Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Manila

Interior of the Throne Room in the Archbishop's Palace as it was during the Spanish colonial period.

Per the efforts of conquistador Martín de Goiti – who founded the City of Manila by uniting the dominions of Sulayman III of Namayan, Sabag, Rajah Ache Matanda of Maynila who was a vassal to the Sultan of Brunei, and Lakan Dula of Tondo who was a tributary to Ming dynasty China – the Diocese of Manila was established on February 6, 1579, through the papal bull Illius Fulti Præsidio by Pope Gregory XIII, encompassing all Spanish colonies in Asia as a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Mexico. Fray Domingo de Salazar, a Dominican from the Convent of San Sebastian in Salamanca, Spain, was selected by King Philip II of Spain to be bishop of the new diocese and was presented to the pope.[7][8]

Over the course of history and growth of Catholicism in the Philippines, the diocese was elevated and new dioceses had been carved from its territory. On August 14, 1595, Pope Clement VIII raised the diocese to the status of an archdiocese with Bishop Ignacio Santibáñez its first archbishop. Three new dioceses were created as suffragans to Manila: Nueva Cáceres, Nueva Segovia, and Cebu. With the creation of these new dioceses, the territory of the archdiocese was reduced to the city of Manila and the adjoining civil provinces in proximity including Mindoro Island. It was bounded to the north by the Diocese of Nueva Segovia, to the south by the Diocese of Cebu, and to the southeast by the Diocese of Nueva Cáceres.[9]

During the Hispanic period, the archdiocese was ruled by a succession of Spanish and Latino archbishops. The British occupation of Manila during the Seven Years' War saw the temporary conversion of Sultan Azim ud-Din I of Sulu to Catholicism, the massive looting and destruction of ecclesiastical treasures, as well as the burning of churches by British soldiers, Sepoy mercenaries, and rebellious Chinese residents in Binondo. This episode was particularly damaging to Philippine scholarship due to the fact that the monasteries holding the archives and artifacts about the pre-colonial Philippine Rajahnates, Kedatuans, Sultanates, Lakanates, and Wangdoms and their conversion to Catholicism were either burnt, lost, or looted by the British. An example would be the Boxer Codex, whose earliest owner Lord Giles of Ilchester had inherited it from an ancestor who stole it from Manila during the British Occupation.[10]

Nevertheless, peace was subsequently restored after the Protestant British occupation. In the time after this, the Catholic religious orders became the powerful driving force in the Archdiocese of Manila (with the exception of the Jesuits who were temporarily suppressed by the Spaniards due to their role in anti-imperialist movements in Latin America) as Jesuits supported the Paraguayan Reductions since Jesuits even supported the natives there against Portuguese and Spanish slavers. The local Filipino diocesan clergy resented the foreign religious orders due to their near monopoly of ecclesiastical positions which violated the declarations of the Catholic Church's Council of Trent, that, once an area is no longer a missionary area but a regular diocese, friars are to surrender the parishes to diocesan priests.[11] However, upon the suppression of the Jesuits, the Recollect Order moving to the parishes once owned by Jesuits, surrendered their parishes to local Filipino diocesan clergy, temporarily assuaging Filipino yearnings.[11] However upon the restoration of the Jesuits, the Recollects were forced to retake their parishes from the diocesans. The opposition of the religious orders against an autonomous diocesan clergy independent of them lead to the martyrdom of Filipino diocesan priests Mariano Gomez, José Burgos, Jacinto Zamora collectively known as Gomburza who were wrongly implicated in the Cavite Mutiny, since the Spanish feared that because a priest, Miguel Hidalgo lead the Mexican war of independence against Spain, the same would happen in the Philippines.[11] Furthermore the Governor General who was a Freemason, Rafael Izquierdo y Gutiérrez upon discovering the Cavite Mutiny was led by fellow Freemasons: Maximo Innocencio, Crisanto de los Reyes, and Enrique Paraiso; the Governor-General as per his Masonic vow to protect fellow brothers of the Craft, shifted the blame to Gomburza since they had inspired ethnic pride among Filipinos due to their campaign for reform.[11] The Governor-General asked the Catholic hierarchy in the person of Archbishop of Manila Gregorio Meliton Martinez to have them declared as heretics and defrocked but he refused as he believed in Gomburza's innocence. As the Imperial government executed Gomburza, churches all across the territory were rung in mourning.[11] This inspired the Jesuit educated and future National Hero Jose Rizal to form the La Liga Filipina, to ask for reforms from Spain and recognition of local clergy.

