Review Paper: Did Jose Rizal Die a Catholic?

Revisiting Rizal’s Last 24 Hours

Using Spy Reports

Escalante, Rene. Did Jose Rizal Die a Catholic? Revisiting Rizal’s Last 24 Hours Using
Spy Reports. Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 8, No. 3, December 2019, pp. 369-386.

Article Identification
Article is entitled “Did Jose Rizal Die a Catholic? Revisiting Rizal’s Last 24 Hours Using
Spy Reports” and was written by Rene Escalante. It was published in the year 2019.
Subjects of forgery to grammatical errors are reviewed. Together with historical figures
and accounts.

Introduction
The Philippines is a country that is mainly influenced by the Catholic faith within the pillars
of religion. It’s Catholicism origins date back to 1521, when Magellan first discovered the
rich archipelago. Since then, Magellans parent country, Spain has sent through numerous
expeditions to eventually capture the country and spread the word of God. With that,
sparked a revolution. Jose Rizal being one of the pioneers of Philippine revolution has
been subject to numerous criticisms and analyzation throughout the years. One of them
is him embracing his Catholic roots and abolishing Masonry. This, of course, created a
centennial long debate whether Rizal did or did not retract the Catholic faith the day before
his historical death. The article being reviewed creates a wide view as to different
perspectives about the event wherein Rizal did re embrace Catholicism. One of them
being the Jesuits, who’s perspective was mainly led by Fr. Balaguer. He wrote personal
accounts in his affidavit as to what happened within the cell of Rizal. He pointed out that
Rizal did retract his faith. They handed Rizal a retraction template; faced many obstacles
such as revisions and religious debates with Rizal. Eventually, Rizal signed the document
and did retract. Masonry, an organization that Rizal joined, countered these Catholic
arguments saying that Rizal was too enlightened to be stiff and deliberately act this way
in an instant. Within the publication, we can ask “What is the Jesuit version's central
claim?”, “What is the main claim of the Cuerpo de Vigilancia version?”
Summarization

The article starts out with the Jesuits version of Rizal’s retraction. The Jesuits mainly took
care of Rizal’s religious needs because Manila’s archbishop, Bernardino Nozaleda told
them to do so. The Jesuits accepted as they saw Rizal as Ateneo’s “very distinguished
and dear pupil”. Jesuits that were sent to Rizal were Frs. Vicente Balaguer, Jose Vilaclera,
Estanislao March, Luis Visa, Federico Faura, and Miguel Saderra. Their main task was
to persuade Rizal to retract his anti – Catholic beliefs. It was Fr. Balaguer’s account that
was regarded as a primary resource. His account states that they talked about different
Catholic values and even debating about its system. One key event is Rizal allegedly
became soft when he was told he could not enter heaven unless he came back to the
Catholic faith. They met Rizal again at 10 o’clock in the evening and presented him with
2 retraction templates; Rizal rejected the first one as it was too long and rephrased the
2nd one which he signed. The version of the Jesuits faced challenges such as forgery and
motives of after-death slander. The Catholics then had to counter these allegations with
Fr. Manuel Garcia finding the original retraction document within the bundle called
Masoneria. The said document was reviewed by different educational figures like H. Otley
Beyer, a professor of anthropology at UP Diliman, being one of them. Most of them agreed
that the document was indeed written by Rizal. The claim faced challenges such as
differences of style in text and spellings than that of Rizal. The Cuerpo de Vigilancia had
a different version of the story. With lead inspector Moreno contradicting the account of
Fr. Belaguer as he was not mentioned even once within Moreno’s report. Moreno’s report
turned out to be a tide bringer to Fr. Belaguer and the Catholic church’s account. Though
the claim that Rizal did retract was mentioned among the two, Moreno’s report portrayed
it in a realistic and neutral point of view.

Criticism

The article was well networked and wired together. No grammatical nor logical confusions
can be taken from it. Rather, I see the text as a lighthouse in helping the coming
generations to understand Rizal’s life and the events that occurred before he died. The
article teaches its readers to look beyond their sources and inter connect with where their
source was mainly from.

Conclusion

The central claim of the Jesuits, if real, seemed too centered around their beliefs and their
propagandistic government. Yes, they do claim that Rizal retracted but they portray it in
a way where Rizal swiftly knelt down to their logic. This may be seen as a way to show
an example that going against the Spaniards would end it up in a tragic death with the
accused bowing down to them even in death. The Cuerpo de Vigilancia version however
shows the readers a neutral point of view; Rizal retracting and engaging in Catholic
activities. With that, I think that the issue does not affect the reputation of Rizal because
nonetheless, he died as a hero and a spark to Philippine history and revolution.