Below are the Jose Rizal's letters the Catholic church hid from Filipinos for 100 years. Rizal was in exile in Dapitan when these letters were written. By then, he was already a Mason, a freethinker. Knowing this, the Jesuits, through Fr. Pastells, Rizals mentor during his formative years, attempted to bring him back into Catholicism. Their correspondence is like a treatise on Rizals religious beliefs.
It is believed and appears to be the documents they used to have Rizal executed. It essentially proves what Filipino nationalists have long believed, that Rizal was executed not just for fighting for the rights of Filipinos, but for heresy as well, that is, his non-belief in the Catholic church as the one true faith.
The Catholic church continues to deny this and maintains the retraction myth. In case you did not know, these letters and the document that Rizal allegedly signed retracting everything he wrote against the Catholic church were repeatedly asked for by Rizals family for authentication purposes when it was still easy to do same, that is, when his immediate family was still alive, and the church could not/would not produce them.
A fuller text of Rizal's letters is at this webpage -
The act of looking at ones business through the prism of ones reason and self-esteem does not seem to me censurable. For some purpose God must have given such qualities to man. Were we to see our personal affairs through the prism of others, we would find that it is not very practical, as there are many prisms as there are individuals. In my opinion, such an attitude would be offensive to God because it would mean that we were scorning His most precious gift to mankind.
My understanding is that self-esteem is the greatest good with which God has endowed man for his perfection and integrity. Reason, to be sure, should temper or moderate it. My belief is that man is the masterpiece of creation, perfect within his sphere. He cannot be deprived of any of his component parts physical or moral without disfiguring him and rendering him miserable.
Dapitan, November 11,1892 2nd letter
In the Middle Ages, everything bad was the work of the devil; everything good, the work of God or His saints.
Our judgment is subject to deception; our reason, to error. But reason alone can correct its errors, reason alone can rise after each fall, such falls being unavoidable in its long pilgrimage on earth. In its worst madness, humanity has not been able to extinguish this lamp which God has given to man. Time and again, its light has flickered, man has lost his way; but such condition vanishes or is overcome. After that the light of reason shines more brightly and steadily. but its rays the mistakes of the past are recognized and the pitfalls of the future are marked.
Super-natural or divine light is much more perfect than human reason. But who on earth can justly claim that he is the reflector of that Light?
All the religions pretend to possess the truth. Nay, not only religions but every man, even the most ignorant, the most stupid, thinks he is in the right.
Dapitan, January 9, 1893 (December 9, 1893) 3rd letter
More than by faith, I firmly believe by reasoning and by necessity that a Creator exists.
Nevertheless, I believe God to be infinitely wise, perfect, and good.
Dapitan, April 4, 1893 4th letter
My Most Reverend Father:
In time I received your gift, Monsignor Bougauds work [a writer on religion whose book Pastells sent to Rizal as a gift].Let us see if by reading it, I shall change my faith or the faith that you miss in me will be restored; if not, we shall have to content ourselves with what God has given to each of us.
God exists. How can I doubt His existence when I am convinced on my own? To recognize the effect is to admit the cause. To doubt the existence of God is to doubt ones conscience; and to doubt ones conscience is to doubt everything. In such a case, what would be the purpose of life?
I believe in [the Revelation]. Not, however, in the revelations which each and every religion claims to possess. If we examine, compare, and scrutinize such revelations impartially, we shall detect in all of them human claws and the stamp of the age in which they were written. Man makes his God in his own image and then ascribes to Him his own.
I believe in that living revelation of Nature which surrounds us everywhere; in that powerful, eternal, incessant, incorruptible, clear, distinct, and universal voice like the one from whom it emanates; that revelation which speaks to us and pervades our being from birth to death. What books can reveal to us better Gods goodness, love, providence, eternity, glory, and wisdom? Coeli enarrant gloriam Domini, et opera manum ejus enunciat firmamentum (The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork). What more Bible, what more gospel, does humanity wish? Ah, does not Your Reverence believe that men did wrong in seeking the divine will in palimpsests or parchments and temples, instead of searching for it in the works of Nature and under the august dome of the heavens? Instead of interpreting obscure passages or phrases designed to provoked hatred, wars, and dissensions, would it not have been better to interpret the works of Nature to enable us to adapt our lives more readily to its inviolable laws and utilize its forces for our perfection?
I do not deny that there are precepts of absolute necessity and usefulness clearly enunciated in Nature, but God has lodged them in the human heart, in man's conscience, His best temple. Hence, I adore more this good and provident God. He has endowed each of us with all that is necessary to save ourselves and has continuously opened to us the book of His revelation with His priest unceasingly speaking to us through the voice of our conscience.
Consequently, the best religions are the simplest ones, the most natural, the ones most in harmony with the needs and aspirations of man.
I say that the voice of my conscience can come only from God. I have no better guide than my conscience, my conscience alone, which judges and appraises my acts.
All Your Reverences brilliant and subtle arguments, which I shall not try to refute because it would require a whole dissertation, can not convince me that the Catholic Church is endowed with infallibility.
Who died on the Cross? Was it the God or the man? If it was the God, I do not understand how a God, conscious of his mission, could die. I do not understand how a God could exclaim in the garden, "Pater, Si possible transeat a me calix ista" (Father, if it possible, let this cup pass from me) and again exclaim on the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken?" This cry is absolutely human. It was the cry of a man who had faith in the justice and goodness of his cause. Except the words, "Hodie mecum eris" (Today you will be with me), it is the cry of Christ on Calvary. All this shows a man in torment and agony, but what a man! To me, Christ the man is greater than Christ the God. Had it been God who said. "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do," those who laid hands on him should have been forgiven, unless we say that God is like the certain men who say one thing and then do another.
I find another objection to the miracles of Christ in the apostasy of his disciples and their refusal to believe in his resurrection. had they really witnessed so many acts of wonder and resurrection, they would not have deserted him so cravenly nor doubted his resurrection. Whoever gives back life to others can very well recover his own.
Who is more stupidly proud, the man who is satisfied with following his own reason, or the man who tries to impose on others what reason does not prompt him to tell them, but just because he surmises it to be the truth? What has been reasoned out has never appeared stupid to me. Pride has always manifested itself in the idea of domination.
Exasperated by Pastells insistence, Rizal ended their correspondence through his short fifth letter to which there was no reply from Pastells, or of there was one, that letter must have been lost forever. Rizal put a stop to the debate with these words:
You say that we ought to hope that God will restore the faith which I lack. Let us then hope that he will do so, for this seems to me beyond our natural capabilities. Bougaud [a writer on religion whose book Pastells sent to Rizal as a gift] no longer convinces me. I am no longer able to comprehend any of your arguments and appreciate their merits.
I deeply appreciate your desire to enlighten me and illumine my path. But I fear it is a useless task.
