Why I am Catholic: Evangelization

I cannot think of evangelization without thinking of conquest and violence and death and homes burned to the ground and people grieving and lost.

Dear M,

We've gotten much closer, and you've been pressed into quite a bit of Catholicism. I don't say "forced," because I think that we'd tolerate it if you opted out, but, as you know, we'd talk about it. I know there's a fair amount of pressure to tag along, even if you're not expected to actively participate. You've been a good sport about it.

I wonder if our Catholicism confuses you sometimes. He's quite committed, even if he doesn't go to Mass regularly. I'm gay, which obviously puts me in a weird position. Catholicism has been a cruel force in my life at times, and yet I still feel my life deeply animated by it. It is a life force for me. The life of the Church has given me many things, including the ability to push back against the excesses of Her people and institutions that would harm me.

Catholics often refer to the Church as a "Her," by the way. We call the Church "the bride of Christ." We sometimes say that all of creation plays a feminine role in relation to God. I find some comfort in this, as a man. Men can be horrible. Our culture gives men a lot of excuses to be horrible. It has given these excuses for centuries. So there's a comfort in that the model I am supposed to take as part of the Church is the model of woman. To understand how I am to relate to God, I should look to the women around me as my guide. (Abigail Favale's recent book helped me to see this, and I'm really grateful for that.)

Anyways, there's no one answer to the question, "Why are you Catholic?" There are many answers. I don't think I could give all of them. But I'll give some of them. They're all complicated.

Many of those reasons why I am Catholic also contain within themselves reasons why maybe I should not be Catholic anymore. But I am. I'm full of contradictions. And I'm learning to have more grace towards the contradictions of myself and others. To be full of contradictions is to be alive, to be human. When we lose our contradictions, we tend to become ideology, and that's a scary thing to me. To be human is to be a jumbled mess. It's ok if you're a mess sometimes (or a lot of times). I'm a mess, too.

So here's one reason I'm Catholic, the reason I'll discuss today: in 1565 Spain claimed sovereignty over the island of Guam.

The Chamorro people had customs and cultures and spiritual beliefs, and some of them survive today. When we go into the jungle, my family reminds each other to ask permission from the Taotao mo'na. We have suruhana in our extended family. But much has passed away.

Before the Spanish came, it's believed that the Chamorro people were relatively peaceful, far more peaceful than the Europeans. There were nearly two hundred villages on the island, and little evidence of real warfare between them. Then the Spanish came, and they sent missionaries.

The Jesuits were in charge of the "mission" that began in 1668, led by Father Diego Luis de San Vitores. The priest wanted a peaceful mission, according to research by Francis Hezel, S.J. San Vitores argued against a military garrison and had remarked, "Experience has shown that soldiers do not content themselves with defense of the preachers but commit depredations." The island had no notable spices or minerals that could be gathered and sold by Spain, and so San Vitores was allowed to focus solely on what he saw as a personal mission to evangelize the people of the island. He led a group of about thirty people, some of whom could speak the local language and only a handful of whom had any military experience.

The mission was received with much fanfare. Village chiefs celebrated the priests and would clamor over them to visit the various villages. They likely saw the Spaniards as a way to access Western goods, and to also interpret and explain the ways of Western peoples. The mission was welcomed into many villages, and some Chamorro people were baptized.

But a couple of months later, the mission was subject to violence. Some missionaries were attacked or killed on nearby islands, and one of the priests was badly beaten on Guam. According to the Jesuits, this was because of a man named Choco, a Chinese castaway. Choco had lived on the islands for many years and was allegedly spreading a story that the priests were poisoning the baptismal water. This would have been believable, because the missionaries tended to prioritize the sick and dying for baptism. Many of the villages began to bar entry to the missionaries, though others continued to welcome the baptisms, with their promise of life with God in heaven.

Nontheless, San Vitores had changed his mind about his need for protection. Just over a year after his arrival, in 1669, he wrote to Queen Regent Maria and requested 200 men with weapons and tools, and that galleons stopping at the island be ready "to carry out punishment and remedy whatever misfortunes might occur."

Hezel writes:

"San Vitores, now convinced that strong measures were called for, soon went about Guam preaching what in effect was a crusade against the enemies of the mission in the northern islands. A month or two earlier he had tried unsuccessfully to put a halt to a war on Tinian that threatened his fragile church there. Frustrated at his failure to pacify the island, he turned to other methods. With a few of his first Guamanian converts and a dozen of his Filipino militia, he set out for Tinian to confront the warriors from the two villages who were preparing to do battle with one another. The presence of the small force and their muskets was sufficient to prevent fighting for a time. It provided both sides with a convenient excuse to suspend hostilities for a time in keeping with the ritual of island warfare. When one of the warring parties tried to make a surprise attack on the Spanish militia, however, three of their men were killed by a small artillery piece that was fired to scare them off. At this display of firepower, both sides retreated and peace was soon afterward made between the villages.

