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Pre-Baptismal Instruction and the Administration of Baptism in the Philippines during the Sixteenth Century*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
Magellan’s abortive attempts to introduce baptism among the natives of the island of Cebu during the month of April of 1521 and the more successful efforts of the Spanish missionaries to preach the Gospel following the arrival of the Legazpi-Urdaneta expedition at Cebu on February 13, 1565 occurred during the initial and the culminating chapters respectively of the “spiritual conquest” of those native peoples of America and the Far East who were to enter the orbit of Spanish culture. During April of 1521, as Magellan was transforming himself into a lay missionary, Hernán Cortés was making the final preparations for the siege of Tenochtitlán. Its successful issue on August 13, 1521 laid the foundation not only of the Spanish Empire in the New World, but also it provided the Spaniards with the base of operations from which eventually they could extend their power to the Philippines. It was Cortés’ conquest of the Aztec Confederation in 1521 which enabled the Catholic missionaries of Spain to undertake one of the most extensive expansions in the history of the Christian Church. In 1565 the Spanish Church for its Philippine enterprise was able to draw upon a vast storehouse of missionary experience acquired in both North and South America. Magellan’s apostolic labors, ill-starred and brief though they were, exemplify many of the permanent features of the Spanish missionary enterprise. The Magellan episode also illustrates how his successors after 1565 did in fact profit from the Circumnavigator’s errors of judgment and tactics.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1955
Footnotes
The author, John Leddy Phelan, is a Fellow in Philippine Studies at the Newberry Library where he is doing research on a book dealing with the “spiritual conquest” of the Philippines, 1565–1648. In THE AMERICAS, X (January, 1954), 354, there is a notice about the Philippine Studies Program which is being subsidized by the Carnegie Foundation.
References
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44 The figure of 250,000 baptisms is contained in the report from the Manila community that Alonso Sánchez, S. J., carried to Spain in 1586. Blair, and Robertson, , op. cit., VI, 185–186 Google Scholar. The 250,000 figure may be a somewhat optimistic estimate based on anticipated baptisms for the following years. The Manila colony through its envoy, Sánchez, petitioned for a whole series of concessions from the Crown. The bigger the spiritual harvest of which the new colony could boast, the more generous might be Philip II. Sánchez’s figure of 250,000 could be reduced to 200,000 without being false to the achievements of the missionaries. Grijalva claims 146,400 natives under the care of the Augustinians as of 1586. This figure may be accurate not only because of the general reliability of its author but also because this figure is demographically plausible and in conformity with the number of friars then in the Philippines (96) and the methods employed in pre-baptismal instruction. Grijalva, , op. cit., pp. 167, 171, 194, 205 Google Scholar. If the Grijalva figure is accepted, then it is highly improbable the Franciscans had baptized 110,000. There is substantial evidence to indicate that the Franciscans had baptized not more than 30,000 by 1586. See the following footnote.
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