Rizal was executed and the La Liga Filipina dissolved. As cries for reform were ignored, formerly loyal Filipinos were radicalized and the 1896 Philippine revolution was triggered when the Spanish discovered the anti-colonial secret organisation Katipunan (formed with Masonic rites in mind, and Freemasonry is traditionally Anti-Catholic, yet were dedicated to the martyred priests Gomburza as Gomburza was a password in the Katipunan), the Katipunan waged the revolution leading to the end of Spanish rule. The United States took the Philippines from Spain in the 1898 Spanish–American War; this developed into fighting between the Philippine revolutionaries and the U.S. in the 1899–1902 Philippine–American War, many Katipuneros were devastated that their fellow Masons on the Masonic founded United States Republic killed their fellow Masonic founded Katipunan, this followed by victory for the U.S. and disestablishment of the Roman Catholic Church as the state church of the Philippines. In the period after the war, Philippine churches were restored in the Art-Deco architectural motif. There was a looming threat of apostasy and schism with the rise of anti-clerical Philippine Freemasonry and the establishment of the Philippine Independent Church due to Filipino anger against Spanish ecclesiastical corruption.[12] In response, the Vatican supported Philippine independence and applied a policy of reinforcing orthodoxy and reconciliation which resulted in the majority of the Filipinos remaining faithful to the Roman Catholic Church and having a good number of those separated from the Church grafted back.

Old Ecclesiastical Seal of the Archdiocese of Manila used until 1949

The province of Mindoro was established as an independent diocese on April 10, 1910, by virtue of a Decretum Consistoriale signed by Pope Pius X, implementing the bull Quae Mari Sinico of Pope Leo XIII. On the same date, the Diocese of Lipa was created, with jurisdiction over the provinces of Batangas, Tayabas, Marinduque, and some parts of Masbate. In May 1928, Pope Pius XI established the Diocese of Lingayen, carved from Manila and Nueva Segovia. In this creation, 26 parishes were separated from Manila. He also named Our Lady of Guadalupe as a patroness of the Filipino people in 1938.

December 8, 1941, marked the beginning of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines.[13] Members of the secretive Black Dragon Society had infiltrated all facets of Philippine life and had greatly guided the invading Japanese forces. World War II marked a period of irreplaceable loss to the Archdiocese of Manila. The combination of violent theft and arson done by the Japanese and indiscriminate carpet bombing by the Americans during the Battle of Manila (1945) lead to the permanent loss of many of the ancient Gothic, Art-Deco, and Earthquake Baroque churches.[14]

The Virgin Mary as the Immaculate Conception, patroness of the archdiocese

In the aftermath of the war, in September 1942, Pope Pius XII declared Our Lady of Immaculate Conception as the Principal Patroness of the Philippines by virtue of the papal bull, Impositi Nobis, along with Pudentiana and Rose of Lima as secondary patrons.[15]

Due to the heavy damages resulting from World War II, the Manila Cathedral underwent major rebuilding from 1946 to 1958. The Parish of San Miguel served as pro-cathedral or temporary cathedral of the local church until the Manila Cathedral was reopened and consecrated in 1958.

On December 11, 1948, the Apostolic Constitution Probe Noscitur further divided the Archdiocese of Manila by placing the northern part of the local church in the new Diocese of San Fernando. On November 25, 1961, the Archdiocese of Manila was again partitioned with the creation of the Diocese of Malolos for the province of Bulacan in the north and the Diocese of Imus for the province of Cavite in the South.