"This marked a turning point in mission policy. For the first time the use of force was sanctioned by the mission superior, San Vitores, who recognized that a show of power might offer the only hope of the mission’s survival. This had led to the first casualties of local people at the hands of the Spanish. Finally, San Vitores had recruited his own recent converts to support the mission in battle; they would play an ever greater role in protecting the missionaries in the years to come."

Developing conflict included that over the methods of justice. Chamorros had their own customs for meting justice. In the past, battles between Chamorro peoples would rarely go beyond one death; the killer's family would reestablish peace by offering the family of the deceased warrior something that they valued. But the Spaniards did not respect or follow these customs. After a Mexican boy who was a member of the Spanish party was killed, the Spaniards arrested the Chamorros who were allegedly involved, and claimed that the killing of a Chamorro nobleman in the process was an accident. They then held a trial which was not understood by the Chamorro people, and which led to resentments towards the Spanish. And the missionaries openly destroyed Chamorro ancestral shrines under the orders of San Vitores, further angering many villages.

I read the claim that the death of the Chamorro noble was an accident like I read so many claims in accounts I've seen many Catholics give today. I read it against the story of a teacher I know. She wasn't married and became pregnant and was told by her Catholic school that she either had to marry the father of her child the next month, or she would lose her job. She wasn't ready for marriage, but she needed health insurance for her sick unborn baby. The pastor of the school's parish spoke with the principal, and they offered her a contract saying she would quietly leave the school and not sue or talk about the details of the situation, in exchange for health insurance and the rest of her salary. She felt she had no choice. I recorded her story before she signed the non-disclosure agreement. If I hadn't, the story of what happened to her would be "the official story" of the Catholic school and parish: that she decided to step away from her job for personal reasons.

I knew the real story: she was pressured into a marriage she wasn't ready for, and then she took the only choice she could, health insurance for her sick baby in exchange for her silence. The priest who put her through that horrible experience taught me to be skeptical of "official Catholic accounts." I read Catholic history through him.

Eventually tensions culminated in a large number of Chamorro men (one account alleges 2000) besieging the mission in Hagatña. The death-averting customs of Chamorro battle and the generally pacifist hand of San Vitores kept actual violence to a minimum. After a month, only five Chamorros are said to have died. The siege lifted when a typhoon struck the island, and Spanish accounts say there were no reprisals. But San Vitores sought out reinforcements to protect the mission. Chamorro resistance continued. Violence began again when, over two days in March 1672, four members of the Spanish party were killed.

A few days later San Vitores went into the village of Tumon and met Matå'pang, a local elder who had initially converted to Catholicism but later recanted. Matå'pang told San Vitores that he must stop killing children and that if he didn't leave, he would kill the priest. When Matå'pang left to gather weapons and men, San Vitores entered the elder's home and baptized his infant daughter. Discovering this, Matå'pang killed San Vitores. The priest was celebrated by the Christians as a martyr.

The Spanish party did not see any further violence in 1673, but the following year a priest and five of his companions were killed while walking to a village to baptize a Chamorro woman. An additional companion was wounded but cared for by the people of Fuuna, brought to the village of Asan, and then was taken back to Hagatña.

Spanish leadership changed that year. Damian de Esplana was put charge of the Spanish militia in 1674. Esplana believed that "for the good of the Christian community it was necessary to give an example of punishment that would warn the barbarians, whom mildness only made more bold." When the people of Chochogo refused to allow free access to mission personnel, Esplana ordered an attack on the village and to kill any Chamorro men who resisted. After a Chamorro woman was killed, the Spanish took her infant son back to be raised on the mission. The Spanish later burned Chochogo's houses and killed two more Chamorros.

Passing through Tumon, Esplana caught a man who had killed a mission assistant two years prior, and Esplana killed the man and ordered that his dismembered body be hung up as a warning to the Chamorro people. Esplana attacked more villages and burned villages that resisted. A historian says that he "threw down a steep slope several natives who tried to impede his passage." He burned the villages of Nagan and Hinca because of the death of a Jesuit. Hezel writes that the Jesuits saw Esplana as "the savior of the mission."

