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The Rizal Retraction 4
The Rizal Retraction 4
Retraction
Group 3 (BSN 3A)
Historical Context
● Dr. Jose Rizal was sentenced to death by a Spanish court martial after being
● The supposed retraction of his Masonic ideals with Rizal’s signature was found but until
today, it remains a continuous debate whether the document was forged or real.
DID RIZAL
RETRACT?
Timeline
July 3, 1892 Rizal established a reform society called La Liga Filipina
August 1896 The Philippine Revolution started and Rizal was accused to be the leader
of KKK and was sentenced to death
December Fr. Pio Pi received a commission together with other Jesuit fathers, from
28, 1896 Archbishop Nozaleda for the spiritual care of Rizal
December Father Vilaclara and Fr. Balaguer went to Fort Santiago and Fr. Balaguer
29, 1896 conceive that Rizal must make a retraction of errors and a profession of
Catholic faith before ministering the Sacraments to him.
Timeline
December ● Rizal died by a firing squad. after Dr. Rizal's execution on in
30, 1896 Bagumbayan, (later called Luneta and now Rizal Park).
● His body was secretly buried at the Paco Cemetery with no
identification on his grave.
● Rizal’s body is not made on the page those buried on December
30, 1896, where there were as many as six entries, but on a special
page wherein appear those buried by special orders of the
authorities. He was considered among persons who died impenitent
and did not receive spiritual aid. (Palma’s Analysis)
August 17, The remains of Dr. Jose Rizal were exhumed from the Paco Cemetery and
1898 taken to his house on Estraude Street in Binondo, Manila where his
father, Francisco Mercado, died in January of the same year.
Author: Father Vicente Balaguer
● Fr. Vicente Balaguer, a Jesuit priest,
it to Archbishop Nozaleda.
Author: Father Pio Pi
marriage certificate
held by Catholics.
Important Issues
● The morning after the execution the newspapers of Manila and Madrid recorded the
event, and announced that on the eve of his death, Rizal had retracted his religious
errors, adjured freemasonry, and in the last hours of his life had married Josephine
Rizal was printed in full. Certainly there was no signed letter of retraction. Rizal knew
too well the damage such a letter would do him, besides which he believed before God
● Rizal’s family and his wide circle of personal friends, most of whom were abroad,
● What appears with complete certainty is that neither Pio Pi y Vidal nor any of the Jesuits
of probity believed that Rizal had retracted and died confessed. Had Vilaclara and
March, who were with Rizal at his execution, been satisfied that there had been a
retraction, it is inconceivable that they would not have given him Christian burial.
Important Issues
Austin Coates’s analysis reveals:
● Balaguer had in fact damaged the Church’s case. Worse than this, he had unwittingly
revealed his own fraud. In his account, he made no mention of the Ultimo Adios.
hereby revealing the truth, which was that he was not within Fort Santiago during the
middle of that last night (Dec. 29, 1896), and had no knowledge of what was then
taking place. and only a glance at the Ultimo Adios is needed to show that it would