Lucio Gutierrez, O.P. and the Study of the Christianization of the Philippines

Abstract

Fr. Lucio Peña Gutierrez, O.P. may be considered as having contributed significantly in the field of studies in the Ecclesiastical History of the Philippines and Philippine history in general. As a dedicated scholar, he campaigned for a more fair and objective view of the Philippine History. His studies tried to dispel a number of myths in the way the Spaniards carried out the evangelization and conquest of the Philippine Islands. He has shown that the experience of the Philippines is unique and the transformation of such scattered group of islands into a Christian nation could be considered one great success story for the Catholic Church. Anyone who would read Philippine history has to keep in mind Christian spirit that imbued the missionaries and secular rulers from Spain. To say, for instance, that the friars were the ones who destroyed the indigenous culture of the Filipinos and prior to their arrival was bliss in these Islands is anachronistic, ideology based and disprovable by evidences and documents. It is actually faith that preserved the Filipino culture and saved its people. His book on the life and works of Domingo de Salazar, the first bishop of the Philippines, is a tell tale of how the Spaniards who came into contact with the natives, labored meticulously to make their affair in the Philippines humane and true to the spirit of the Gospel. The challenge then is to make the many veiled aspects of Philippine Church history popular, and those popularly known, which are close to fictional, be freed from errors.