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Father
Dehon Visits The Philippines Selections from his Diary
INTRODUCTION
On his
seven-month journey around the world Father Leo Dehon was able to spend only
three days in the Philippines. From such a short visit we should not expect
that he gained any extensive understanding of the islands or its people. The
dozen or so pages in his travel journal yield no startling insights or
remarkable observations.
Yet the
very fact that he went to the Philippines is remarkable in itself. His trip
there was quite deliberate, it was not merely a stopover on his way to
another destination. He sailed from China on December 1, 1910 and returned
to China ten days later: seven days of travel for a three-day visit!
He
doesn’t explicitly mention his reasons for the visit but there are hints to
be found in his journal entries. He was interested in learning how the local
church was coping after the recent departure of the Spanish missionaries. He
voiced concern over the inroads that Protestants were making among the
Catholic population. He expressed the made note of the fact that the
Filipino young men who entered the seminary became excellent priests.
Without coming out and saying it, he seems to have had his eye on the
Philippines as a potential mission for the Priests of the Sacred Heart.
This
never happened during his lifetime but now, seventy-five years after his
death, the ministry has begun and is prospering. I offer these few pages of
observations to the “sons of Father Dehon” in the Philippines as a reminder
that the Founder went there before you and you are following in his
footsteps on Philippine soil.
THE PHILIPPINES
(Notes
Quotidiennes XXX, 161 -- 174)
I
arrived in Manila on the 5th of December. Bishop
Manila
(162)
I spent three wonderful days there. Bishop Agius was one of the most
distinguished prelates in the Vatican diplomatic corps. Maltese by birth, he
knew several languages and was a member of the Benedictine order.
Unfortunately, he was going to die within a year. He had a difficult
assignment, he had to reorganize the clergy of the Philippines which had
been decimated by the departure of the Spaniards. There are eight million
Catholics there, which makes it the only Catholic nation in Asia, but there
are very few priests.
Everything is made more difficult by the lack of resources. The new
government confiscated the church’s possessions. They gave several millions
as indemnity, but the large old orders who were already there — the
Dominicans, (163) the Augustinians, the Recollects — have kept almost
all of it. The Holy See was given two million, but what is that when they
have to support a church of eight million lay people?
Priests
are in short supply. Bishop Agius is appealing to the religious
congregations, but they don’t have the resources to supply any. Some
American priests came to try to help, but they soon left because the weather
was too hot and the living conditions were too primitive.
I went
to see Bishop Petrelli, the former secretary of the Papal Delegate. He has
become the bishop of Lipa, a diocese of half a million Catholics and only
seventy priests, half of whom are in poor health. The good bishop has some
towns of twenty thousand souls and no priest; he finds this very
distressing.
(164) The Protestants
are aware of this situation and are taking advantage of it. They have
brought in a large number of pastors, and it is said that they have already
won over about 100,000 souls to the Protestant religion. But they readily
add people’s names to their rolls without really converting them.
The
Jesuits run a large high school called the
Ateneo which is very successful.
The rector, Father Claus, showed us around the chapel and the library. He
also drove us to town in a small carnage drawn by some good little horses.
We rode through the Plaza Mayor where a statue of Charles IV is a reminder
of the past. We are going to see the large boarding school of the Sisters of
the Sacred Heart, which also has medical and research laboratories.
(165) It’s a first-class American
establishment. Father Lefèvre of the Scheut Fathers does some amateur
research there; he showed us cholera and plague organisms under a magnifying
glass. Brrr! I was afraid that some particles would get loose and attach
themselves to me. This lab prepares and sells every imaginable kind of
serum. The Scheut Fathers have a parish on the outskirts of town and some
missions on the island.
Everyone we met was dressed in white. The clothing was made of light-weight
material, like serge or muslin. The Malaysian race is dominant, but in the
city there are also several thousand Spaniards and mestizos and a number of
Chinese. Different dialects are spoken throughout the islands, and in the
mountains (166) there are tribes of Dayaks, a half-savage race of
indigenous people who are very tall and almost white in complexion. They
still adhere to fetishist religious practices.
It’s
hot in Manila! The temperature varies between 21°C and 32°C, but everyone
takes a bath daily.
Visited
the Tabacalera, a large industrial
complex where they make cigars and cigarettes. The management are all
distinguished gentlemen or hidalgos
who represent the wealthy class of Barcelona. Their workshops are quite
interesting. We watched them prepare, dry, and classify the tobacco leaves,
and then they turned them into all sorts of cigars and cigarettes. Their
cigarette manufacturing employs all the various processes: they use American
machines, (167) French machines, and they roll them by hand as well.
