philippine studies Ateneo de Manila University • Loyola Heights, Quezon City • 1108 Philippines The “Iglesia ni Cristo” Joseph J. Kavanagh Philippine Studies vol. 3, no. 1 (1955): 19–42 Copyright © Ateneo de Manila University Philippine Studies is published by the Ateneo de Manila University. Contents may not be copied or sent via email or other means to multiple sites and posted to a listserv without the copyright holder’s written permission. Users may download and print articles for individual, noncom- mercial use only. However, unless prior permission has been obtained, you may not download an entire issue of a journal, or download multiple copies of articles. Please contact the publisher for any further use of this work at
[email protected]. http://www.philippinestudies.net Fri June 30 13:30:20 2008 The %/pesiaw ~i triito'' JOSEPH J. KAVANAGH During the last sixty years, three separate movements have weakened the religious unity within the Catholic Church of the Filipino people. The first was Id by Isabelo dc? 1- Reyes and Gregorio Aglipay. It owed much of its initial success to two factors: nascent nationalism, and the inability of the ordinary people to perceive the difference between the Iglesia Independiente and their traditional Faith. At the present time the movement is stagnant. Split by schism into two hostile factions, Aglipayanism has lost much of its pop ularity and aggressiveness. Official statistics released by the Bureau of Census place the total number of Aglipayans in the Philippi~iesat 1,456,114.' The second threat to Catholicism appeared in the form of American Protestant missionaries and school teachers who followed the Army of Occupation to the Islands after the Spanish-American War.