When Catholicism Meets Animism
Notes on folk Catholicism
Christianity has had a long and painful history in the Philippines. It has been criticized for cases of exploitation, oppression, and corruption.1 That said, more than 80% of Filipinos identify as Catholic,2 and we celebrated 500 years of the faith in 2021. One wonders, therefore, how it is possible that a colonial religion still resonates with the majority today, and how it is actually practiced.
While we recognize that Christianity was imposed upon us, we can also recognize how quickly it was accepted by our pre-colonial ancestors, likely due to the fact that it had some similarities to the spirituality that we already had—such as the existence of a supreme being and various minor deities (e.g. anitos, saints, etc.)3 As time went on, Christianity became deeply ingrained in cultural consciousness.
Philippine folk Christianity is an indigenous form of spirituality that uses church symbolism to create a uniquely Filipino mysticism. That said, the use of the term “folk” in academic literature seems to create a perceived dichotomy between traditional, Westernized, and educated elite versus rural, pagan, and uneducated.4 So, a better term might be Christianized animism.5
Embracing the syncretic nature of Filipino spirituality and exploring its many metaphors allows us to access the underlying truth of mystical phenomena. The priest-psychologist Fr. Jaime C. Bulatao often applied the techniques and processes of traditional healing in his psychological practice, thereby recognizing the effectiveness of traditional healers in addressing Filipino expressions of what modern psychiatry might call “mental illness.”6
The Philippine Catholic Church has had its share of controversy. In Jose Rizal’s novels, corrupt friars feature prominently as villainous characters, symbols of colonial power in the Spanish era. There have been reported cases of sexual abuse and other forms of misconduct. Hypocrisy among the clergy prompted former president Rodrigo Duterte to hurl an insult at them, asking, “Who is this stupid God?”
Philippine Statistics Authority (2021). 2021 Philippines in figures.
Macaranas, J.R.G. (2021). Understanding folk religiosity in the Philippines. Religions, 12(10), 800.
Nelmida-Flores, M.C. (2021). The folk in Filipino folk Christianity. Banwaan, 1(1), 1-28.
I first read this term in Resil B. Mojares’ House of Memory (Anvil Publishing, 1997), though it may have already used before.
Bulatao described this process in his 1982 paper, Local cases of possession and their cure, published in Philippine Studies, vol. 30, no. 3.