Filipino Paganism on the Roman Catholic Church
Ati-atihan in Aklan and Sinulog Festival in Cebu are all well-known festivals that will be celebrated on this month of January.
I was wondering how these two pagan festivals became Christian. I was searching information in the Municipal Library of Malitbog (Southern Leyte) but I didn’t found anything about it. But do you know what information I found during my researches?
Did you know that the Roman Catholic Church in Benguet adopted an Igorot pagan practice? Here’s what was written on the Manila Daily Bulletin, dated August 13, 1968:
“LA TRINIDAD, Benguet, August 12 (PNS). An experiment on the incorporation of some sound Igorot pagan practices into the Catholic church’s religious ceremonies was successfully conducted by the Sabangan parish church under Rev. Fr. Wilfredo Daels in Mountain Province recently.
“This was the blending of the ‘tengao,’ an Igorot pagan harvest festival, and the traditional Catholic thanksgiving rites into one united religious observance.
“The pagan festival of dances was held immediately after the mass…
“With the success of the first combined pagan-Catholic church ‘tengao,’ the Sabangan folk will no longer have divided thanksgiving celebration.”
-
Sign up for PayPal and start accepting credit card payments instantly.
As the world's number one online payment service, PayPal is the fastest way to open your doors to over 150 million member accounts worldwide. -
Promote your product to high quality, targeted websites and blogs.
Find effective, influential blogs and highly targeted audiences to advertise.Choose to display your ad across entire blog networks to maximize your exposure to a wide audience.
Related Post
- December 25, Feast of the Sun
- Roman Catholic Church, the Church of the Devil
- Roman Catholic Church, the true Church?
- Articles on Church
- Catholic Rites and Ceremonies: Reproduction of Pagan Creeds
- The Roman Catholic Church is the Church of Christ?
- Church Changed Its Name
- The Church with Saints as Mediators
- Afraid of the Da Vinci Code?
- The Church with Vicar of Christ
- When Sar Torai Became My Inspiration
- Only The Church of Christ Know
- The Rock Foundation of the Church, Mattew 16:18
- Will You Celebrate Valentine’s Day?
- Christ is the only Foundation
Recently Commented
- Wordpress, The Best Blogging Platform
- How to Choose the Right Domain for Your Blog?
- How to pick the right Webhost for your Blog?
- You Ask by Talking, Google Answers in Screen
- Porn Traffic Is Now Dying
- What Makes A Webhost Better than the Other?
- Counter Statistics
- How to Choose the Right Topic for Your Blog?
- Chat and Earn Dollar
- September 2008 LET - Licensure Examination for Teachers - Result
- Daisy - Korean Movie - English Sub
- Naruto Theme Songs Lyrics
- LET September 2008 Result, Released
- Beware of Key Logger residing on your Flash Drive
- Pinoy HangAroo
April 16th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
Hi I am an independent Minister/Evangelist in the Philippines and I see first hand the pure paganism and idolatry the RCC practices in the Philippines! Its unbelievable they have festivals each and every month for different saints where they sacrifice the animals to the their idols and eat the blood while their dancing smoking drinking gambling and fighting, many times people wind up dead, and the so called priest is right in the middle of them as all this is going on!
Yours in Christ
Pastor Johnny
September 17th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
“and the so called priest is right in the middle of them as all this is going on!” are you sure about this? do you have evidences? show it to me. im a catholic and i know so many priest but i didn’t seen they have done that thing., maybe because they try to stop the trouble that is happening there.
September 19th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Self-proclaimed “true christians”, including “pastor” JOhnny above easily blast Orthodox Christians, like Catholics, as “pagans” when they observe the latter practicing their faith foreign to them. Do they really know what is pagan? Was the Christian religion in the 1st century really free of “pagan” practices? Doesn’t God allow us to Christianize a pagan practice?
A serious reader of Church history and theology can tell that Judaism had festivals that were “pagan” in origin. If “nature festivals” can be classified as pagan, then many Jewish and later Christian festivities are also pagan (e.g. pentecost). Jesus himself participated in Jewish festivals which had for its origin in nature festivals. with this, are we also willing to call Jesus pagan? Of course not!
In simplest terms, a practice can only be called pagan if it is offered for gods other than the Trinity - the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Saints are not pagan gods. They are servants of the One True God. Prayers “offered” to them are actually not offered for their own sake but these prayers are offered to ask them to help us pray to our One and only God.
Yes, sinulog had pagan origin; but the question is: did it remain pagan? the answer is certainly NO. Why? because this dance had been PURIFIED and redirected to the one to whom that dance should be offered- our Lord Jesus Christ. It is now offered to Christ and not to pagan gods. Sinulog is now a property of God!
the same is true with other Christian festivals.
God allows that pagan practices may be purified and Christianized so that they also serve as vehicle for the people to see His Face and be saved.