The spread of Catholicism in the Philippines

How Catholicism spread in the Philippines?
Why "Philippines" is a Catholic country?
Why many Filipinos are born-Catholic?


Finally, we can now answer these questions as this post will tackle about the spread of Catholicism in the Philippines. Many of us wonder why there are more than 80% of the population were Catholics.


The question is: Did our catholic ancestors (former animists) converted WHOLEHEARTEDLY to the Catholic Church?

Then, let us know the answer!


History:

Spanish Era (1521-1898)
"In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Spain had three major goals for the occupation of the Philippine Islands.

• One was to colonise the Philippines and participate in the spice trade dominated by Portugal.
• Second, Spain wanted to use the islands' geographical location to trade with China and Japan and to spread their religious belief to those advanced civilisations.
• Third was for Spain to spread Catholicism in the archipelago itself.

While many history books claim that the first Mass in the archipelago was held on Easter Sunday of 1521, others present evidence that it was elsewhere. Some books claim that this was done on the same day in a little island near the present day Bukidnon Province. Still, there are legends that say that Saint Francis Xavier, on his way to Japan stopped at an island belonging to the present day Pangasinan, which was way before the real entry of the Spaniards in the country. There is only one recorded Christian Mass in the Philippines that is provable, and that was held at the island-port named Mazaua on Easter Sunday, 31 March 1521. This incident was recorded by the Vicentine diarist Antonio Pigafetta.
The Legazpi expedition of 1565 marked the beginning of the Hispanisation of the Philippines. This expedition was an effort to occupy the islands with as little bloodshed and conflict as possible, ordered by Phillip II. Regretful bloodshed in Mexico and Peru motivated him to exercise pacifism during these campaigns. Lieutenant Legazpi was in charge of making peace with the natives and through swift military conquest, he set up colonies.
Under the encomienda system, Filipinos had to pay tribute to the encomendero of the area and in return the encomendero taught them the Christian faith and also protected them from enemies. Although Spain had used this system before, it did not working quite as effectively for the Filipinos as it did in America, the missionaries were not as successful in converting the natives as they had hoped. In 1579, Bishop Salazar and other clergymen were outraged because the encomenderos had abused their powers. Although the natives were resistant, they could not organise into a unified resistance towards the Spaniards due to geography, ethno-linguistic differences, and overall mutual indifference."
to know more about the encomienda system, click here.
"In 1599, negotiation began between a number of chieftains and their freemen and the Spaniards. The natives agreed to submit to the rule of a Castilian king and in return, the natives were indoctrinated into Christianity and were protected from their enemies, mostly Japanese, Chinese, and Muslim pirates. However, the conquest and conversion efforts were neither as easy nor as negotiable as this contract. The missionaries faced many obstacles and successes along the path to Christianization."

Difficulties

"Several factors hindered the Spaniards' efforts to spread Christianity throughout the archipelago. An inadequate number of missionaries on the island made it difficult to reach all the people and harder to convert them. This is also due to the fact that the route to the Philippines was in itself a rigorous task and some clergy never had the opportunity to set foot on the islands.
Some clergy fell ill or waited years for their chance to take the journey, or for some the climate difference once they arrived was unbearable. Other missionaries desired to go to Japan or China instead to spread their faith, or were more interested in mercantilism. The Spaniards also quarreled with the Chinese population in the Philippines. The Chinese had set up shops in what was called the Parian or bazaar during the 1580's to trade silk and other goods for Mexican silver.
The Spaniards anticipated revolts from the Chinese and therefore, were under constant suspicion. The Spanish government and conquest were also highly dependent on this silver because it supported the necessities to run the government in Manila, the main city, and to continue Christianization. The most difficult obstacles facing the missionaries were the dispersion of the Filipinos and their seemingly endless varieties of languages and dialects. The geographical isolation forced them into numerous small villages and every other province supported a different dialect.
Evangelism was done in the native language. Doctrina Christiana is a book of prayers in Tagalog published in the 16th century. When, Miguel Lopez de Legaspi set up the colonial system beginning 1565, he implemented an encomienda system where a native could acquire land if he underwent baptism and registered as a Catholic. Massive conversion occurred at this time. Many of which have, since then, adopted the same values of Catholics."


Filipino Resistance

The Filipinos, to an extent, did resist because they felt an agricultural obligation and connection with their rice fields. They felt that the large villages took away their resources and they feared the compact environment. This also took away from the encomienda system that depended on land, therefore, the encomenderos lost tributes.

However, the missionaries continued their efforts to convert the natives to the Christian faith. Their strategy was to take children of the chieftains and put them under intense education in religious doctrines and the Spanish language so that they in turn could convert their fathers and eventually native followers would emulate their leader. Between 1578 and 1609, missionaries saw an optimistic and enthusiastic attitude from the natives there were more converts than ever.
Despite the progress of the Spaniards, it took many years for the natives to truly grasp key concepts of Christianity. In Catholicism, four main sacraments attracted the natives but only for ritualistic reasons, and they did not fully alter their lifestyle as the Spaniards had hoped. Baptism was believed to simply cure ailments, while Holy Matrimony was a concept many natives could not understand and thus had violated the sanctity of monogamy. They were however, allowed to keep the tradition of dowry which was accepted into law.
“Bride-price” and “bride-service” were not observed by the Spaniards, but were performed by natives despite labels of heresy. Confession, or Penance, was required of everyone once a year, and the clergy used a bilingual text aid called confessionario to help natives understand the rite's meaning and what they had to confess. They were initially apprehensive to the concept but they gradually used Penance as a way to excuse excessive actions throughout the year. Communion was given out selectively for this was one of the most important sacraments that the missionaries did not want to risk having the natives violate.

