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Did Rizal Really Retracted His Words and Deeds
Did Rizal Really Retracted His Words and Deeds
Did Rizal really retracted all his words and deeds about
the Chruch moments before his execution?( Written by
Yen Makabenta)
An ecclesiastical fraud
The morning after the execution of Jose Rizal, the newspapers of Manila
and Madrid recorded the event, and announced that on the eve of his
death Rizal retracted his religious errors, abjured freemasonry, and in the
last hours of his life had married Josephine Bracken.
Those who had read Rizal's books or who knew him closely and admired
him, both in the country and abroad, took one look at the announcement
and declared it "an ecclesiastical fraud."
Rizal himself believed that there was a strong likelihood of fraud after his
death, and that the prime mover in this would be the friar archbishop. It
was the friars who were zealously seeking his retraction. They even came
up with several retraction formulas for him to sign.
Rizal's intuition of fraud was not misplaced; what played him false was
the involvement of his mentors, the Jesuits, who took part in the effort to
make him retract and return to the Catholic faith.
It was solely one Jesuit priest, Vicente Balaguer,S.J, who laid the basis for
the story that Rizal retracted his words and deeds. It was also he who
made the claim that he married Jose Rizal and Josephine Bracken at 6.15
a.m. on December 30, just minutes before Rizal was executed.
"A man of whom there is no record that he ever told a lie can scarcely be
considered as having chosen a solemn moment to tell his first one ... .
"The Jesuits who had visited him knew how unlikely it was that Rizal
would retract ... .
"While one might kill the man, his writings remained, and these were a
danger, needing to be sterilized, lest they poison the mind of future
generations with anti-clerical views. If he could be made to admit his
errors against religion and retract them, it would blunt the point of
everything that he had written ... .
"The Jesuits' two attempts to make Rizal retract had different motives.
The first was undertaken for what the Jesuits sincerely believed to be his
own good, and possibly their own as well. The second was undertaken
with the main purpose of sterilizing his influence on the future."
Could Rizal have retracted in order to receive the sacraments of the faith.
It is part of Balaguer's elaborate fraud to suggest that Rizal feared for his
soul during his final hours.
The Rizal family did not accept the retraction and the marriage. They
knew that that if he had retracted, he would certainly have said so in his
6a.m. communication to his mother on the fateful day of his execution.
In his account, Balaguer was totally unaware that Rizal had written "Mi
Último Adiós" on the eve of his execution. Balaguer allowed no time for
Rizal to write the poem. The poem in its third stanza carries the exact
date and time when it was written.
For all these contradictions and falsehoods in Balaguer's story, the church
nevertheless adopted the lie. And some Filipinos, including Rizal's
biographer Leon Maria Guerrero, believed that Rizal had retracted.
I find the words of Rafael Palma, who witnessed the execution and saw
Rizal turn away from the Jesuit holding out a crucifix to him, most
persuasive:
Palma wrote:
"Of the version circulated by ecclesiastical authorities of that time, the
part which refers to Rizal's abjuration of masonry and to his conversion to
Catholicism at the last hour was not considered satisfactory and truthful
by Filipino public opinion."
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