Maryknoll Sisters in the Philippines

A Catholic normal school for the training of teachers was opened by Archbishop Michael J. O’Doherty in Malabon in 1924 housed in the old convento of the parish. To administer that school the Archbishop invited Maryknoll Sisters from the United States. Seven Sisters were sent, whose coming was announced in the Manila press in March 1925, but it was not till the opening of the new school year in June 1926 that the school began to function under the direction of the Sisters.

In quick succession, Maryknoll Sisters assumed two other works in Manila. One was St. Mary’s Hall, a hostel (or dormitory) for women, situated on what was then called Pennsylvania Avenue, not far from Padre Faura Street where the University of the Philippines was then located. Maryknoll Sisters also assumed direction of St. Paul’s Hospital in Intramuros, which had been begun by Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres.

The success of these establishments in Manila and its environs created a demand for the Sisters’ services and they spread very quickly to the Provinces. At the peak of their expansion the Sisters had schools in Baguio, in Santiago (Isabela Province) in Lipa (Batangas), Lucena (Tayabas), Pakil (at the eastern shore of the Laguna de Ba-i). They ran a hospital in Manapla (Negros Occidental). In Mindanao, they had schools in Jimenez (Misamis Occidental), Panabo and Santo Tomas (Davao del Norte), Upi and Dulawan (Maguindanao), Lupon and Cateel (Davao Oriental), and Bislig (Surigao).

Their best known institution of course was Maryknoll College. Its beginnings were modest. When, because of financial straits the Archdiocese could no longer support the normal school in Malabon the Sisters assumed full financial control, opened their own Maryknoll Normal College in Manila (first on Isaac Peral, later on Mabini Street). The grade school and high school in Malabon became St. James Academy. This was in 1936. After World War II, Maryknoll College reopened on a bigger scale at Loyola Heights, adjacent to the Ateneo campus.

A book has recently been published entitled Maryknoll Sisters in the Philippines, which recounts their history. It is a very well written book by two Maryknoll Sisters, Virginia Fabella and Dorothy Mulligan, published by the Maryknoll Foundation of the Philippines (2001).

It was at the height of the Sisters’ expansion that I got involved personally with the Maryknoll Sisters and their work.

My first contact with the Sisters was vicarious. When I was a boy, my sister was studying fine arts at U.P. under the painter, Don Fabian de la Rosa, and she stayed at St. Mary’s Hall. She came back home during vacations with glowing praise for the Sisters for whom she had developed high admiration.

My first personal contact with Maryknoll Sisters was when I became a patient in the old St. Paul’s Hospital in Intramuros. Much later, as a priest at the Ateneo in Loyola Heights, we took turns saying Mass for the Sisters in their Chapel.

In 1972 I was appointed by the Holy See Visitor of the Maryknoll Sisters. We Jesuits have a vow of special obedience to the Pope regarding "missions" (i.e. assignments) and it was in virtue of that vow that I accepted. It meant visiting all the places where Maryknoll Sisters were working and interviewing every one of the Sisters. The only two places I could not visit were Santiago in Isabela Province, and a clinic run by the Sisters in the heart of Muslim country.

I remember hiring a private airplane to take me over the mountains from Davao to Baganga on the Pacific coast of Mindanao, thence by bus to Cateel, thence by banca along the Mindanao coast to Lianga Bay, thence by bus to Bislig, and again by bus to Surigao to interview the bishop there. For part of my mandate from the Holy See was to discuss matters with all the bishops in whose territory the Maryknoll Sisters were working. That included Cardinal Rufino Santos of Manila, and the bishops of Baguio, Lipa, San Pablo (Laguna), Bacolod, Misamis, Cotabato, Davao, Tagum and Surigao.

In 1973 when the Visitation ended I submitted the facts I had gathered and my recommendations, which were acknowledged very graciously in a letter from Cardinal Lercano, head of the Congregation De Propaganda Fide.

From that Visitation I conceived a very great respect for the Sisters, a great admiration for their work, and an appreciation of the problems they had to contend with — most of them internal to their Congregation as a result of the altered perspectives that arose after Vatican II.

The Sisters had come at a time when the Catholic Church was down, the clergy looked down upon, the Catholics demoralized. The Sisters contributed enormously to the revitalization of the Church. Their schools and hospitals exerted a great influence on Philippine society. Their influence was central and basic.

It was therefore with dismay and deep regret that I later watched the Sisters give up their schools and devoted themselves to works with merely peripheral and minimal impact.

But at least, for merely 50 years, the Maryknoll Sisters were among those most influential in the revival of Catholic life.