0.3 Opus dei book's darkened rizal & Why - chapter 3  (Page 7/21)

What would veteran ‘CSI-type’ diggers of truth say about all this so far? They would say surely that all this points conclusively to fraud. How do you think scientifically oriented scholars in the burgeoning field of Real Jesus Studies, (in which Rizal read too) would react to this familiar case of conflicting tales and claims? The telltale blunders in conflicting announcements and procedures alone; the different versions if who obtained the retraction, when, by what means, the belated final version of the relatively new arrival to Spain’s Philippine colony (Balaguer); all these would be regarded by specialists in the higher criticism of historic texts as self-proclaiming marks of fraud. That’s how the sensational ninth-century Pseudo-Isidorian Forgeries (of dozens of Papal letters, bulls, decrees of past centuries) were conclusively resolved by specialists both lay and clerics. Do you know of any similar historic document-signing marred so tellingly by as many conflicting announcements and versions of its writing and signing? Galileo’s famous retraction was never like this. Philippine Presidential aspirant Quezon’s famous retraction from Masonry before the War took just one such official announcement. It was agreed upon by all parties because, as in Galileo’s, the event happened with all its proper witnessing and converging of reports on it. No They lost it irregularities, anomalies, suspicious procedures and blunders surrounded how and who obtained their much longer explained recantations. This is just not so in Rizal’s case. Please think long and hard about this ton of very serious stuff to ponder and weigh. A lot more is to come. Take a day or two, before continuing on, for reflection and rest from possible exhaustion. Remember this disproof’s goal: you should by end of this essay fully resolve in your opened mind, at long last, this long-festering toxic issue of whether our world-heroic subject retracted. And whether the firmly growing mountain of conclusive anti-retraction evidence I’ve been crowing about really does exist. Let me just remind you quickly that my mentioned sources may be found and checked in priest-scholar Cavanna’s compendium of documents including many reproductions of newspapers and works from which I cited and pointed to. The National Library, the Lopez Museum Library, the Metro Manila Jesuit University’s oddly renamed Rizal Library keep copies of Cavanna and others cited in their large collections.

Pastells in the Hot Seat

Why haven’t others before me in 1998 when I first drew attention to Pastells’ role in the fraud gone on to dig deeper in that direction? Out of respect for the Church and the Jesuits, then leading defender-order of the faith, a role now ceded to the more traditional Opus Dei. Out of respect for Jesuit pride and reputation, nationalistic Catholic historians and educators, instead of stressing Rizal’s steadfast humanist progressivism, safely over-cultivated and over-magnified Rizal as apostle of nationalism, the hero of the pro-independence uprising against Spain, even proponent of Philippine state-led protectionism. At any rate, back to Pastells in the hot seat as never before. He may have way back mentored Fr. Balaguer, who came to the Jesuit Order relatively late in life. He may have coached and asked him to monitor Rizal in Dapitan, just as he did in the case of Fr. Sanchez. Balaguer boasted in an affidavit two decades later knowing about Rizal’s life, works and beliefs. That’s why he could engage him winningly in the death cell in a mini-rerun of the nine-letter Pastells-Rizal debate. Who informed him about that exchange but Pastells (who kept his copy of the entire debate). What baloney that boast is of now knowing about Rizal’s life, works and beliefs. This reminds me of his previous letter’s boast to Jesuit Superior Pio Pi of almost obtaining the retraction in Dapitan (in the wake of failed attempts by Obach, Pastells, Sanchez). When the hero fell very ill during his last year in Dapitan (about which there is no record), on his sickbed he personally witnessed how very vulnerable to reconverting the deep-down Christian Rizal was. If that were his real deathbed, Balaguer boasted, he would most likely have reconverted Rizal! This he had thought then, and later in the year in the death cell was proved right indeed. What a wild fanatical storyteller and loose canon that Balaguer turned out to be!