The machine-made cigarettes come out completely finished one after another,
and they are much faster and more exact than the hand-made. 150,000 cigars
are made there in a day, and so many cigarettes!
We
returned to the high school in the evening for benediction and the novena in
preparation for the feast of the Immaculate Conception. The sermon, the
singing, and the decorations were all done in the very solemn style that the
Jesuits are known for. The facade of the chapel and its towers were also
brilliantly lit up and could be seen by the whole town.
Excursions
The next day Bishop Agius himself wanted to
escort us around by car. If we had limited ourselves to the city we would
not have had a very accurate understanding of the Philippines. (168)
Manila is a large Spanish city of 200,000 souls. The suburbs immediately
reveal the distinctive characteristics of the country there are wealthy
homes with superb gardens, but there are also poorly constructed houses that
are very primitive. A couple of poles and some matting becomes a house with
a roof made out of palm branches. I was told that it costs about 50 francs
to build such a house.
It is so hot in the countryside, but the living
is easy-going. Fruits grow abundantly and are quite inexpensive. But it’s
clear that if the Church does not have an endowment, it would be necessary
to rely on the support of these poor people, and the priests’ living
conditions would not be very comfortable. We toured the suburbs of Binondo,
Tondo, and (169) Santa Ana where a pilgrimage was underway in honor
of this good saint.
The
Chinese are quite numerous. They run laundries and some other small
businesses, but the Malaysians have not allowed them to introduce the use of
rickshaws here for fear that this would cause a drop in the income of the
coachmen whose nervous but nimble little horses merrily make their way
through the streets. We went to Fort McKinley which is a fully equipped
American military base set up in a beautiful location. The barracks are
scattered over an immense and nicely wooded park. The officers’ quarters are
graciously adorned with verandas shaded by clinging ivy and flowering
orchids. (170) At six o’clock a trumpet sounds to salute the flag as
ft is lowered for the night. It is customary that everyone on the roads near
the camp comes to a stop and salutes. It’s a sort of military and civic
“Angelus.”
When we
returned to the city music filled the Place de Ia Luneta and a large crowd
had gathered. At the house the rosary was recited in common before supper,
which is customary among all Filipino families. It was December 7, the feast
of Saint Ambrose, the patron of Bishop Agius. Best wishes, flowers, and
gifts were pouring in; the newspapers offered their best wishes. Bishop
Agius is very popular.
(171) Before our
departure there was a little party to which the bishop invited several
guests. Who could have foreseen that Providence was preparing to cut off his
life in just a few more months! We were getting ready to leave this Venice
of the Tagalog. The bishop accompanied us as we reboarded
The Korea. The illustrious
directors of the Tabacalera also
came to bid us farewell and sent us off with boxes of their finest cigars. I
thanked them, but have no intention of smoking them. A group of native
musicians came on board before our departure, playing on the cello, guitar,
and mandolin. It was a lovely gesture and very southern. What a contrast to
the stiffness of the north!
(172)
The Archipelago
We
sailed along the coast, then gradually off in the distance we saw the bare
volcanic mountain tops. The archipelago of the Philippines is spread over a
length of 1,500 kilometers, and is made up of 1,200 islands of varying sizes
which are populated by eight million people, most of whom are Malaysian. The
Spanish missionaries had done good work there, just as they had done in
Latin America. But they had become rather lax since the 18th century, and
their expulsion seems to be a punishment of divine Providence.
The
Philippines are located in one of the most unstable places on the earth’s
crust, which the many volcanoes and frequent earthquakes attest to. The
climate is very hot, (173) but consistent, from an average of 25°C in
January to 29°C in May. The natural vegetation is averse and plentiful. One
variety of banana yields abaca or
Manila hemp, a fiber that is quite suited to making ropes, hats, and
clothing. The principal agricultural products are rice, coffee, sugar cane,
and tobacco. Coconuts are also grown for the oil which is extracted from the
nut. There are great varieties of fruits; the oranges are delicious and the
papayas are refreshing.
It is
said that the population of the Philippines contains no less than 84 peoples
or tribes who speak different languages. This does not make the
missionaries’ work any easier. (174) The blacks, who number about
25,000, are probably the most primitive; they survive by hunting, and some
of them live in trees. The “maros” on the islands of Sulu and Mindanao are
Muslims, and they are the most recent to arrive. The “tagals”, who are
Malaysian, are a resourceful and intelligent race; they number seven million
and all of them are Catholic. If only they could become apostles for the
whole of southern Asia where the Malaysian peoples are dominant! The priest
who is rector of the seminary in Manila told us that with a proper education
they can be made into very good priests.
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