Purely a Business Matter: The Taft Mission to the Vatican

When the United States occupied the Philippine Islands, it confronted the problems, common to all colonial powers, of securing the allegiance of the population, removing sources of disaffection, establishing a new administration, and pacifying those elements likely to resist that administration. American officials discovered that, in the peculiar context of the Philippines, solving such problems meant confronting the issue of church-state relations and required official dealings with the Catholic church. Under Spanish rule the church was an important force in the Philippine Islands. It was closely aligned with the colonial authority; indeed, it was often indistinguishable from that authority. Under arrangements dating from the sixteenth century, the Philippine church received state subsidies for the maintenance of priests and religious, and built churches, convents, and cemeteries on state property. Religious orders, in particular the four “great orders” (the Augustinians, Dominicans, Franciscans, and Recollects), received large tracts of agricultural land from the state. In return they assumed responsibility for the social and educational welfare of the population by operating schools, hospitals, orphanages, and relief programs.1