The beginnings of the Archdiocese of Cebu began with the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan’s fleet in the town of Zubu, ruled by Rajah Humabon and his Queen. The encounter between two different cultures resulted in the baptism of Humabon’s 800 subjects and merited for the Queen a gift from the conquistadores–a small statue of the Child Jesus in kingly regalia, the Santo Niño.
The Spanish foothold was resisted by Lapulapu, the chieftain of Mactan, and Magellan perished in what was a traditional rivalry between two chieftains. The defeat of the Spaniards proved the superiority of Lapulapu and pushed Cebuanos back into paganism.
The expedition of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi in 1567 marked the evangelization of Cebu and the Philippine islands. This time, the Cebuanos were determined to fight but Legazpi too, had come prepared and had the village bombarded before coming ashore for crown and cross.
The Spanish soldier Juan de Camus found the image of the Santo Niño and the Cebuanos’ stillborn faith among the ashes and debris. But the cross was soon to be planted again in their village as a reminder that while the Cebuanos resisted the authority of the Spaniards, their hearts had fallen for the smile of the Little Child who holds the world in his hand.
The faith spread rapidly to the neighboring islands with the help of the Augustinian missionaries who came with the expedition and it did not take very long before the whole island came under the shadow of the cross.
When Legazpi transferred his capital to Manila, Cebu receded into the backwaters as influence and power shifted to Luzon. The Diocese of Cebu, a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Manila, extended west to Panay, east to the Marianas, and the whole of Mindanao. This extensive area posed a daunting task to the limited number of missionaries who had to spread the Gospel to far-flung outposts of the Diocese.
To help in preaching the Gospel in the native tongue, the missionaries trained young catechists and educated them in seminarios run by the Jesuits in Cebu and Bohol. This included Pedro Calungsod, the Visayan lay catechist and saint who perished with the Jesuit Diego de Sanvitores in 1672 in an attempt to evangelize the Marianas.
Distance having shielded the fledgling Diocese from the intrigues and power struggles of the Capital, much of Cebu’s ecclesiastical history is a leisurely narrative of arrivals and foundations, of synods and celebrations.
The arrival of the missionaries was a welcome relief for a diocese as expansive as Cebu. The Augustinians arrived with Legazpi and immediately built a shrine for the Santo Niño. The first bishop of Cebu, Fray Pedro de Agurto, established the primary ecclesiastical structures of the islands through the first Diocesan Synod in 1600 which provided guidelines for the teaching of Christian doctrine.
The successful control of the Moro raids and native resistance brought relative peace, stability, and development in the Islands and sped up the foundation of ecclesiastical units throughout the Diocese. From a fledgling ecclesiastical jurisdiction struggling to establish itself in its vast territory, the Diocese of Cebu finally found stability in the 19th century when it began to turn its attention to the material needs of its people.
The Jesuits, Augustinians and Recollects founded stone churches and convents. Schools and hospitals were also established under the guidance of religious orders and local bishops, including “Hospital de Lazarinos”, “Casa de Socorro de Cebu” and the former “Colegio de San Carlos”, presently the University of San Carlos.
The relative peace and stability of the 19th century belied the seething cauldron of popular disenchantment with the Spanish rule. The local uprising of Leon Kilat, the separation of the Church from its traditional partnership with the State, the Aglipayan schism and other problems characterized a particularly stormy period in the history of the Diocese. Seasoned by similar difficulties in the past, the Church in Cebu managed to survive against all odds under the new colonial order.
The Filipinization of the local church radically increased the number of Filipino priests in the Diocese which constituted majority of the parish administration in contrast to the Spanish era. Fr. Juan B. Gorordo, succeeded Bishop Thomas Hendrick in 1910 as the first Filipino Bishop of Cebu. On April 28, 1936, Cebu was elevated into an Archdiocese by Pope Pius XI with the suffragan dioceses of Jaro, Calbayog, Zamboanga, Bacolod, and Cagayan de Oro.
World War II dislocated the new Archdiocese with old churches and the Cathedral reduced into rubble. The task of post-war reconstruction fell upon Archbishop Julio Rosales who began his term in 1950. His incumbency proved to be the longest and one of the most fruitful for the Archdiocese, which included the celebration of the 4th Centenary of the Christianization of the Philippines in 1965. Not long after, the Archbishop was raised to the College of Cardinals, making Cebu one of the few Archdioceses in the world to merit a Cardinal as Archbishop.
Cardinal Rosales’ co-adjutor, then Msgr. Ricardo Vidal, succeeded him as Archbishop of Cebu in 1983. Msgr. Vidal was initially reluctant to accept the heavy responsibility of administering an Archdiocese whose culture and traditions are different from his former environment, but his quiet ways and conciliatory stance quickly won the affection and devotion of the Cebuanos.
Gifted with expansive vision, the new Archbishop quickly set out to put his stamp upon the face of the Archdiocese. In January 15, 1984, he announced the convocation of a Diocesan Synod, the fourth in the history of Cebu, to “review the progress attained by the Archdiocese in the last 50 years of its existence” and “provide for the pressing pastoral needs in the coming decades”.
Archbishop Vidal was elevated to the College of Cardinals on May 25, 1985 and the Synod formally opened shortly after on November 10, 1895. Under the Cardinal’s leadership, the assembly of clerics and lay people formulated a guiding vision for the Archdiocese in the third millennium.
The 4th Centenary of Cebu as a Diocese comes at a time when the vision of the Synod has begun to transform the structural landscape of the Archdiocese. The seeds of the basic ecclesial communities, sown right after the Synod, has begun to bear fruit in the lives of the faithful.
Looking back to the 400 years of growth and development, there is much to be thankful for. But as Cardinal Vidal put it, the greater reason to celebrate is that we have been privileged enough to be the ones to celebrate. God has placed us in this unique time and place to be able to celebrate the Diocese’s 400 years of existence. Not everyone has been given such an opportunity.
With every privilege, however, there is a corresponding responsibility: that as we celebrate the past, we also inaugurate the future. Lest we forget, 400 years is but a chapter in the continuing history of the Archdiocese of Cebu.