Still in those hot hellish countries the only reprieve from life is probably the Church
Next January when I'm out sailing, or sipping a drink on the beach while watching the sun slip behind the gently waving palms, I may remind you that hot hellish countries do have some advantages over cold hellish countries: if a Canadian winter isn't hellish, I don't know what is.
The Church did presumably provide a reprieve, though some might call it an opiate. Before the Church arrived, of course, the locals had their own religions, which provided the same reprieve; they were also decentralized, which limited the power that they could wield. The Catholic Church was the first organization ever to wield centralized state power over this country; the power was considerable, and as everywhere, power tends to corrupt. Revolts were frequent but localized and unsuccessful. By the time the Spanish were tossed out, in a nationwide revolt that was largely directed at the friars, Church-run estates held the majority of the country's arable land, and the locals were reduced to tenancy. Vows were also taken rather lightly: mistresses were the norm, and to this day a light-skinned Filipino is often jokingly referred to as "anak pare", "child of a priest". |
