He was not a Filipino but when he died on October 18, 1927, the entire town mourned, and when he was buried in the shoreline of Cateel, Davao Oriental, everyone was in attendance. Fr. Jose Grimal, a Spanish Jesuit missionary, died when he was only 51...
In Davao, the story of the Catholic Church cannot be told without acknowledging the quiet and persistent work of the Gagmay’ng Kristohanong Katilingban (GKK), the basic ecclesial communities that animate parish life across urban barangays and the most remote sitios. Built on small faith-sharing circles,...
The PME Fathers (Société des Missions-Étrangères du Québec), Canadian missionaries sent to Davao, played a crucial role in the Catholic evangelization of the region before and during World War II. Their mission was relatively young: they had taken over from the Jesuits in Davao in...
While Freemasons in Spain were known to have flourished in number a couple of centu-ries after the Crusades, their arrival in the Philippines was not organized. Many of the Ma-sons who served in the colonial period were military officers and administrators already affil-iated with the...
In the missionary world, a personal space far from the family, one of the most challenging aspects of the priestly tradition while on a fieldwork, is the struggle to fight off loneliness. During Spanish times, reaching remote missions was not about the hardships along the...
Five years after ecumenism, the movement or effort aimed at promoting unity and cooperation among different Christian denominations, was coined during the 1910 World Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh, Scotland, the rivalry between the Catholics and the Protestants was not on spiritual; it extended to...
St. Francis Xavier (1506 1552) was a missionary of the Society of Jesus who worked principally in India (Goa, Malabar), the Moluccas, Japan and attempted to enter China. He died of fever on Dec. 3, 1552 on the island of Shangchuan, China, and never made it to the Chinese mainland. Historical and...
The Jesuit presence in Davao during the American period (1898–1946) marked a transformative era in the religious, educational, and socio-cultural development of the region. Building upon earlier missions, the Society of Jesus adjusted its methods to meet the challenges posed by a new political order,...
Spreading the Catholic faith during the years of Spanish rule in Davao was consistent with the difficulties of negotiating perilous ravines and crags, crossing the open seas, or climbing interior indigenous settlements. The presence of Moros in coastal areas and river mouths added more challenges...
Right from the first day when the conquering unit of Don Jose Oyanguren set foot at the Santa Ana waterfront (which half a century later became Davao’s first port), the symbolism and importance of religious icons or images were already aligned with historicity. Many of the...