Dates
The Philippine Independent
Church today celebrates the 90th anniversary of its proclamation. That
is, the church was proclaimed on Aug. 3, 1902; it was founded at some later
date. It seems strange that the church is not marking the day it was founded.
We surmise that this is because different dates can be plausibly proposed
for the foundation date, but everyone is agreed that on Aug. 3, 1902, Isabelo
de los Reyes, an ex-seminarian, lawyer, journalist and labor leader, delivered
a speech in which he proclaimed a church independent of the Vatican and
administered by Filipinos.
At that point, however,
Gregorio Aglipay may not have been ready to establish a church, say Pedro
Achutegui and Miguel Bernad in their book Religious Revolution in the Philippines:
The Life and Church of Gregorio Aglipay. They cite the letter De los Reyes
wrote to historiam James A. Robertson in 1908. In that letter, De los Reyes
described himself as ``the only true founder of the Philippine Church''
and stated that he ``was able to bring about this schism'' despite ``the
Filipino priests themselves, including Monsignor Aglipay, who on 20 of
that same August 1902 sent around a printed circular letter disapproving
the schism.''
By September 1902, however,
Aglipay had decided to cast his lot with the new church that was to bear
his name. On Sept. 22, there appeared the first of series of epistles that
would give form and organization to the new church. This first epistle
was signed by Aglipay as supreme bishop, De los Reyes as president of the
executive committee and Simeon Mandac as executive secretary. One could
thus argue for Sept. 22, 1902 as the foundation day of the church.
Other people could define
the foundation day as the date on which there was a formal rupture with
Rome. But this this contention merely leads to the argument of when that
rupture took place.
While the second Aglipayan
epistle (Sept. 23) declared that ``no schism exists,'' the third epistle
(Oct. 17) attacked certain Catholic doctrines. Some authors regard this
epistle as a formal rupture with Rome and would therefore be disposed to
consider this date as the foundation day of the church. Achutegui and Bernad
say, however, that this epistle presupposes that schism had already been
consummated.
The first bishop of the
Philippine Independent Church, strangely enough, was not Aglipay, but Pedro
Brillantes, who took the title of bishop of Ilocos Norte and established
his bishopric in Bacarra. Brillantes took possession of his diocese on
Oct. 1. Since this act is a sign of formal rupture with the Vatican, this
date could also be proposed as the foundation date of the church. Other
people could argue for Oct. 25-26, when the church was formally and solemnly
inaugurated in Tondo. On Oct. 26, Aglipay celebrated a pontifical mass
and delivered a sermon explaining the breakaway from Rome.
Still other writers hold
that the rupture with Rome took place on Dec. 8, when the Pope issued the
apostolic constitution Quae mari Sinico, which set forth the Vatican's
solutions to the church problems in the Philippines. The document did not
reserve bishoprics for Filipinos and it allowed priests belonging to religious
orders to remain as parish priests. The fifth Aglipayan epistle, issued
also on Dec. 8, rejected the apostolic constitution completely.
But do dates really matter?
What matters far more is
the extent to which a church -- as a body of doctrine, as a system of ritual
and symbol, and as a community of believers -- represents for its adherents
an authentic vehicle for responding to the call of transcendence.
To the true believer, this
is all that matters.