Journal article
Martyrs, saints, blessed: speeches of the extraordinary in the Catholic expansion in the Philippines
Philippiniana sacra, Vol.56(169), pp.697-714
09/01/2021
Abstract
This article analyzes the martyrdom literature produced by Augustinian Recollects around the island of Mindanao and the neighboring archipelago of Sulu during the 16th and 17th centuries. In these texts, the descriptions of the torture, suffering, and deaths of the Recollects who worked in Mindanao and Sulu display an aesthetic of violence and corporal destruction that associate the Recollect labor with martyrdom and holiness. The identification between missionary activity and martyrdom, which had already been established in the Middle Ages, takes on a new impetus here and opens a new martyrdom front in the Asian context that expands and comes to replace the productive Japanese martyrdom field. These testimonies function as textual relics that rework the spectacle of martyrdom, updating its violence and significance, in the peculiar context of the confrontation with Filipino Muslims. Framed by the rivalry with the Jesuit order for the spiritual conquest of the Islamic territories of the Philippines, the Recollect texts try to justify their presence in the south of the archipelago and the relevance of their missionary work in Mindanao and Sulu.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Martyrs, saints, blessed: speeches of the extraordinary in the Catholic expansion in the Philippines
- Creators
- Ana M. Rodriguez-Rodriguez - University of Iowa
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Philippiniana sacra, Vol.56(169), pp.697-714
- Publisher
- Univ Santo Tomas, Ecclesiastical Fac
- ISSN
- 0115-9577
- eISSN
- 2651-7418
- Number of pages
- 18
- Language
- Spanish
- Date published
- 09/01/2021
- Academic Unit
- Spanish and Portuguese; Interdisciplinary Programs
- Record Identifier
- 9984399025802771
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