I received my last name, Damian, from the Spanish. I wonder if I received it from Damian de Esplana.

After Esplana, a new governor was installed to reside over Spanish-controlled Guam, and he continued Esplana's policies. He attacked villages and burned homes and fed Chamorro resentment. Hezel shares some of the complaints leveled by Aguarin, a blind Chamorro man who traveled from village to village to rally resistance:

"Not only have the Spanish 'killed our children with the water of God,' but they have 'taken possession of the hearts of the children who survived, teaching them to taunt as traitors those who have resisted the Spanish.' In their adamant opposition to the bachelors’ houses, they 'deprive parents of the good price they would have received for the services of their daughters in these houses. Instead, they seek to marry off the girls to their own mission helpers or soldiers.' They insist that we attend church services and religious instruction… when we would rather be 'fishing, weaving nets, or building boats.' Under such conditions, Aguarin asked, 'What death is worse than the life we are forced to live?'"

This cycle continued. A Jesuit. A village. A death. A burning. The Spanish brought more weapons, more soldiers. The Jesuits saw this armament as their savior. Chamorro children attended mission schools. The Jesuits wrote of many conversions. History also recorded the stories of Chamorro children whose parents were killed in conflict with the Spaniards and then, orphaned and their villages burned to the ground, were sent by the Spaniards to those schools. Allegiance to Chamorro people no longer meant safety in the community; you could only ensure safety if you pledged allegiance to Spanish Christianity. Those who opposed Spanish conquest were decreasingly seen as loyal to the the Chamorro people, and were increasingly cast, according to one Jesuit, as "criminals" and "exiles within their own country." The Spaniards promised safety in return for submission, and a number of villages accepted this exchange. The heads and hands of Chamorros who had killed Jesuits were cut from their bodies and displayed prominently to warn others of the dangers of violent resistance.

The island succumbed to this Christianity. A Jesuit in 1680 reported "quiet for more than a year."

But the Jesuits now only ministered in the shadow of fear. They only left the garrison with an armed escort. In 1680 a Jesuit wrote of Guam: "The mission is so dependent upon arms that without them nothing can be done, because the local people pay little attention to the Fathers when they are alone. The people here respond only to fear." This was now the Christian mission to the Chamorro people.

And they did convert. A man from Orote was hanged for insurrection, and afterwards "small children" dragged his body on the shore and pelted it with stones. They shouted, as they had been taught, "Die, dog, die. You refused to be a Christian." Chamorro families now proactively brought their children for baptism, buried their dead in Christian consecrated ground, and adopted modest clothing promoted by the Spaniards. Chamorros attended mass, and in the evenings Chamorro women could be heard singing prayers in the churches.

The Spanish resettled Chamorros from their ancient villages into concentrated towns through a policy of reducción. They pressured the Chamorro people to leave their ancestral villages and relocate into towns where it would be easier for the Jesuits to minister, though one Jesuit objected, "The religious should go to the towns... the towns should not go to the house of the religious.” After Chamorros moved into the towns, the Spanish would burn down houses in the outlying areas to discourage return. Guam began to take the shape that it still has today, with a more concentrated population in towns, each with its own mayor and Catholic church.

It was just twelve years since San Vitores had begun his mission, and the island had been completely remade. Hundreds of years of a way of life had been burned down and replaced. The Chamorro people now pledged allegiance to Christianity and the Spanish crown.

In 1683, Esplana was made governor over the Marianas islands and returned to Guam. Many soldiers were sent from Guam to conquer nearby islands where, one Jesuit wrote, villages that resisted "were laid waste with iron and fire." Though many Chamorro villages sided with the Spaniards and adopted Christianity, other villages saw an opportunity to rally for an attack on the Spanish fort in Hagatña. They attacked in July and killed some Jesuits, wounded the governor, and threatened others. When the Chamorro attackers returned a few days later, the Jesuits joined in taking up arms against them. A seige continued for four months. Jose Quiroga, an officer for the Spanish military, returned to Guam in November and pursued the Chamorros who resisted the Spanish, burning towns and executing those captured in order to establish what the Spaniards called peace. 1684 was the deadliest year of combat since the Spanish occupation had begun.

