which the Catholic Church has played so significant a
part.
Non-English words in the text have generally been italicized
only on their first use. In accordance with ordinary Philippine usage,
accents have been omitted in Filipino proper names of Spanish
origin. When the names are those of Spaniards or Spanish institu­
tions, however, the standard Spanish practice has been followed.
I have retained certain terms which were sometimes used with a
derogatory connotation, not only, of course, in the readings in which
they occur, but also at times in the commentary. This is especially
true of the term Indio, which often had such'a connotation in the
late nineteenth century, because it is essential to make clear about
just whom we are talking — indigenous Filipinos of Malay blood or
Philippine-born Spaniards. The term “Filipino” as we now use it, can
of course only have its full sense with the rise of national conscious­
ness in the latter half of the nineteenth century.
Besides my debt to the curators and librarians of various institu­
tions here and abroad in which I first came on some of the materials
used here while pursuing research on my other books, there are a
number of persons to whom I owe a special debt of gratitude for this
particular work. Fathers Ralph B. Gehring, S.J., librarian of Loyola
School of Theology; Leo A. Cullum, S.J., archivist of the Philippine
Province of the Society of Jesus; Robert J. Suchan, S.J., Director of
Libraries of the Ateneo de Manila University; and Pablo Fernandez,
O.P., curator of the Dominican archives of Santisimo Rosario Prov­
ince and of the University of Santo Tomas; all generously exerted
themselves to help me locate materials in the collections under their
care. Father Fernandez, in addition to extraordinary generosity with
his time in locating and suggesting documents, read both one of the
earlier mimeographed versions and the manuscript of the present
edition. From his own wide and detailed knowledge of the Spanish
period of our history, by his suggestions, corrections, and clarifica­
tions, he saved me from a number of errors, especially on technical
matters of that unique ecclesiastical organization which was the
Patronato Real de ias lndias. I have also been aided by the com­
ments and suggestions of Fathers Manfred Muller, S.V.D., and
Frederick Scharpf, S.V.D., who made use of the earlier editions in
their courses respectively at Divine Word Seminary, Tagaytay, and
the Archdiocesan Major Seminary in Vigan. Finally, Fr. Pedro S. de
Achutegui, S.J., painstakingly read the final manuscript for me, and
gave invaluable assistance on the technical matters of publication, as
well as making available to me materials from his own collection of
documents and microfilms. All of these have contributed to whatever
virtues this volume may contain, but of course I myself must take
sole responsibility for whatever deficiencies there are in its final
form.