"As a Jesuit based at Ateneo, Finegan must have absorbed what may have been the institutional view of Ateneo’s most famous graduate at the time, in particular the supposed conversion popularized by the Spanish Jesuit Pablo Pastells. Finegan wrote: “Rizal had given up the practice of his religion long years before. But now he gladly welcomed the ministrations of the Jesuit Fathers, his former professors, and he wrote a retraction of his errors and of Masonry in particular. On the morning of his execution he assisted at two Masses with great fervour, received Holy Communion and was married to an Irish half-caste girl from Hong-Kong with whom he had cohabited in Dapitan. Almost the last words he spoke were to the Jesuit who accompanied him: ‘My great pride, Father, has brought me here.’” Trinidad Pardo de Tavera has—to my mind—convincingly debunked Pastells’ claims, especially the one repeated in Wenceslao Retana’s influential but misleading biography: the conversation no one else heard, which paints Rizal as the classic (and therefore easy-to-dismiss) stereotype, the mesticillo who had exceeded his grasp. At the time Finegan wrote on Rizal, however, Pardo de Tavera’s arguments had not yet been committed to writing. Finegan’s entry contains crucial errors. Here is one that Americanizes the public esteem for Rizal. “30 December, the day of his execution, has been made a national holiday by the American Government and $50,000 appropriated for a monument to his memory; a new province, adjacent to Manila, is called Rizal; the two centavo postage stamp and two peso bill—the denominations in most common use—bear his picture.” But in fact, Rizal’s day of execution had been commemorated since 1897; at about the same time the American military forces in the Philippines were plotting against Emilio Aguinaldo; the first president declared Dec. 30, 1898 a holiday. And most of the money for the monument was raised through public subscription." Read more: opinion.inquirer.net/53957/rizal-in-the-catholic-encyclopedia#ixzz2VdIePT23 Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook
Posted on: Sat, 08 Jun 2013 13:55:49 +0000
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