Understanding Culture, Society and Politics

1. Folk Catholicism in the Philippines
By: Frank Lynch
From one point of view, the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines may be
characterized as a highly complicated bureaucracy, with levels and divisions sufficient in
number and shades of distinction to boggle the mind. But this is not the peole’s view.
For most Filipino Catholics—and the word “most” immediately means the rural, the poor,
and the poorly educated—the Catholic Church is the local simbahan, the clergy is the one
or two priests they may have met but rarely approach, the hierarchy (if they are aware of
it at all) is the local bishop, and the pope is probably an unknown entity.1 This is not said
in alarm or disparagingly. It is reported as a reasonably well-established fact, and
with the personal conviction that deficiencies in these matters are no cause for alarm.
Balancing this general unfamiliarity with the official Church structure and its incumbents
are a remarkable average frequency of attendance at mass (Lynch and Makil 1968), in
an extraordinarily high place accorded the virtue of trust in God (Porio et. Al 1975, 41–
44), and a traditional year-round mixing of culture and religion that has produced the folk
Catholicism of the Philippines.
It is this unique blend of official Catholic ritual and belief, peninsular Spanish and Mexican
additives, and the preexistent Malay base that I wish to describe in middle-distance
details. I shall do this by asking, and answering, two basic questions to which any folk
religion must respond, namely how does this folk system make the Filipino more
religious? And in what way does it make him a better Filipino?
The Concept of Folk Catholicism
Before reviewing the various ways in which the Church and Philippine culture have
adapted to each other, we do well to look more closely at the notion of folk Catholicism.
It is a term that merits accurate definition, for only if the limits of its coverage are clear will
one understand why certain traiditional beliefs qualify as elements of folk Catholicism
while others do not.
We can begin with the statement that, in the concrete, that is, in real-life situations, one
may find in any organized religion components which are officials, nonofficial, and folk,
Wether the system in question be Catholicism, Protestantism, or Islam, the behavior and
beliefs of its adherents will have some elements that are orthodox, others that are officially
neither prescribed nor recommended but nonetheless of common occurrence, and still
others that, while also unofficial, have the added note of popular or folk origin.
The key to the distinction between official and nonofficial if sound in notion of normative,
in the sense of “ agreeing with an established and morally imposed standard.” This is not
to say that no unofficial or folk components will be considered obligatory or prescribed by
the people where they are found; on the contrary, they are frequently viewed as at least
as important as official elements, and sometimes as even more necesary for the integrity

2. of the ritual or belief. Nnor is it to say that the officially normative will always be the total
community’s ideal religious pattern. The community’s ideal will, as a matter of fact, often
deviate from the official ideal, and idelas will differ, in turn, from community to community.
However, we can very usefully define official Catholicism, for instance, as doctrine, ritual,
and administrative organization proposed, approved, or maintained as normative by
officially designated authority.
“Normative” here embraces both the prescribed and the recommended, as distinguished
from elements which are tolerated, disapproved, or demned. These latter elements
constitue the nonofficial component, and are represented in the concrete by beliefs and
practices which are viewed by officially designated church authority as respectively
harmless, suspect, or clearly unorthodox. It is evident from this range that term “
catholicism” is applied in a different sense to the official component on the one hand, and
to the unoffical on the other, and with strikingly different degrees of looseness to the
categories placed under the latter component, namely the tolerated, the disapproved, and
the condemned. In this broadest “sense, and to cover all categories in the continuum from
prescribed to condemned, the rubric Catholicism may be taken for beliefs and practices
which are either orthodox or are obliquely derived from, or manifested in the context and
under the name of Catholicism, regardless of orthodoxy.
Suggested continuum of concrete religious behavior:
Official Nonofficial
Prescribed Recommended Tolerated Disapproved Condemned
Universal Folk
Particular Nonfolk
Folk Catholicism includes the three nonofficial categories mentioned above, but only
where the belief is of popular derivation and use, and is sanctioned as traditional in the
community where it obtains. This restriction reserves for separate consideration apart
from folk religion those innovations and deviations which may be incipient folk-religious
elements, but have not yet won community acceptance.
Returning to the official component, it should be noted that the Roman Catholic Church
includes both an Eastern and a Western branch united under the Roman Pontiff. While
prescribed belief and the essential elements in certain rites (the sacraments) are universal
or worldwide, there is considerable variation in liturgy, church law, and practice. Within
the Western or Latin branch, moreover, there are further differences in rites. In Latin
America and the Philippines, for example, one finds the Toledo or Mozarabic rite in the
marriage ceremony, instead of the Roman rite familiar to most Catholics of the United
States, Canada, and Western Europe. Another example of official but particular, as
distinguished from universal, Catholicism can be found in the rule of Friday abstinence.
There was a time when Catholics were forbidden by universal Church law to eat meat on
Fridays. However, all of Spain’s former colonies nonetheless enjoyed the privilege
conferred on Spain for her participation in the crusades, namely, exemption most of the
year from the Friday abstinence. Elements belonging to official Catholicism, then, maybe
either universal or particular in their extension.

