Media technology and papal events

The solemn drama and pageantry at the Vatican came to a jubilant culmination on St. Joseph’s feast day with the installation of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Pope Francis. Events that led to this celebration were brought on real time to all corners of the world, Catholic and non-, through the digital eyes and ears of instant media.

Sound and image bytes from live media coverage brought developments in the electoral process in the Sistine Chapel to global viewing. It seemed like the Catholics were participating in the making of Church history as they held prayer vigils for the election of the 266th pontiff from among the 115 multiracial cardinals gathered under the canopy of Michelangelo paintings at the Sistine Chapel, and as they waited in front of their television sets for the white smoke, the clangor of the bells at St. Peter’s Basilica, the Habemus Papam announcement, and the appearance of the Pope-elect at the balcony. In sync, the faithful worldwide cheered with those gathered at St. Peter’s Square when Pope Francis, first Jesuit and first non-European head of the Church, emerged for his greetings, message and prayer for the city and the world, urbi et orbi.

This real-time jubilation was impossible before telegraphy and the Morse Code. Submarine communication cables linked America and Europe for the first time in 1867.  That same year, Spanish authorities laid down telegraph lines in the Philippines. However, the submarine cables to Hong Kong, our link to the outside world, were completed only in 1880.

There was no direct news feed from the Vatican during all those years that the Philippines was a Spanish colony. In the ecclesiastical timeline, those years were under the papacies starting from Pius IV to Leo XIII, the 225th and 256th pope, respectively.  News came stamped with the royal seal from Madrid to the governor superior or capitan-general, who was also the vice patron of the Philippines when it came to Church matters.  Whether these seeped down to the faithful in the towns depended on him, the archbishop, the corregidor or  alcalde mayor (provincial governor), and the parish priests.

The Filipinos then had only the Doctrina Christiana, the Scriptures in the words of the priests, and customary religious rituals to moor their Christian faith. Their Church was the visible priest and religious structures and the audible pealing of the bells signifying births, weddings, deaths and divine rites of Sundays and other days of obligation.  They could have known of an archbishop above their cura paroco, but the deaths and succession of popes could have been odd intrusions into their comfortable understanding of Church affairs.

Strangely, there was a late celebration of the installation of Cardinal Francesco Xaverio Castiglione as Pius VIII, the 253rd in the papacy, on March 31, 1829, upon the death of his predecessor Leo XII in February.

It was already history when the royal order of King Ferdinand VII dated May 16, 1829, reached the capitan-general in Manila either by the end of that year or in early January 1830.  The Archbishopric of Manila, the See of the dioceses of Cebu, Nueva Caceres (Naga) and Nueva Segovia (Vigan), was vacant ever since Hilarion Diez, OSA, died on May 7, 1829, and a cabildo or cathedral chapter was in charge of ecclesiastical matters.

The king called for the exaltation of the new pope. The capitan-general, Mariano Ricafort, issued a superior decree to the local governments on Jan. 18, 1830, echoing the royal instructions, and asking for the submission of compliance reports from the gobernadorcillos.

We saw the compliance reports from several towns of Zambales at the National Archives. We suppose that similar documents might have been submitted from other provinces, especially those under the Archdiocese of Manila.

The gobernadorcillos  first cited in their “certified and true testimony” the regulatory bases of their reports: the royal order from Madrid and the superior decree from Manila, a copy of the latter coming into their hands from the corregidor on Feb. 17, stemming from the “pontification of Cardinal Castiglione who chose the name Pius VIII,” which they disseminated to their people through the usual bandillo or town crier for three days in the last week of that month.

Finally, from the short compliance reports, we gathered that all the streets and house windows in the towns of Cabangan, Masinloc, Sta. Cruz, Subic and Uguit (now Castillejos) were illuminated for three consecutive nights, from the first to the third day of March. On the last day, the solemn Te Deum was sung in the church with the principalia and the common people in attendance.   In the capital town of Iba, the corregidor attended the church service together with his minor officials of justice.  In Uguit, being a visita of Subic, there was no priest to say the Mass; hence, the people prayed the rosary.

One line said that they had stopped mourning, which could have been meant for Leo XII.  The lights and the Te Deum were for Pius VIII, but his was a short reign; he died at the end of the year, on Dec. 31, 1830.

We have not seen any documented jubilation event afterwards.  If ever the Filipino Catholic was ordered to celebrate the installation of Pope Gregory XVI on Feb. 6, 1831, that could not have happened until late in the year or in early 1832. It would be very interesting to see how the Filipino Catholics got their news of a papal election as this was first carried by submarine cables and then the radio waves.

Liberato F. Ramos is a retired nuclear engineer.