Disobedient but Faithful. An Argument Against the Classic View of the Priest in the Period of Spanish Rule in the Philippines

The Classic ViewThe priest, particularly the Spanish friar, has been represented in the standard studies of the Philippines between 1565 and 1898 as seemingly omnipotent and omnipresent.Indeed I subscribed to this view myself when I did my research and doctoral writing on the history off Samar in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.I would label this pervasive viewpoint as the classic view, easily summed up in the statement that "the parish priest `had by necessity to be all for all,' to be present `in all aspects of social life ... in all that happened' in the pueblo." 1 As a foreign observer suggested, the classic view included both local power and the role of the parish priest as buffer between the Filipino and the provincial governor: 2 "... the Padre is the only resort against the brutality of a[n alcalde] mayor who does not understand them: on every occasion he serves them as defender and interpreter.Woe to the [alcalde] mayor who does not know his place and does not know how to get into the good graces of such an influential man

Aesthetics · Argument (complex analysis · Epistemology · Period (music · Chemistry · Philippine History and Culture · Philosophy

• Producing “Idolatry

  Nicholas Michael Sy•Philippiniana Sacra•2021

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