Growth and Decline

For better or for worse, the history of Philippine Catholicism has always been closely bound up with the history of the Filipino people and the development of the nation. The essays gathered into this volume, however—some of them previously published and here revised, one published for the first time—deal primarily with the inner development of Catholicism in the Philippines. Nonetheless, they inevitably also speak of the development of the Filipino people. For whatever one’s religious beliefs may be, and whatever evaluation one may make of the role of Catholicism in the development of Filipino people, it remains a historical and cultural reality that has given shape to the nation and that makes it unique among the other cultures and histories of Southeast Asia. —From the Introduction