3. But the concrete religious behavior (beliefs, attitudes, practices) of a Catholic is a function
not only of official doctrine and practice, universal or particular, but also of the culture in
which he was reared, and the community in which he dwells. The nonofficial component
of his Catholicism will derive not only from the cultural peculiarities of his environment
and his own idiosyncrasies, but from those embellishments as well which are due to the
agent which introduced Catholicism to his people. Thus Latin American folk Catholicism
is in large part a transplanted and transformed peninsular Spanish Catholicism, while
Filipino folk Catholicism is the local development of both of these sources. Knowing what
constitutes the orthodox elements of a particular belief or practice, and knowing as well
the added ideas or behavior that are traceable to Spain or Mexico or the tradition of one
religious order or another, we should be able to recognize in various religious phenomena
the residual elements due to the local version of Philippine culture.
Folk Catholicism and Philippine Society
The central message of Catholicism, like that of Christianity in general, is one of twofold
love—love of God and love of neighbor. Kindness, respect, and compassion for one’s
fellow human beings, particularly those who are on one’s side or (alternatively) are in
need of assistance, also figure prominently in those Philippine cultures of which we have
some knowledge. In the broadest sense, then, Christianity provides additional motivation
for the observance of an old cultural imperative—and for its extension beyond the
traditional segment boundaries (loving one’s enemies is certainly not a pre-Spanish trait).
Beyond this very general relation of Catholicism to culture, there are three particular areas
that deserve attention. For from the social scientists’ viewpoint the new religion has
reinforced community and family solidarity in various ways, and has also seen its own
institutions influenced and modified in turn by local social patterns. We confine ourselves
to these three copies, since we have already treated the social and economic implications
of the town fiesta elsewhere (sec LynchI 62).2
Community Solidarity
Religion has often been referred to as a divisive force. Certainly the history of mankind
provides numerous examples of conflicts which began or were continued in its name. To
mention the subject is to be reminded at once of the crusades, for example. Even in the
Philippines of 1975, there are those who appeal to religious loyalty in their attempts to fan
the flames of Muslim-Christian distrust and enmity in the troubled provinces of Bukidnon,
North Cotabato, and elsewhere in Mindanao.
There is no doubt that, paradoxically, religion can be an effective instrument for turning
the children of God against one another.
This is not the place to discuss how such uses of religion and religious commitment are
in fact abuses of a good thing, nor to explain how Christianity, for example, contains the
antidote for the virus of dissension and hate. Rather, let us accept that people often

4. do use religion for their own ends, consciously or unconsciously, in clearly reprehensible
ways. We shall consider instead what the situation is in those Philippine municipalities
where the population is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. Since 85 percent of the
nation claim membership in this Church, we shall be describing the majority of
municipalities. It is understood, nonetheless, that in those places dominated by Muslims
or Aglipayans, folk Islam or folk Aglipayanism will probably serve similar functions.
The sense of community sharing is supported and expressed by attendance at official
church services such as mass on Sundays and holy days, novenas, and the rites
celebrated on the occasion of baptisms, marriages, and funerals. However, these
activities, prescribed or recommended, are supplemented and overshadowed in
socializing intensity by various folk• religious ceremonies. Most of these traditional
observances are of Spanish folk origin, but have received local elaboration and
embellishment.
The Christmas season. The novena of dawn masses, or misas de gallo, draws more the
comm ofunity co the church at one time than any otherevent in the local religion’s
calendar, with the possible exception of the high mass of the town fiesta, or the Good
Friday or Maundy Thursday services. The misa de aguinaldo, or Christmas midnight
mass, is the climax of the Misas de gallo, and fills the church to overflowing; it is the year’s
high point in church attendance. By this very fact of bringing the people together the
Christmas religious celebrations stimulate community solidarity.
However, they do more than this, for the official services have been supplemented by
social usages which, if not strictly religious in nature, may be considered so by context
(see the definition above of folk Catholicism). Reference is to the customary gatherings
in the church patio or the plaza after the misa de gallo, and to the family repast after the
Christmas midnight mass. The general mixing in the first instance makes for stronger
community feelings within age—or generation—grades, while the second custom—that
of the noche buena, or media noche–strengthens family ties. In both cases the religious
gathering becomes the context of the social.
Kin visiting is associated in a special way with the three feasts of Christmas, New Year’s
(Santo Nino), and the Three Kings (Tres Reyes, January 6). In this two-week period the
community seems at any given moment to be comprised entirely of guests and hosts;
everyone is visiting or receiving. Kin—blood, affinal, and ceremonial—are all visited in
turn if opportunity permits, and the children especially are urged to go see their
godparents. The child is brought into pleasant and rewarding contact with relatives,
honoring all its elders with a respectful kiss (or forehead-touch) of the hand. This has the
effect of reinforcing and perpetuating kin ties and their accompanying feelings of trust and
responsibility thus strengthening the thread of which community solidarity is woven.
Processions. At various times of the year, but especially during Holy Week, the month
of May, and the time of the town fiesta, processions bring the townspeople together as
participants or observers. The Santakrusan of a moderately large barrio is probably more
effective as a socializing influence than any other procession in the year, since it closes

