Catholic Church in the Philippines in the context of "Visayan people"

The Philippine Independent Church (Filipino: Malayang Simbahan ng Pilipinas; Ilocano: Nawaya a Simbaan ti Filipinas), officially referred to by its Philippine Spanish name Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) and colloquially called the Aglipayan Church, is an independent catholic Christian denomination, in the form of a nationalist church, in the Philippines. Its revolutionary nationalist schism from the Catholic Church in the Philippines was proclaimed during the American colonial period in 1902, following the end of the Philippine–American War, by members of the country's first labor union federation, the Unión Obrera Democrática Filipina.

The foundation of the church was a response to the historical mistreatment and racial discrimination of Filipinos by Spaniard priests and partly influenced by the unjust executions of José Rizal and Filipino priests and prominent secularization movement figures Mariano Gomez, José Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora, during the former Spanish colonial rule in the country when Catholicism was still the state religion.

The Catholic Church in the United States is part of the worldwide Latin Church and the wider Catholic Communion, in communion with the Pope. With 19 percent of the adult United States' population as of 2024, the Catholic Church is the country's second-largest religious grouping after Protestantism. The United States has the fourth-largest Catholic population in the world, after Brazil, Mexico, and the Philippines.

The Catholic Church in India is part of the worldwide Catholic Church under the leadership of the Pope. There are over 23 million Catholics in India, representing around 1.57% of the total population, and the Catholic Church is the single largest Christian church in India. There are 10,701 parishes that make up 174 dioceses and eparchies, which are organised into 30 ecclesiastical provinces. Of these, 132 dioceses are of the Latin Church, 31 of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church and 11 of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. Despite the very small percentage-wise population that Indian Catholics make up in the country, India still has the second-largest Christian population in Asia, after the Catholic Church in the Philippines. All Catholic bishops, from all dioceses, come together to form the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, first convened in British India, in 1944. The ambassador representing the Vatican City, to the Government of India, is the Apostolic Nuncio to India. The diplomatic mission of the Holy See to India, similar to an embassy, was established as the Apostolic delegation to the East Indies in 1881. It was raised to an Internunciature by Pope Pius XII in 1948, and to a full Apostolic Nunciature by Pope Paul VI in 1967. Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli is the current Apostolic Nuncio, named by Pope Francis on 13 March 2021. The Apostolic Nunciature is located at 50-C, Niti Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi.

The majority, about 78.3%, belong to the Latin Church, the rest are Syrian Catholic Christians. The Syro-Malabar Church, one of the Eastern Catholic Churches, makes up around 19.7% of Indian Catholics, while the Syro-Malankara Church accounts for approximately 2.0%. These figures reflect the diverse liturgical traditions within Indian Catholicism, with Eastern Catholic communities primarily based in the Malabar region (present-day state of Kerala).

Islam in the Philippines is the second largest religion in the country, and the faith was the first-recorded monotheistic religion in the Philippines. Historically, Islam reached the Philippine archipelago in the 14th century, through contact with Muslim Malay and Arab merchants along Southeast Asian trade networks, in addition to Yemeni missionaries from the tribe of Ba 'Alawi sada of Yemen from the Persian Gulf, southern India, and their followers from several sultanates in the wider Malay Archipelago. The first Sunni Sufi missionaries then followed in the late 14th and early 15th centuries. They facilitated the formation of sultanates and conquests in mainland Mindanao and Sulu. Those who converted to Islam came to be known as the Moros, with Muslim conquest reaching as far as Tondo that was later supplanted by Bruneian Empire vassal-state of Maynila.

Muslim sultanates had already begun expanding in the central Philippines by the 16th century, when the Spanish fleet led by Ferdinand Magellan arrived. The Spanish referred to Muslim inhabitants of the Philippines as "Moros," after the Muslim "Moors" they had regarded with disdain in Iberia and the Maghreb. The subsequent Spanish conquest led to Catholic Christianity becoming the predominant religion in most of the modern-day Philippines, with Islam becoming a significant minority religion.

Gerard Francisco Parco Timoner III OP (born 26 January 1968) is a Filipino Catholic priest who has served as the 88th Master of the Order of Preachers, better known as the Dominicans, since 13 July 2019. He is the first Asian to hold the position.

Timoner is also a professor of theology at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila and since 2014 a member of the International Theological Commission.

Gomburza, alternatively stylized as GOMBURZA or GomBurZa ("Gom" for Gómes, "Bur" for Burgos, and "Za" for Zamora), refers to three Filipino Catholic priests, Mariano Gómes, José Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora, who were executed by a garrote on February 17, 1872, in Bagumbayan, Philippines by Spanish colonial authorities on charges of subversion arising from the 1872 Cavite mutiny. The name is a portmanteau of the priests' surnames.

Gomburza incurred the hatred of Spanish authorities for fighting for equal rights among priests and leading the campaign against the Spanish friars. They fought on the issues of secularization in the Philippines that led to the conflict of religious and church seculars.

Mariano Gómes de los Ángeles (Spanish: [ˈmaˈɾjano ˈɣomes]; August 2, 1799 – February 17, 1872), often known by his birth name Mariano Gómez y Custodio or Mariano Gomez in modern orthography, was a Filipino Catholic priest who was falsely accused of mutiny by the Spanish colonial authorities in the Philippines in the 19th century. He was placed in a mock trial and summarily executed in Manila along with two other clergymen collectively known as the Gomburza. Gomes was the oldest of the three priests and spent his life writing about abuses against Filipino priests.

José Apolonio Burgos y García (February 9, 1837 – February 17, 1872) was a Filipino Catholic priest, accused of mutiny by the Spanish colonial authorities in the Philippines in the 19th century. He was tried and executed in Manila along with two other clergymen, Mariano Gomez and Jacinto Zamora, who are collectively known as the Gomburza.