Filipinos and the Catholic Church

Filipino Culture

The Philippines is a band of islands running north to south between the South China Sea and the Philippine Sea. The country lies to the south of Taiwan, the east of Vietnam and to the north of Indonesia. Prior to colonization by the West in the 16th century, the Philippines consisted primarily of individual tribes. With the Spanish takeover, these tribes were either conquered or converted to Catholicism and brought under the secular rule of the Spanish crown and the spiritual rule of the Roman pontiff. This paper will describe the cultural experience of what is still today Catholic Philippines and what that experience is like.

The Philippines is very much a combination of Eastern and Western cultures, as it consists of an Asian people who have been settled and colonized by Western societies for centuries. Thus, there is a major Catholic presence and culture in the Philippines that is as much a part of the dominant culture as Catholicism is in South and Central America. According to the country's 2014 census, 90% of Filipinos are Christian (Philipppines in Figures, 2014). The origin of this major Catholic group in the Philippines begins with the arrival of the Spanish 500 years ago. They are the ones who brought the religion of the West to the Philippines. The Spanish ruled the region for nearly 3 centuries, introducing European art and architecture, churches, schools, and ways of life to the islands. A predominant Spanish style is still very much evident in the daily life and structures of the Philippines.

The Spanish-Catholic culture in the Philippines started with the arrival Magellan, the famous explorer who sailed East for the Spanish crown. The ruler of Cebu converted to the religion of Magellan, prompting wars among the natives. More settlers from Spain arrived and turned the Philippines into New Spain in much the same way the Englanders turned parts of North America into New England. The Spanish incorporated the feudal system into life in the Philippines. The King of Spain was considered king of the Philippines and governed via a representative of the crown. This lasted until the 20th century when the Spanish-American War brought the U.S. into control of the Philippines, which did not sit well with much of the Filipino Catholic population.

In the 20th century, the Philippines went through a cultural change as much of the world did -- modernizing itself in terms of embracing new ideas about women's role in society, birth control, government, etc. While on the surface, the Philippines is still very much a Catholic country, many of the principles of Catholicism have been corrupted and Catholics in the country have accepted ideas that one hundred years prior they would have rejected on the basis of them being offensive to their Faith. Today, there is a significant reconciliation between the modern spirit and the Old World Catholic spirit that can be seen in Philippines' Catholic culture -- from drug use to graft to bribery of officials to pornography, birth control and drinking (UCA, 2013).

Thus, while there are still many Catholic churches all over the Philippines and much Spanish architecture that still survives, the culture of the Philippines has modernized to a high degree so that the Old World culture has been displaced and new, modern ideas about life are every -- in politics, in schools, in entertainment, and even in the way the Church itself conducts its parishes, since the Second Vatican Council promoted its own aggiornamento around the world (Coomaraswamy, 2006, p. 400). In the Philippines, the Catholic culture is still very woven into the fabric of Filipino society, but the fabric itself has changed over the past one hundred years -- mainly because of U.S. imperialism and the incorporation of new, modern ideas about life.

References

Coomaraswamy, R. (2006). The Destruction of the Christian Tradition. IN: World

Wisdom.

Philippines in Figures. (2014). National Statistics Office. Retrieved from http://web0.psa.gov.ph/sites/default/files/2014%20PIF.pdf

UCA. (2013). Bishop lambasts corrupt Filipino Catholics. UCANews. Retrieved from http://www.ucanews.com/news/bishop-lambasts-corrupt-filipino-catholics/69809