Filipino Diaspora

Overseas Filipinos have spread Filipino culture the world over, and have brought Filipino Catholicism with them. Filipinos have established two shrines in the Chicago Metropolitan Area: one at St. Wenceslaus dedicated to Santo Niño de Cebú, as well as another at St. Hedwig's with its statue to Our Lady of Manaoag.

source: wikipedia

See? The spread of Catholicism in the Philippines is not by conversion through faith, but for personal interests. Spaniards did a lot of strategy for our ancestors be converted to Catholicism.

Let us know more about it:

'Christianization' Strategies Employed by the Spanish:

In little more than a century, most lowland Filipinos were converted to Roman Catholicism. There are a number of reasons why Spanish missionaries were successful in this attempt:

1. Mass baptism - the initial practice of baptizing large numbers of Filipinos at one time enabled the initial conversion to Christianity. Otherwise, there is no way that such a small number of Spanish friars, or Catholic priests, could have accomplished this goal.

It is said that many Filipinos associated baptism with their own indigenous 'healing rituals', which also rely on the symbolism of holy water--very typical of Southeast Asian societies.


2. Reduccion policies - in areas where Filipinos lived scattered across the landscape in small hamlets, the Spanish military employed a resettlement policy that they had used successful in Central and Latin America. This policy was called reduccion, and essentially meant a forced relocation of small, scattered settlements into one larger town.

The policy was designed for the convenience of administration of the Spanish colony's population, a way for a small number of armed Spanish constabulary to control more easily the movements and actions of a large number of Filipinos. It was also designed to enable Spain to collect taxes from their Christianized converts. Throughout Spanish rule, Christianized Filipinos were forced to pay larger taxes than indios, or native, unChristianized peoples.

The reduccion policy also made it easier for a single Spanish Catholic friar to 'train' Filipinos in the basic principles of Christianity. In reality, the policy was successful in some areas but impossible to enforce. Spanish archives are full of exasperated colonial officials complaining about how such settlements were 'all but abandoned' in many cases after only a few weeks.


3. Attitude of the Spanish clergy in the early phase - Spanish friars were forced to learn the native language of the peoples they sought to convert. Without schools that trained people in Spanish, the Spanish friars had no choice but to say Christian mass and otherwise communicate in the vernacular languages of the Philippines.

There are over 200 native languages now; it is unknown how many existed in the beginning of Spanish rule. In the first half, or 150 years of Spanish rule, friars often supported the plight of local peoples over the abuses of the Spanish military.

In the late Spanish period, in contrast, Spanish priests enraged many Filipinos for failing to

a) allow otherwise 'trained' Filipino priests to ascend into the higher echelons of the Catholic Church hierarchy in the Philippines;
b) return much of the land they had claimed as 'friar estates' to the Philippine landless farmers; and
c) recognizing nascent and emerging Filipino demands for more autonomy and a greater say in how the colony was to be managed.

4. Adaptation of Christianity to the local context - Filipinos were mostly animistic in their religious beliefs and practices prior to Spanish intervention. In most areas they revered the departed spirits of their ancestors through ritual offerings, and also believed in a variety of nature spirits. Such beliefs were central to healing practices, harvest rites, and to maintaining a cosmological balance between this world and the afterlife.

Spirits were invisible, but also responsible for both good and bad events. Spirits could be blamed for poor harvests, illness, and bad luck generally. Yet Filipinos believed that proper ritual feasting of the spirits would appease them, and result in good harvests, healthy recovery of the ill, and the fertility of women. The legacy of Spanish conquest and colonial rule in the Philippines, as is true of all colonial attempts to 'master' or manage indigenous populations, is mixed. On the one hand, Spanish clergy were very destructive of local religious practices.

They systematically destroyed indigenous holy places and 'idols', or statues and representations of indigenous spirits, gods or goddesses. They also tried to stamp out all examples of native scripts and literature for fear that Filipinos were using exotic symbols to foment rebellion. The Spanish also imposed new 'moralities' on Filipinos by discouraging slave holding, polygamy, gambling, and alcohol consumption that were a natural part of the indigenous social and religious practices.

At the same time, Hispanic rule left a legacy of syncretic, rather than totally destructive, elements. Spanish clergy introduced some very European features of Catholic practice that blended well with indigenous ritual practices. Spanish Catholic priests relied on vivid, theatrical presentations of stories of the Bible in order to help Filipinos understand the central messages of Christianity. Today, this colonial legacy lives on whenever Filipino Catholics re-enact through religious dramas the passion of Christ, or Christ's martyrdom, during Holy Week.

source: seasite.niu.edu

Another thing why the Catholic population grows in the Philippines is because of the growth of the population in the country in spite of the fact that many Catholics leaves the Catholic Church because of knowing its unbiblical doctrines and practices.

How this happened?

Its because of the mighty-powerful invented "infant baptism" doctrine. Where babies are baptized and registered in the church unfairly with their Catholic parents without their knowledge. (That's why dont be surprised if the Catholic Church opposed the RH bill, because it will lessen the conversion of innocent babies^^)

If we will compare the spread of INC and the spread of Catholicism in the country, there are differences. First, people converted to Iglesia ni Cristo is because of FAITH, nothing else while people converted (in the past) to Catholicism is because of personal interests and force.

Imagine this: Expansion of the Iglesia ni Cristo never hurdled by major wars (World War I and World War II) and persecutions from the Catholic and Protestant sects and denominations. Cant you imagine that while there is a war happening in the country, Bro. Felix is tirelessly preaching the words of God in that situation?

So now, do you still wonder why you and many are born-catholics and that the Philippines is called a "Catholic country"?