Daily Reading for September 5 • Gregorio Aglipay, Priest and Founder of the Philippine Independent Church, 1940
Primary among mainstream indigenous religious movements is Father Aglipay’s church, the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) which in a real sense was the fruition of the friar prejudice against Filipinos, especially the native priests. The IFI’s roots were planted in a bedrock reaction against the execution of the three martyr priests in 1872 and were nurtured in the soil of Philippine nationalism. In the spiritual vacuum created by the forced and abrupt departure of the Spanish friars, the schism grew rapidly, especially because in its earliest days the new church made no claim to a radical theology but simply separated the Philippine church from the authority of Rome. While most native priests were hesitant to affiliate with the schismatic movement and feared being accused of heresy, Aglipay was joined by some clerics, especially those from his native region of the Ilocano provinces to the north. Aglipay was also supported by a number of secular nationalist leades who had been involved in the failed fight against the United States, so the IFI became a conduit channeling the smoldering embers of the lost nationalist cause. Soon, however, the new church introduced practices within the culture’s folk tradition, such as formally making Jose Rizal and the three martyr priests from 1872 saints of the new church. To this day, nationalist icons of various sorts are displayed in many IFI churches.
Over time Father Aglipay’s personal theological beliefs became identified with Unitarianism even while the majority of his priests and followers remained firmly in the Roman Catholic tradition. After Aglipay’s death in 1940 and the conclusion of the Second World War, a struggle broke out within the IFI over its theological direction. Eventually, those priests identified with mainline Christian values emerged supreme, and by 1960, the church had reformed its doctrinal beliefs to a sufficient degree so that it entered into an alliance with the American Episcopal Church.
From Culture and Customs of the Philippines by Paul Rodell (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002).