5. with a merienda for all participants, and these include men, women, and children. The
Flores de Mayo procession and services have become the affair of women and children,
while the Holy Week and town fiesta processions tend to become either sincere
dramatic enterprises, opportunities for the fulfillment of a vow, or competitive displays.
Community solidarity is promoted, but it is by appeal and support, straining action and
silent or vocal encouragement, by participants on the one hand, and sidelines on the
other. This solidarity between chose who march and those who watch is clearly expressed
in the lighted candle held on the sidelines or placed in the windows of homes on the route
of the procession.
The Lenten season. During the Lenten season the community is brought together for
several folk-religious practices which have been described else where (Lynch 1956) in
detail, namely, the pabasa ng pasiyon, or reading of the passion, and the senakulo, or
popular passion play. The first includes a merienda and an opportunity for socializing,
both or which may occupy the majority of chose who attend far more than do the
seemingly endless verses of the vernacular pasiyon. This reading, or chanting, of the
passion is, to my knowledge, found only in the Philippines. It was apparently initiated by
early missionaries who capitalized on the widespread, pre-Spanish custom of chanting
lengthy local epics. In those communities which present the senakulo with a cast drawn
from the townspeople, the weeks of rehearsal and preparation demand the active
cooperation of many in the common effort. Where traveling professionals present the
senakulo, community feelings are still bolstered and expressed in the gatherings for the
performances, and for attendant refreshments. But when the drama is presented by the
local people, it is clearly more significant as a factor for community solidarity than is the
professional innovation.
Feast of the dead. The folk-feast of undas (from the Spanish honras, “obsequies”) is
occasioned by the feast of All Souls (November 2). It brings the people of the town
together at the cemetery and in its vicinity, beginning in the afternoon or early evening of
November 1. Since many barrios bury their dead in the cemetery which is attached to the
poblacion parish church, town and barrio folk come into contact—or at least juxtaposition
and mutual observation—on this occasion. As in the preparations for Christmas, and for
the town fiesta, when visitors and returning kin are expected to flood the town, so for
undas large numbers of the community go to the cemetery early November 1 to clean
and whitewash the tombs or niches occupied by their deceased kinsmen, and to help in
cutting the weeds and grass that disfigure the common areas of the kamposanto. It is the
community as such that muse make a favorable impression on those who will pay their
respects at the cemetery. The local group is on display, and it makes a common effort not
to seem too dowdy co its children returned from the city.
Life-crisis ceremonies. The three major life-crisis ceremonies of baptism, marriage, and
burial are the occasion and context for important social activities. Elsewhere (Lynch
1956), in the section on the typical religious biography, the local elaboration of the
compadrazgo, or co-parenthood system, has been described. It was there noted that
whereas church law provides for at most two baptismal godparents, it is common in some
parts of the Philippines, such as the Tagalog area, for the child’s parents to invite others

