Fray José Celis of Santa Cruz, Manila, the Creole Recollect Friar Who Almost Ignited a Revolution in the Late 1820S
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Fray José Celis of Santa Cruz, Manila, the Creole Recollect Friar Who Almost Ignited a Revolution in the Late 1820s by Emmanuel Luis A. Romanillos Prologue In Philippine history books we oftentimes find the Spanish friar as the target of ridicule and tirade by the Propaganda Movement, and much worse, as the target of assassination, incarceration and torture by revolutionary forces at the close of the 19th century. But this Manila-born Creole friar was very much ahead of his time. Fray José Celis de San Luis Gonzaga of Santa Cruz, Manila, was an Augustinian Recollect friar whose mother-house was in Intramuros, Manila. He was a precursor of revolutionary and nationalist ideals that antedated the Secularization Controversy, the public execution of the secular priests Mariano Gómez, José Burgos and Jacinto Zamora as well as the Propaganda Movement by roughly half a century. The interesting times of Fray José Celis covered the tumultuous period of the Creole Movement that wracked the colonial capital in the 1820s. Not a single Filipino historian knows this hitherto mysterious case. Solely one Spanish historian, the Rome-based Angel Martínez Cuesta OAR, devoted some lines for Fray José Celis in a footnote of an article for Fray Diego Cera, the Las Piñas Bamboo Organ maker, although he was certainly cognizant of Fray José’s significant place in a niche of our history. The 29- year-old revolutionary friar was arrested in Mindanao in 1825. After his escape and subsequent recapture in 1829 with subversive materials in his possession and judicial proceedings, Father Celis could have been sentenced to death in the gallows, had it not been for the prudence and foresight of the Spanish governor general. Did the libertarian struggle of Father Miguel Hidalgo (1753-1811) in Mexico and the Creole Movement for the Emancipación in Latin America influence the separatist and nationalist ideas of this precocious friar? What were the grave charges that led to his outright arrest and trial in Manila? Was there a fair and just trial at all? What were his illegal and revolutionary activities that forced the civil and ecclesiastical authorities to incarcerate the friar, secretly board him on a ship and deport him to Seville in Spain where he was under “convent arrest” for a long time? How much influence did Fray José Celis exert on the leading personalities of the Creole movement in Manila? How did the outrage created by Father Celis’ illegal activities affect the Congregation of Augustinian Recollects’ ecclesiastical hierarchy? Why was the Creole friar hastily exiled to Spain by the colonial authorities? What were his unsanctioned activities in Manila, Sevilla and Madrid? Beca hispanista from the Spanish Foreign Ministry in 1997 A beca hispanista 1 granted to me by the Foreign Ministry of the Kingdom of Spain enabled me in April to early June 1997 to research in Spanish archives and libraries on various timely topics such as the Siege of Baler, Father Pedro Peláez’s unpublished letters on the Secularization Movement and Francisco Dagohoy’s Revolt. All indeed were opportune historical projects that delved into our freedom-loving ancestors and the magnanimity of our national leaders—being done during the Centennials of the Philippine Revolution and Independence. A friend in Manila had earlier convinced me to do some research on the baffling case of Fray José Celis who almost ignited a revolution in late 1820s. I am grateful to him and to the Fundación Fernando Rielo for the professorial chair to continue the research. Archival Sources It was at Sevilla’s Archivo General de Indias and Madrid’s Archivo Histórico Nacional where I had acquired the voluminous original manuscripts in Spanish pertinent to that singularly puzzling case of the Creole friar. I was able to obtain—through Father Angel Martínez Cuesta—photocopies of important documents at the Augustinian Recollect historical archives in their convent at Monteagudo, Navarra, Spain, which included baptismal record, profession documents and other pertinent letters. From the Recollect archives in Rome in 1998 again through Father Martínez Cuesta’s assistance, I had the good fortune of obtaining photocopies of manuscripts on the trial, arrest and exile of the Creole priest. There were also letters written by Fray José to the monarch requesting his transfer from Sevilla to another convent in the Peninsula. In return, I shared with the Recollect historian my sources from the archives of Sevilla and Madrid. My professorial chair unravels the mystery that still surrounds Fray José Celis’ case and constrains future historiographers to take a second look at the much-hated and reviled “frailocracy” of the past, one of whose members had definitely contributed to changing the course of Philippine history