Pope John Paul II declared the Manila Cathedral a minor basilica in 1981 through the motu proprio Quod ipsum, issued as a papal bull.[16] In 1983, the province of Rizal, together with the city of Marikina and the northeastern part of Pasig, was placed under the new Diocese of Antipolo.

The archdiocese witnessed many grace-filled church events such as the Second Synod of Manila (1911), the Third Synod of Manila (1925), the 33rd International Eucharistic Congress (1937), the First Plenary Council of the Philippines (1953), the papal visit of Pope Paul VI (1970), the Fourth Synod of Manila (1979), the papal visits of Pope John Paul II (the first in 1981 and the second in 1995), the National Marian Year (1985), the National Eucharistic Year (1987), the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (1991), the Second Provincial Council of Manila (1996), the 4th World Meeting of Families (2003), and the papal visit of Pope Francis (2015).

In 2002, two more dioceses were carved out of the Archdiocese: the Diocese of Novaliches and the Diocese of Parañaque. In 2003, three more dioceses were erected: Cubao, Kalookan, and Pasig.

The arms of the metropolitan see of Manila is an adaptation of the arms granted by Philip II of Spain to the "insigne y siempre leal (distinguished and ever loyal)" city of Manila in 1596. The silver crescent represents the Immaculate Conception, patroness of the Manila Cathedral and of the entire Philippines. The tower represents God himself whom the psalmist calls in Psalms 60 turris fortis contra inimicum (turris fortitudinis a facie inimici in the Gallician psalter). The three windows make the tower represent the Blessed Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Ghost, three Persons in one God. The sea lion represents the Philippines, then-an overseas territory of Spain, and the pilgrim's cross which may be easily fixed on the ground symbolizes both the faith of the Filipino people and their missionary role in spreading that faith.[17]

The cathedra of the Archbishop of Manila at the Manila Cathedral.

The seat of the archbishop is at Manila Cathedral. After the first bishop of Manila Domingo de Salazar, the diocese became an archdiocese and there have been nineteen archbishops of Spanish origin. In 1903, the archdiocese received its first American archbishop, Jeremiah James Harty from St. Louis, Missouri. After him, the Irishman Michael J. O'Doherty was appointed in 1916. O'Doherty would lead the church during a period when Filipinos were petitioning for sovereignty from the United States and during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during World War II.

When O'Doherty died after Philippine independence in 1946, the coadjutor archbishop Gabriel Reyes became the first native Filipino in the position. Reyes' successor, Archbishop Rufino Jiao Santos, became the first Filipino to become a cardinal in 1960. Since then, all archbishops were of Filipino origin and were created cardinals.

After Cardinal-Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle was appointed by Pope Francis to be the prefect of Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples in 2019, Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo lead the archdiocese as apostolic administrator for 17 months during the COVID-19 pandemic, until Tagle's successor, then-Archbishop of Capiz José Fuerte Advíncula, took office in June 24, 2021.[18]

