The Rizal Bill of 1956: Horacio de la Costa and the Bishops
- Format:
- Journal Article
- Year:
- 2011
- Journal Title:
- Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints
- Volume:
- 59
- Issue:
- 4
- Language:
- Abstract:
Several drafts of a pastoral letter, written by Horacio de la Costa for the bishops in 1952, survive. De la Costa's Rizal emerges as an outstanding moral figure whose devotion to the truth made his novels a source of moral as well as social and political wisdom for Filipinos. Although subsequent drafts show he was forced by an unknown interlocutor to temper this view, he retained an essentially positive reading of the novels. In the face of Recto's 1956 bill imposing the novels, however, Abp. Rufino J. Santos commissioned Fr. Jesus Cavanna to draft a new "Statement." Beginning with a few positive paragraphs from De la Costa, the "Statement" then absolutely condemned the novels and forbade their reading, a prohibition that proved quite ineffective. The drafts of De la Costa show that there was within the Catholic Church a totally different attitude toward Rizal, whose legacy the church could embrace.
- Who (Jesuits):
- What (Subjects):
- Where (Locations):
- When (Centuries):
- Publisher URL:
- Page Range:
- 529–553
- ISSN:
- 2244-1638