Over time the Spanish military on the island changed. They began operating independently of the Jesuits. They were underpaid and undertrained. One new recruit, after being told to "shoot at sight any enemy islander," killed two small children, two sick women, and an elderly man. The soldiers began raping Chamorro women and took what they wanted from the Chamorro people, at times even stealing from the priests. In 1680 one Jesuit wrote, "The thefts that the soldiers have carried out among the Indians, and the other extortions, have been endless." Espana himself became known for an obsession with profit and abusing the Chamorro girls. One Jesuit told of a story where Espana had pardoned a Chamorro man for killing a soldier, in exchange for the man's twelve-year-old daughter to "be placed at the sole disposal of the governor."

The Spaniards relocated natives of other nearby islands to Guam under the continued policy of reducción, so that they could more closely monitor and influence the lives of the people. Life in the concentrated towns furthered the mission's aims. Over time the Chamorro people became known for their Christian piety. A Jesuit wrote, "These people are better Christians than some of the old families in the main cities of Spain." Jesuit accounts tell of many Chamorros choosing to convert and adopt the lifestyles desired by the Spaniards, but the dynamics of consent under colonial rule are complex and always under some shadow.

Over time the people were reduced. Disease spread through these dense towns. In one three year period rife with illness, 927 deaths were recorded, compared to the twenty Chamorro deaths that had occurred in three years of hostilities. Between 1671 and 1693, conflict, typhoons, and diseases brought by the Spaniards reduced the Chamorro people from 50,000 to less than 5,000. The "poisoned water" theory was not entirely wrong. Spanish contact decimated the people.

Guam became a Catholic island. And I have a Chamorro father.

And that is why I am Catholic.

Of course, there are many other reasons why I am Catholic. Not all of them are violent. But I don't want to hide the truth, the real bloody burning truth. It's one truth among many. But it's an important truth, and one I don't want to overlook anymore.

Today I attend a Jesuit parish. The Jesuits must contend with the violences that their presence brought to many peoples. I have to wonder if my ancestors see betrayal in the life I lead today. Would the Taotao mo'na protect me in the jungle if I told them about this life of mine? How can I be reconciled to them in this place? Can you heal across centuries? What is the meaning of my inheritance of Catholicism through those centuries of Chamorro people?

I don't know. I had only escaped these questions because I had never asked them. But here they are. On the page. I can't hide from them anymore.

A part of me wishes that I could hide them from you. A part of me wishes to give you a fairytale Catholicism, rather than the messy truths of history. But I don't think that would be fair to you. If one day you decide to join us in this place, I want you to know the truth, or at least as much of the truth as I can give you.

Catholicism is a world rife with abuse. With history uncovered, I cannot think of evangelization without thinking of conquest and violence and death and homes burned to the ground and people grieving and lost. I cannot think of missionaries without thinking of misunderstandings. There have certainly been "good" evangelizing missionaries, but the accompanying of evangelization with violence has been too frequent in Christian history. When missionaries come, even good sincere missionaries like San Vitores, violence often follows. That is my cultural and religious inheritance.

But Catholicism is many things. One thing that has me convinced of the power of Catholicism is the clear record of abuses and horrors perpetuated and maintained and glorified by Catholic empires and missionaries and institutions. The abuses suffered by the Chamorro people survived through history, partly through the hands of the Jesuits who recorded them. In writing this, I relied primarily on an article by a Jesuit. Despite ourselves, our records of our own injustices are surprisingly thorough.

I believe Catholicism's power can be seen in its ability to critique itself, even across the ages. Many Catholics see this as our responsibility. We can cast down the silly fairy tales that have been used to cover over the sufferings of the poor and the marginalized. We can bring them back from the depths of history. And even if we cannot do justice by them, we can speak justice for them. I think that's part of what it means to be Chamorro and Catholic today.

I believe with these Jesuit historians that we cannot undo the horrors and injustices of the past. We cannot bring back to life the murdered or simply erase the raping of those women or strike from the world of the island the spirit of domination which had spread across it. But neither are we entirely trapped in that history. We cannot undo it, but we are also not helpless in the face of it. We can look into it and respond to it, in some way, today. This is a complex calling, where we are invited into some activity that we cannot entirely understand but which demands our attention. We can look into the horrors of the world and respond to a voice which invites us to not look away, to act within it, to be some conduit for a life, a goodness, some beauty, some deeper truth that endures in the face of it all. This is a "vocation."

And my inheritance is not just one of conquest, inheriting both the role of perpetrator as Catholic and the role of victim as Chamorro. My inheritance is also one of resilience. I am here. I am choosing to remember what would be easier to forget. And the methods of survival, and the constant pursuit of life, is something I have received from those in the past. They gave me wells of resources to face my personal challenges today.

I'll tell you more about that later.

Warmly,

Chris