List of Archbishops of Manila

No.		Name	From	Until
1		Domingo de Salazar	February 6, 1579	December 4, 1594
2		Ignacio Santibáñez	August 30, 1595	August 14, 1598
3		Miguel de Benavides	October 7, 1602	July 26, 1605
4		Diego Vázquez de Mercado	May 28, 1608	June 12, 1616
5		Miguel García Serrano	February 12, 1618	June 14, 1629
6		Hernando Guerrero	January 9, 1634	July 1, 1641
7		Fernando Montero Espinosa	February 5, 1646	1648
8		Miguel de Poblete Casasola	January 21, 1649	December 8, 1667
9		Juan López Galván	November 14, 1672	February 12, 1674
10		Felipe Fernández de Pardo	October 28, 1681	December 31, 1689
11		Diego Camacho y Ávila	August 19, 1696	January 14, 1704
12		Francisco de la Cuesta	August 12, 1707	September 27, 1723
13		Carlos Bermúdez de Castro y González	November 20, 1724	November 13, 1729
14		Juan Ángel Rodríguez	May 18, 1731	June 24, 1742
15		Pedro de la Santísima Trinidad Martínez de Arizala	February 3, 1744	May 28, 1755
16		Manuel Rojo del Río y Vieyra	December 19, 1757	January 30, 1764
17		Basilio Sancho de Santa Justa	April 14, 1766	December 15, 1787
18		Juan Antonio Orbigo de Gallego	December 15, 1788	May 17, 1797
19		Juan Antonio Zulaibar	March 26, 1804	March 4, 1824
20		Hilarión Díez	July 3, 1826	May 7, 1829
21		José Seguí	July 5, 1830	July 4, 1845
22		José Julián de Aranguren	January 19, 1846	April 18, 1861
23		Gregorio Melitón Martínez Santa Cruz	December 23, 1861	September 30, 1875
24		Pedro Payo y Piñeiro	January 28, 1876	January 1, 1889
25		Bernardino Nozaleda y Villa	May 27, 1889	February 4, 1902
26		Jeremiah James Harty	June 6, 1903	May 16, 1916 (Transferred to Diocese of Omaha)
27		Michael J. O'Doherty	September 6, 1916	October 13, 1949 (Died in office)
28		Gabriel Reyes	October 13, 1949	October 15, 1952 (Died in office)
29		Rufino Santos	February 10, 1953	September 3, 1973 (Died in office)
30		Jaime Sin	March 19, 1974	September 15, 2003 (Retired)
31		Gaudencio Rosales	November 21, 2003	October 13, 2011 (Retired)
32		Luis Antonio Tagle	December 12, 2011	February 9, 2020 (Became prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples)[19]
33		Jose Advincula	June 24, 2021	Present

• Romualdo J. Ballesteros (1845–1846), did not succeed to see; appointed Bishop of Cebu
• Gabriel M. Reyes (1949–1952)

• Ginés Barrientos (1680–1698)
• Jose Maria Segui Molas (1829–1830), appointed 21st Archbishop of Manila
• William Finnemann (1929–1936), appointed Prefect of Mindoro
• Cesar Maria Guerrero y Gutierrez (1937–1949), appointed Bishop of San Fernando
• Rufino Jiao Santos (1947–1953), appointed as 29th Archbishop; made Cardinal by John XXIII in 1960
• Vicente Posada Reyes (1950–1961), appointed Bishop of Borongan
• Hernando Izquierdo Antiporda (1954–1975)
• Pedro Bantigue y Natividad (1961–1967), appointed Bishop of San Pablo
• Bienvenido M. Lopez (1966–1995)
• Artemio G. Casas (1968–1974), appointed Archbishop of Jaro
• Amado Paulino y Hernandez (1969–1985)
• Gaudencio Borbon Rosales (1974–1982), appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Malaybalay; later appointed as 31st Archbishop; made Cardinal by Benedict XVI in 2006
• Oscar Valero Cruz (1976–1978), appointed Archbishop of San Fernando
• Protacio G. Gungon (1977–1983), appointed Bishop of Antipolo
• Leonardo Legaspi (1977–1984), appointed Archbishop of Caceres (Nueva Caceres)
• Manuel C. Sobreviñas (1979–1993), appointed Bishop of Imus
• Gabriel V. Reyes (1981–1992), appointed Bishop of Kalibo
• Teodoro J. Buhain, Jr. (1983–2003)
• Teodoro Bacani (1984–2002) appointed Bishop of Novaliches
• Leoncio L. Lat (1985–1992)
• Ramon Arguelles (1993–1995), appointed Military Ordinary of the Philippines
• Crisostomo A. Yalung (1994–2001), appointed Bishop of Antipolo
• Rolando Joven Tria Tirona (1994–1996), appointed Bishop of Malolos, later Archbishop of Caceres (Nueva Caceres) until present
• Jesse E. Mercado (1997–2002), appointed Bishop of Parañaque
• Socrates B. Villegas (2001–2004), appointed Bishop of Balanga
• Bernardino C. Cortez (2004–2014), appointed Prelate of Infanta
• Broderick S. Pabillo (2006–2021) appointed Vicar Apostolic of Taytay

