Comment: Rizal and the Friars

By Father Richard R. Mickley, C.D.O.S., Ph.D.


In reply to feedback and questions which have come to me by email since my blog about Rizal, 9/11, and modern-day terrorism, I offer the following comments.

I was restrained in that blog. I did not use Rizal’s stronger criticism of the friars. I chose to quote a mild comment by Rizal calling for respect for other people’s (religious) views.

But because I have been challenged to show more specifically how Rizal’s attitude is similar to and a springboard for my sex-positive attitude, I am writing more and quoting his stronger statement.

I use the word attitude because Rizal never heard of suicide bombings or suicide airplane crashes. The issues are different, but the attitude is comparable.

Therefore I call your attention to this very explicit criticism of the abuses of the friars of his time. He clearly is using the word “religion” here in the same way we use “religious extremism” today.

He was not condemning the whole religion. He was fighting the religious extremism of the friars that was causing “all the suffering and tears” of the Filipino people. He was not against the religion, but he was vehemently against the abuses.

He respected and got along well with the Jesuit missionaries, but the abuses of others were his target. (One Jesuit, in fact, asked him why he called the “Noli” a novel when it was a true to life description of things as they actually were.)

The last four years of his life he attended Mass regularly with the Jesuits in Dapitan. Two Jesuits, from his Ateneo days and his Dapitan days, accompanied him to his execution.

Likewise, if I may say, I pray the Mass everyday and respect and believe the teachings of the church which are not un-Biblical and unlike (contradictory to) Jesus’ life and message of love.

This assessment by Rizal of the friars of his time resonates with my assessment of the modern-day friars who are not brown or black-robed friars but colorfully-robed hierarchy in purple and red.

Everything that Rizal combats can easily be applied to my attitude toward their control of the lives of people today (of all faiths and non-faiths) with regard to such things as divorce, condoms, same-sex love, and justice for women.

Rizal about the Friars

“The friars utilize religion not only as a shield but also as a weapon… I was forced to attack their false and superstitious religion, to fight the enemy that hid behind it!...

God ought not to be utilized as a shield and protector of abuses, and less to use religion for such a purpose.

If the friars really had more respect for their religion, they would not use so often its sacred name and would not expose it to the most dangerous situations.

What is happening in the Philippines is horrible. They abuse the name of religion for a few pesos. They hawk religion to enrich their treasuries. [Imagine] Religion to perturb the peace of marriage and the family, if not to dishonor the wife!

Why should I should I not combat this religion with all my strength when it is the primary cause of all our sufferings and tears? The responsibility falls on those who abuse the name of religion!

Christ did the same to the religion of his country, to the Pharisees who had abused so much. (Letter to Blumentritt 1890)