Some experts speculate that Asia may very well dominate the coming decades of Catholicism in much the same way that Latin America played a central role in so much of the post-conciliar period with the importance of the CELAM (Episcopal Conference of Latin America) conferences, the rise of liberation theology and the eventual inauguration of the first pope from the New World helping define the last half century.
If that proves to be the case and the Church continues to look eastward from Rome to learn from the experiences unfolding there, then India, China and the Korean peninsula will continue to impact Christianity and patterns of interreligious dialogue, as well as international economic and geo-political realities, for years to come.
But perhaps no nation will play a more pivotal role in this process than the Philippines, home to the third-largest Catholic population in the world, behind Brazil and Mexico. The ongoing influence of the very prominent (and eminently papabile) Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle is one element in such predictions, but certainly not the only factor.
September is an important month for both the 85 million Catholics in the Philippines and the enormous diaspora community living around the world.
First, the nation celebrates what is perhaps the most venerated Marian image in all of Asia, Our Lady of Peñafrancia, with devotions and novenas throughout the month. She is the patroness of the Bicol Region and its quasi-independent pilgrim city of Naga. The locals honor the Virgin on the Sunday after the octave of her birth on Sept. 8, and thus most of the month is in some way dedicated to her there. The famously elaborate and long Filipino Christmas celebrations that culminate in Simbang Gabi are in fact opened during the autumnal festival. Honoring Mary under this title has ties to Spain, but has been colored and inculturated by distinctly Filipino popular piety for generations.
In addition to this, on Sept. 28, the community celebrates the feast of their protomartyr, Saint Lorenzo Ruiz, the nation’s primary patron saint. The son of a Chinese father and Filipino mother, Ruiz married and had children before he was eventually falsely accused of murdering a Spanish colonizer and had to flee to Japan in 1636. He was arrested there in the company of Dominican missionaries and underwent the torment of the ana-tsurushi, the excruciating torture of being hung upside down in smoldering pits made famous to modern audiences in the novel and subsequent movie “Silence” by Shusaku Endo.
Ruiz’s unwillingness to betray the faith led Pope John Paul II to canonize him in 1987. Ruiz famously claimed that had he a thousand lives to offer God, he would willingly sacrifice them all for Him. Thus, one of the most famous biographical novels of his life and passion is titled “To Die a Thousand Deaths.”
The Catholic faith first arrived in the Philippines in 1521 along with the explorer Ferdinand Magellan, whose expedition baptized 800 of the locals just over 500 years ago. As with so many cultures and places (including our own) the untangling of the great missionary endeavors from the “Age of Exploration,” the “Scramble for Africa” and the colonization of foreign lands is a complex and perhaps ultimately impossible process. As with any cultural exchange, there are genuine positives and shocking negatives at play, but any sensible believer realizes that God did not arrive in the holds of the Portuguese and Spanish galleons when they landed on Filipino beaches, but rather had been present and active there since the dawn of time. And yet, the devotion of the Christian community that sprung forth from the seeds of evangelization planted there so many centuries ago continues to blossom into our day, and to bless the Universal Church in a myriad of ways.
While its political discourse under Duterte and the Marcoses dominates much of the Western media coverage of the archipelago nation in recent years, Filipino contributions to the history and lived expression of the faith are already immense and long-lasting, and may reach new heights in the years ahead.
Originally from Collingswood, Michael M. Canaris, Ph.D., teaches at Loyola University, Chicago.
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