• Francisco Sales Reyes y Alicante, appointed Bishop of now Archdiocese of Caceres in 1925
• Arnaldo Catalan, Appointed Apostolic Nuncio to Rwanda in 2022
• Artemio Gabriel Casas, appointed 1st Bishop of Imus in 1961; later returned to the archdiocese as auxiliary bishop
• Antonio Realubin Tobias, appointed auxiliary bishop of Zamboanga in 1982, then bishop of the Diocese of Pagadian, Diocese of San Fernando in La Union, and finally Diocese of Novaliches until retirement in 2019
• Francisco Capiral San Diego, appointed Coadjutor Vicar Apostolic of Palawan in 1983, then became Apostolic Vicar of Apostolic Vicariate of Puerto Princesa, 2nd bishop of the Diocese of San Pablo, Laguna and later 1st bishop of the Diocese of Pasig.
• Mylo Hubert Claudio Vergara (priest here, 1990-2003), appointed Bishop of Diocese of San Jose in Nueva Ecija in 2005 and later appointed as current bishop of the Diocese of Pasig
• Francisco Mendoza de Leon, Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Antipolo (September 1, 2007 – November 21, 2015), Coadjutor Bishop of Antipolo (November 22, 2015 – September 10, 2016) and 4th Bishop of the Diocese of Antipolo (September 10, 2016–July 22, 2023).
• Ruperto Cruz Santos, 4th Bishop of the Diocese of Balanga (July 8, 2010–July 22, 2023), 5th Bishop of the Diocese of Antipolo (July 22, 2023–present)
• Roberto Orendain Gaa, 3rd Bishop of the Diocese of Novaliches (August 24, 2019–present)
• Jose Alan Verdejo Dialogo, 5th Bishop of the Diocese of Sorsogon (October 15, 2019–present)
• Socrates Villegas, 3rd Bishop of the Diocese of Balanga (July 3, 2004 – November 4, 2009) and 5th Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Lingayen-Dagupan (November 4, 2009–present)

The archdiocese administers San Carlos Seminary, the archdiocesan major seminary which caters to the formation of future priests for the archdiocese and for its suffragan dioceses. Located in Guadalupe Viejo, Makati, it has a pre-college program (senior high school and formation year), a college program (A.B., philosophy), and a graduate school (master's program in theology or pastoral ministry), as well as a formation houses for future priests committed to serve the Filipino-Chinese communities in the country (Lorenzo Ruiz Mission Society) and a center for adult vocations (Holy Apostles Senior Seminary). The archdiocese also operates Our Lady of Guadalupe Minor Seminary for young men at the secondary school level. It is located a few blocks from San Carlos Seminary.

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila Educational System (RCAMES) comprises 27 archdiocesan and parochial schools. The archbishop of Manila exercises authority in each member school and appoints a superintendent for the entire system to implement decisions and resolve issues. The member schools are:[20]

• List of Catholic dioceses in the Philippines
• Roman Catholicism in the Philippines
• The Royal and Conciliar San Carlos Seminary

Sources

• Population of the Archdiocese of Manila Statistics of Manila Archdiocese
• Official website
• Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Archdiocese of Manila" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
• Gregory XIII, Pope, 1502–1585. "Bull for erection of the Diocese and Cathedral Church of Manila." In The Philippine Islands, 1493–1898. Cleveland, Ohio: A.H. Clark Company, 1903–9. Vol. 4, 1576–82. Pp. 119–124.
• 5 Seminaries under the Archdiocese of Manila

COFOR – The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Manila

• Website of the Archdiocese of Manila

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