and to hastening the fall of the Spanish regime in the Far East. 1 A beca hispanista, Hispanist research grant, endowed by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to qualified Filipino researchers to investigate for two months on Filipino-Hispanic topics in libraries, documentation centers and archives in Spain. The young boy José José María Celis y Granadas was born in the arrabal [district] of Santa Cruz in Manila on 26 November 1798. His baptismal record kept at the archives in the novitiate of Monteagudo informs us that his full name was José María de Jesús. Years later, he would likewise sign his letters as Fray José María Celiz. His parents were Francisco Celis and María Celidonia Granadas, both were Spanish and residents of Paradero.2 His lone godfather was Don Miguel Ciriaco. Father Baltasar de Banta Cabili baptized the infant child in the parish church of Santa Cruz on 2 December 1798. According to the same baptismal record, the baby was “eight days old.”3 We are informed that he had a brother in whose house he had later sojourned after his escape from the jail of San Nicolás convent in the Walled City. Don Francisco Celis was a “sargento mayor del Esquadrón de la Cavallería” [sergeant major of the Cavalry Squadron]. He passed away when the young José was five months short of his fifth year. It must have been a peaceful death because the military officer received the last rites of the Catholic Church. The elder Celis was buried in the parish church of Santa Cruz. The family and the chaplain of the Second Battalion of the Regiment, Father José de Barcelona, a monk of the Order of Saint Jerome, laid him to rest on 13 June 1803.4 Studies for the priesthood The orphaned Creole aspirant joined the Congregation of the Augustinian Recollects at the now defunct-convent of San Nicolás in Intramuros, Manila, and took the religious appellation of Fray José Celis de San Luis Gonzaga.5 2 The Recollect Francisco Sádaba asserts that the correct name is Celedonio. See Catálogo de los religiosos agustinos recoletos de la Provincia de San Nicolás de Tolentino de Filipinas desde el año 1606, en que llegó la primera misión a Manila, hasta nuestros días (Madrid 1906) 766. 3 Father Raymundo Roxas, parish priest of Santa Cruz, Manila, prepared the baptismal certificate to comply with the Recollects’ request for pertinent documents in 1819. Cf. Certificado del bautismo de José Celis, ARCHIVO DEL CONVENTO DE MONTEAGUDO, NAVARRA. 4 Father Raymundo Roxas provided the information culled from the Libro IV de Entierros [Book of Burials] of the parish of Santa Cruz. Here we find the surname of the mother Granadas which does not appear in the baptismal certificate. The interment certificate was issued by parish priest on 23 May 1814. Cf. Certificado de Entierro de Dn. Francisco Celis, ARCHIVO DEL CONVENTO DE MONTEAGUDO, NAVARRA. 5 His Latin name was “Frater Josephus a Divo Ludovico Gonzaga.” He was “filius legitimus Francis Celis et Maria Celidonia… natus in oppido vulgo Sta. On 16 February 1821, he made the profession of the religious vows of poverty, chastity and obedience after one complete year of novitiate in that big convent named after the patron of the province. Popularly known as Recoletos, it was likewise a house of studies. In this residence the aspirants for the Recollect religious lifestyle took up the novitiate year. The profession of the evangelical counsels was made usque ad mortem [until death] before Father Mariano de San Miguel in the name of the vicar general of the Augustinian Recollect Congregation. A theological course of three to four years preceded the ordination to the priesthood that customarily took place at the Manila Cathedral. Thus in 1824, Fray José Celis was ordained as priest in Manila. His first parochial assignment was a parish in the island of Camiguin, located north of the huge island of Mindanao. After his ordination to the priesthood, the young priest was dispatched by the Recollect prior provincial to administer that far-off parish in Camiguin. Francisco Sádaba de la Virgen del Carmen, the author of the 1906 catalogue of Recollect friars, abruptly ended his very short account of three sentences on Fray José Celis, saying that “after some time, there was a need to transfer him to Spain. There was no way of determining the date and the place of his death.”6 Parish priest in Camiguin On 16 September 1824, he was already called Father José Celis assigned to a parish in Camiguin which fell under the jurisdiction of Misamis. A certain Mariana Varela declared to have received the sum of 1,259 pesos in cash from Father Celis in Camiguin. The money according to Celis was not his, for it belonged to Doña María Favie. On 12 August 1825, Celis was still a parish priest in Camiguin, as shown by an affidavit he executed at his parish rectory. That affidavit referred to the amount of money received from Doña María Favie who sent it through Don Nicolás Theodoro Placides.