7. Idolatry and Apostasy in the 1633 Jesuit Annual Letter

Abstract

In this excerpt from the annual letter reporting on the state of the Jesuit order in the Philippines, Fr. Juan de Bueras, the Jesuit provincial, relates the difficulties that the Church was experiencing among the indigenous communities of the island of Mindoro. Hoping to convert the Magayanes people of the mountains to Christianity, the Jesuits found that they had to redirect their efforts to the supposedly Catholic communities of the coast, which had reverted to pre-Christian beliefs and practices. Bueras’s letter provides insight into the limitations of the Church’s effort to convert native Filipinos, and the nature of Filipino religious life in the early colonial context. John Blanco places the letter in the broader context of religious and secular colonialism, and broader questions about the supposed Hispanization of the Philippines.