Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
Eugene A. Hessel
2. There are those who have argued that Rizal throughout his
mature life was a “free thinker and unbeliever”; thus the Retraction
is of necessity a lie. This is the extreme opposite of the Roman
Catholic position. My previous writing has tried to demonstrate that
the major premise on which this thesis is based is not true.
3. A third implied view may be summarized as follows: the Rizal
that matters is the pre-Retraction Rizal; therefore one can ignore
the Retraction. The fundamental assumption here is held by many
students and admirers of Rizal, including myself, but the conclusion
does not necessarily follow. This brings us to the fourth possible
attitude towards the Retraction.
The story of the Retraction has been told and retold. Various
newspaper reports of the last hours of Rizal were published on Dec.
30, 1896 or the days shortly thereafter. However, the first detailed
account came out in a series of anonymous articles in the Barcelona
magazine, “La Juventud,” issues of January 15 and 31 and Feb. 14,
1897, republished some months later in a booklet entitled La
Masonización de Filipinas -- Rizal y su Obra. Some thirteen years
later, Father Vicente Balaguer, S.J., the Jesuit priest who claimed to
have secured Rizal’s Retraction, asserted that this account was his
work which he originally wrote “that very same night of December
29, 1896. (11) Subsequently, on August 8, 1917, Father Balaguer
repeated his story in a notarial act sworn to by him in Murcia,
Spain. The only detailed account is that by Father Pio Pi Y Vidal, S.
J., Superior of the Jesuits in the Philippines in 1896, who published
in Manila in 1909 La Muerte Cristiana del Doctor Rizal and confirmed
his account in a Notarial Act signed in Barcelona, April 7, 1917. In
brief, the Jesuit account is this: On the 28th of December (the very
day Governor General Polaviéja ordered the death sentence)
Archbishop Nozaleda commissioned the Jesuits to the spiritual care
of Rizal, indicating that it would probably be necessary to demand a
retraction and suggesting that both he and Father Pi would prepare
“formulas.” Thus, about 7:00 a.m. of the 29th, two of the Jesuits
arrived at the temporary chapel where Rizal was to spend his last
24 hours. During this day various Jesuits came in and out together
with other visitors, including members of his own family. Rizal also
took time to write letters. Arguments with Rizal, with Father
Balaguer taking the leading part, continued until dusk, by which
time, according to the Father’s account, (12) Rizal was already
asking for the formula of retraction. That night Rizal wrote out a
retraction based on the formula of Father Pi and signed it about
11:30 p.m. The Retraction contains two significant points: (1) the
rejection of Masonry (“I abominate Masonry”) and (2) a repudiation
of “anything in my words, writings, publications, and conduct that
has been contrary to my character as a son of the Catholic Church,”
together with the statement “I believe and profess what it teaches
and I submit to what it demands.” During the night there followed,
according to the Jesuit accounts, several Confessions (some say
five), several hearings of Mass, a number of devotional acts, the
asking for and signing of devotional booklets intended for various
members of his family, and finally at 6:00 a.m. or thereabouts,
some fifteen minutes before he was marched out of Fort Santiago to
his execution, a marriage ceremony performed by Father Balaguer
for Rizal and Josephine Bracken. So much for the story in outline.
Details, including the text of the Retraction, will be presented and
discussed later.
I would date the last period of the Debate from 1935 until the
present. This is the time when, in the light of the Retraction
Document discovery, major and minor works have been written on
the subject of Rizal’s life and thought as a whole and on the
Retraction in particular. This leads us naturally to an assessment of
the chief arguments pro and con which have been raised over the
years and systematically dealt with in the last thirty years.