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THE ARCHDIOCESE OF CACERES
Jurisdiction and History
The Archdiocese of Caceres is located on the
southern part of the island of Luzon, in the Bicol Peninsula (Region V), in the
Republic of thePhilippines.
The
Archdiocese covers the 2nd, 3rd and 4th districts of Camarines
Sur. It is bounded to
the north by the Province of Camarines Norte and San Miguel Bay; to the east by
the Pacific Ocean; to south by the Province of Albay; and, on the west
by the Ist District of the Province of Camarines Sur (the Prelature of Libmanan), Ragay Gulf and the Province of Quezon.
The Archdiocese has five suffragan dioceses: Legazpi, Sorsogon, Masbate, Daet, Virac and, the Prelature
of Libmanan within its metropolitan jurisdiction.
The suffragan dioceses respectively correspond to
the five other provinces of the Bicol Region,
namely. Albay, Sorsogon, Masbate, Camarines Norte and Catanduanes. The Prelature of Libmanan
covers the 1st District of the Province of Camarines Sur.
The titular of the Archdiocese is St. Peter Baptist. His feast day is
celebrated February the 6th.
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A Map of Bicol Region
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Missionary
Explorations. The first encounter of Bicolanos
with Christianity was made through the zeal of Augustinian missionaries. The
missionaries came from three directions in three waves: the first, from the
south in 1569 and 1570 by way of Masbate and Sorsogon then to Camalig and Nabua; the second, through Paracale
and San Miguel Bay to Libon, Albay in 1573; and, the
third, from the east in 1576, at Batalay,
Catanduanes.
Fray Alonso Gimenez was the first Augustinian friar
to sow Christianity in the Bicol Region. Together
with the exploration party of 1569 headed by Captain Luis Enriquez de Guzman,
they reached the islands of Masbate, Ticao, Burias, onto a barrio of
Sorsogon the Spaniards named “Ibalon
de Region de Camarines,” and, till as far inland as
the present Camalig, Albay.
This exploration party adopted the name “Tierra de Camarines”
to refer to the entire Bicol peninsula.
In 1570, a second exploration party,
headed by Captain Andres de Ibarra, following the course already charted by
the de Guzman expedition, pushed further inland and reached native
settlements bordering Lake Bato which were then known
to inhabitants as the barangays of Kalilingo and Bua -- now the
towns of Bato and Nabua,
respectively.
Two more Augustinians figured prominently in the Christianization of Bicol. In 1573, the expedition of Captain Juan de Salcedo, dispatched by Governor-General Miguel Lopez de Legaspi from Manila, went with
Fray Diego de Espinar to as far as Paracale in Camarines Norte. Fray Francisco Merino joined the second Salcedo expedition, which reached San Miguel Bay and followed the
course of the Bicol River upstream to its
source Lake Bato. On its banks, the
Spaniards erected the foundation for a settlement, naming it Santiago de Libong – presently the town of Libon, Albay.
On the return voyage of the expedition to Manila, Salcedo left an occupation garrison by a flourishing
native ranch at the bank of a tributary of the Bicol River, under the command
of Captain Pedro de Chavez. Later, Chavez founded, not far from the place, a
township for Spanish nationals and named it “Ciudad de Caceres”
– the present City of Naga.
To the
Augustinian missionaries then belongs the honor of
blazing the missionary trail in the region. They are the “Missionaries to the
Camarines.”
Evangelization and the First Parishes. More stable
evangelization efforts came with the Franciscans in 1578. Assigned to the Bicol Region were Fray Pablo de Jesus and Fray Bartolome Ruiz.
On
the same year, consolidating the gains of previous missions, the two
Franciscans established no less than four parishes: Naga, Quipayo,
Nabua and Bula. Thus,
“Tierra de Camarines” came to be more permanently a
Franciscan mission, remaining so till the end of the Spanish Regime in the Philippines.
With
the establishment of the first four parishes, came a more focused attention
of ecclesiastical governance. Thus, while the Franciscan chronicler, Fray
Francisco Ribadeneira, OFM
wrote of the early Bikols being “most temperate,
docile and modest...” – most open to the Gospel – in the archipelago, Bishop
Andres Gonzales, OP of Manila (1685-1709) would preach the faith over the
exploitation of the people and other such social ills committed in the name
of Christianization and Conquest by government officials and even by
churchmen.
Further,
till this time, the parishes of “Tierra de Camarines”
were governed from Manila by P. Santiago de
Castro, with such difficulties of administration and vicissitudes of travel
that distance entailed.
The Church of Caceres. With the
foregoing backdrop, the Diocese of Nueva Caceres was established as the suffragan
of Manila on August 14, 1595. This was by
virtue of the Papal Bull “Super specula militantis
ecclesiae” issued by Clement VIII. The diocese extended over “the provinces
of Camarines and Albay as
far as and including the islands of Ticao, Masbate, Burias and Catanduanes; the province of Tayabas as far as and
including Lucban; and, in the contracosta
of Mauban to Binangonan,
Polo, Baler and Casiguran.” The official name given
to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction is “Ecclesia Cacerensis
in Indiis Orientalius.”
The name taken from “Ciudad de Caceres” also
indicated the seat of the diocese. Fray Luis de Maldonado, OFM was appointed the first bishop of the Diocese of Nueva Caceres.
The
period following the erection of the diocese saw crucial transitions in the
histories of both the Church and State -- from the Philippine Revolution to
the Philippine Republic, from an evangelization colored
by colonization to Filipinization. Prominent in Bicol were:
 Most Rev. Jorge Barlin,
the first Filipino and secular bishop, battling erroneous doctrines of the Aglipayan schism;
the promotion of the regional devotion to
the Virgin of Penafrancia and the Divino Rostro - to the
construction of a worthy cathedral church for the faith; and,
the gradual
recognition of native vocations and clergy with the building of a
diocesan conciliar seminary as well as the
establishment of institutions like the first “Escuela
Superior” in the country.
On April
10, 1910, with the creation of new dioceses, the Diocese of Nueva Caceres became a sole Bicol Diocese circumscribing only the entire region, with
the six provinces of Albay, Camarines
Norte, Camarines Sur, Catanduanes, Masbate and Sorsogon.
The Archdiocese of Caceres. On June 29, 1951 Pope Pius XII elevated the Diocese
of Nueva Caceres into the
Archdiocese of Caceres through the Papal Bull Quo
in Philippine Republica. On the same
date, two suffragan dioceses were created: Legaspi and Sorsogon. Sorsogon included in its jurisdiction the Province of Masbate until March 23, 1968 when the entire
island- province of Masbate was then erected
into a separate diocese. Legaspi meanwhile
comprised the Province of Albay and Catanduanes until May
27, 1974 when the island-province of Catanduanes
was erected as the Diocese of Virac.
The Archdiocese
then came to cover only the two Camarines
provinces referred to as “Ambos Camarines.” This
continued until September 1, 1974 when the whole Province of Camarines Norte became the Diocese
of Daet.
On March 19, 1990, the Ist District of the Province of Camarines Sur was created as the
Prelature of Libmanan. This act separated still
from the Archdiocesan jurisdiction some 2,060 square kilometers
or 1,280 square miles of land territory inhabited by approximately 208,560
people and, cared for by some 18 members of clergy incardinated, as of March
1990.
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