6. to be katuwang, or cosponsors. In this way the parents can intensify or create a significant
relationship with a great number of people, for the kumpare bond is tended even to the
brothers and sisters of the katuwang. A small community derives notable solidarity from
this far-flung web of ritual kinship.
Marriage is the joining of two extended families, symbolized and sealed by the union in
matrimony of a representative couple. Since the tendency in the Philippines is toward
geographical endogamy, crosscutting marriages even in a fairly large town will eventually
unite much of the community• but generally within one or other of the two social classes,
upper or lower. In the rural areas (generally not in the cities) the wedding banquets, at the
home of the bride, and then at the home of the groom, are often public affairs to which all
are invited. These are occasions on which the community members renew their
acquaintance with one another.
The wake, or Lamay, and the nine-day padasal (prayers) following the burial have a
similar function. The customary game of forfeits (juegode prenda, Sp.) is a convenient
framework within which the community, or part of it, can give public recognition to an
individual’s talent as a singer, guitarist, or perhaps an impersonator. It also provides an
occasion for the young men and women to come to know one another better, or publicly
to taunt some blushing couple about their budding romance.
Summary. In conclusion, it can be stated that the sharing of official religious belief and
practice strengthens and supports the sense of oneness in the average local community.
Further, certain official observances become the occasion of traditional social practices
which also tend to unite the town or barrio folk. Finally, there are folk-religious customs
which operate almost independently of official supervision; in these observances (such
as the Santakrusan, pabasa, undas, the coparenthood system in its extended, non•official
form, the lamay, and padasal) the consequent bolstering and extending of community
solidarity is most clearly seen.
Family Solidarity
When one speaks of the family here, he must understand it as the extended family, or as
the nuclear or immediate family with no exclusion of the extended; hence at least as the
immediate-and-potentially extended family. This unit (the mag-anak) is reunited and
revitalized on one or more of four major occasions during the annual religious cycle: the
town fiesta, Christmas day, undas (November 1–2), and Holy Week. These traditional
reunion days are named in the order of importance usually attributed to them.
All families in the town or barrio feel new life in their kin-bonds at these four celebrations.
But not all of them are strengthened by another source of family solidarity, namely, the
sponsorship of some religious activity for the entire community. Only families which are
wealthier than most can afford to underwrite the expenses for such activities as a misa
de gallo (with band and fireworks) or a panunuluyan or posada, procession, and
subsequent merienda. Only those who have some sufficiency will sponsor a pabasa, or
give lodging to touring senakulo actors during Lent. Only those households with money

7. to spare will be the hermanos for a Flores de Mayo or Santa Cruz de Mayo procession
(Santakrusan). Only they will possess and richly adorn a processional image for the
admiration and delight of all. Other families may go into debt, but it will be for the town
fiesta, and not on the community’s but their own account.
The vow (panata) of a deceased member of the family is frequently another factor making
for solidarity and a sense of continuity with the past, usually the recent past. A
grandparent or great-grandparent might have made a vow to hold a pabasa on such-and-
such a day every year. His descendants will strive religiously to adhere to the promise,
and in doing this they freshen their memory of the dead. Again, a family may lodge certain
senakulo players from the same motive. The roles of the Apostoles for Maundy Thursday
are in many towns handed down from father to son, and roles in the senakulo are similarly
passed along. Past generations are honored in the present.
Summary. Sponsorship of community religious functions, then, serves to make of the
family a clearly designated unit which has accepted a responsibility vis-a-vis the
community. By this stewardship it increases in both prestige and solidarity. Not all families
in the town or barrio have the means for this public service, but they are strengthened at
least by the reunion of their far-flung members on one or more of the great annual
commemorations the town fiesta, Christmas, undas, and Holy Week.
Reflections of Social Patterns
In the previous subsection, it was mentioned that sponsorship of community religious
activities tends to unify the families involved. In a society nearly divided into “little people”
and “big people,” it is the latter who are consistently given the honor and the burden of
this sponsorship. Hence the essentially two-class system of the rural Philippines finds its
image here. It is not to be concluded, however, that the poorer members of the community
either resent this distinction or contribute nothing to the common effort. On the
contrary (whether the observer agrees with it or not), the class division and its
consequences are generally considered the natural state of affairs, and the lower class
brings to each religious event its artistic and manual labor for the preparation of the
feast and hearty participation in its celebration. It can be said that the upper class makes
folkreligious activities a possibility, while the lower class makes them an actuality. In
the local view, who will say which contributes more?
Compadrazgo. The co-parenthood system is both an expression and a semireligious
validation of Philippine society’s emphasis on generational solidarity. Reference is not to
the official Catholic provision for one or two godparents at baptism and confirmation, but
to the widespread local custom of having many more godparents, and of recognizing a
coparent relationship toward, not only these persons, but also their brothers and sisters.
The parents of a child may select, for instance, a total of four godparents, all from different
families. If each of the sponsors has four siblings, the parents will have a coparent
(kumpare) relation to twenty persons and potentially, at least, to twenty nuclear families,
perhaps in the same town. If the parents choose the godparents for their future children
from different families, it is not difficult to realize how this compadrazgo, or coparenthood

