Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Summary of Phelan's Hispanization of Phil.
Summary of Phelan's Hispanization of Phil.
- Formalejo
- De Villa
- Gle
- Nieva
- Paredog
This chapter described the arrival of the Spanish missionaries in the archipelago
and their interactions with the people of the Philippines.Through their complex contacts
with the episcopacy and civil authority, the regular clergy of the Spanish Church played
a vital part in the blending of the cultures of the Philippines and Spain.
The newly established Church of the Indies was placed under the control of the
Spanish Crown, which assigned regular clergy the task of converting people to
Christianity. Compared to secular clergy who constituted parish clergy in established
Christian communities, regular clergy had higher standards of discipline and asceticism,
making them better equipped for missionary activity. The establishment of religious
orders in the nation was made possible by the Spanish mission of evangelizing and
converting the Filipino people to Catholicism. The Filipino people interact with different
friar orders from Legazpi's arrival in 1565 until the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. These religious orders included the Augustinians, Franciscans,
AugustinianRecollects, Dominicans, and Jesuits. Of the enumerated orders, the
Augustinians and the Franciscans were the earliest to arrive thus cementing their
foothold in Manila and the other Luzon areas. Two issues were at stake. One was
tenure of benefices by the regulars. The other was the claim of the bishops to supervise
the conduct of regulars in their role as parish clergy, like the right of ecclesiastical
visitation.
The Augustinians faced a disciplinary crisis similar to the one that demoralized
other mendicant orders. Salvador Gomez de Espinosa, a member of the Audiencia,
reported widespread abuses among all regular orders, including the Augustinians. His
"Discurso parenetico" was suppressed and destroyed due to political concerns.
Although abuses among all orders cannot be ignored, they should not be exaggerated.
Infractions of the vow of poverty, where clergy profited from their elevated status, may
not have caused outrage among Filipinos, but their mercantile activities discouraged
their fellow clergymen. During the Middle Ages, maintaining ecclesiastical discipline was
a significant challenge for the Church. Monastic and conventual orders sought to
address this by living together in communities, which helped maintain high standards of
asceticism. However, communal controls were not always effective, and the majority of
religious were scattered across the Philippines, with only the strong-willed and inflexibly
dedicated maintaining their calling. This led to some going astray, but more did not.
Finally, Spain's attempts to transform religion encountered difficulties and obstacles.
Nonetheless, the gains made in the Philippines by religious conquest were made
possible by their resourcefulness and knowledge from their colonies in Mexico and
Peru.