The Catholic Church in the Philippines in One Hundred Years: from the Spanish colonial period to the end of the Marcos dictatorship 1886-1986

Abstract

The arrival of Christianity in the Philippines in the year 1521 marked the beginning of the centrality of the role that the Catholic faith plays in Philippine Society.In this study, the author looked at the evolution of the Church from 1886 to 1986 vis-a-vis the evolving modes of governments and regimes that have ruled the Philippines. Using Skopcol's Historical Institutionalism theory, the author analyzed the whats and whys of the actions of the Church, and tried to draw categorizations on the underlying reasons that provoked the Church to act as it did. The author arrived at three major categorizations- first that the Church acts in response to the "Signs of the Times"; second, that the Church follows the principal rule of critical collaboration; and third, that the Church acts based on its moral, institutional and political interests.