8. system, gives perfect expression to the Filipino’s desire to enjoy some kind of kin bond
with all the age-grade or generation comembers with whom he must now, or may
someday, carry on the business of life.
Procession images. A striking example of religious behavior reflecting social patterns is
to be found in the use of large images, usually of life-size proportion, which are carried or
pulled along on their carriages in the various processions of the annual cycle. Because
this image-complex is a notable feature of folk Catholicism in most countries raised in the
Iberian colonial tradition, it is perhaps justifiable to develop this point at greater
length than others.
Many observers of Latin American folk-religious behavior have pointed out what the
tourist is struck by when he visits countries in which the local folk Catholicism gives a
prominent place to images and statues. The people give the impression of treating the
statue itself as the personage who is being honored. Yet, when questioned on the subject,
almost all will reply (there will be exceptions) by making the distinction which any well-
instructed Catholic would make, telling the inquirer that the statue or painting is to remind
us of the saint being honored, or that the various images—all under different titles—of our
Lord or our Lady merely do respect to them in some special mystery or event of their
lives on Earth, or some special attribute.
Why then is it that, knowing that this is merely an image and not the ultimate object of the
honor being shown, so many people speak of these images as though they were persons,
and treat them accordingly? I suggest that the image represents for the persons honoring
it a means of bridging what at times seems to them an immense gap or distance between
the saint and themselves.
In Latin America, Italy, Spain, and many other countries other than the Philippines,
relations of trust, or confianza, are associated principally with one’s kin, blood or
ceremonial. This is true of the Philippines, especially in the areas outside the large cities
of Manila, Cebu, and Davao. Furthermore, friendship is showed (and confianza
encouraged) by intimate face- to-face dealings, usually with some added manifestation
such as a grasping of the person’s arm or hand while talking to him. Where the influence
of the damay or folk society is strong, these primary relations are the kind which most
quickly strike a responsive chord. If one is to show friendship and confidence, he must
treat the person like a kinsman, and must be in physical touch or contact. But how does
one establish this kind of closeness with a heavenly saint?
Through the image of the saint. Most images are adopted into households, in the sense
that they are not the property of the Church, and are not kept in the church building during
the year. Rather, when they are not in procession they are kept in private homes and are
the property of the householder. They are, in effect, members of various household in the
village or town. Thus the saint which the image represents is, in a sense, adopted into the
community, and, in a society where everyone is related to nearly everyone else by myriad
relationships, the holy one can be considered a kinsman by all.

9. The tendency to be able to touch the object of one’s trust and affection is also satisfied
through the image. For the image can be clothed, kissed, held, touched, carried,
caressed, and, in general, manipulated in a way which gives the devotee sensible
realization of having come close to the saint, as he would to anyone in whom he would
confide.
Conclusion
How then does folk Catholicism make Filipinos better Christians? Quite simply, by making
it easier for them to understand and (with God’s help) co accept the message of Christ.
This it does by giving their faith a physical form which they recognize as their own,
communicating the Good News in language and other symbols that are distinctly theirs.
Because folk Catholicism is Christianity incarnate, however imperfectly in the Philippine
setting, it touches the heart and soul of the Filipino as no abstract text of theology could
possibly do. It has, in its own simple fashion, and with admitted errors and excesses,
made a good start on the ultimate task that faces the Church in every culture to which it
is sent: the fashioning of a Christian Way that perfects and enhances the preexistent
native way of life. It is this cherished goal, a perfect blend of orthodox Christianity and all
that is good in Philippine culture, to which folk Catholicism points the way. It is a precursor
to be sure, but an effective one.
Folk Catholicism also makes better Filipinos of those who practice it. For the behavior
which it encourages is almost invariably supportive of central Philippine values and
norms. Practicing folk Catholics, in fact, will generally be solidly traditional Filipinos. The
orthodox Filipino Catholic need be no less Filipino, to be sure, and should indeed be more
profoundly and perfectly Filipino. Otherwise, the Incarnation has not touched the
Philippines as it was intended to.
Notes:
1. One source of empirical data on these matters is a report on the Baguio Religious
Acculturation Conference (BRAC) Christian Filipino family survey (Lynch and Makil
1968).
2. In reading the paragraphs that follow, those who are unfamiliar with the Philippine
Rural scene may find some of the references to folk rituals too brief or
uninformative for their taste. Detailed descriptions are given in an earlier
publication (Lynch 1956)
Guide Questions:
1. What is folk Catholicism? What are examples of folk-religious beliefs and
practices?
2. How does folk Catholicism make the Filipino more religious?
3. In what ways does it make him/her a better Filipino?