Rizal lamented that his people were converted to a religion they did not understand. It's absolutely sure that the early native converts understood the Faith no more deeply than did the Gauls or Goths of Europe; but if the same argument had succeeded in stopping the introduction into Europe of an alien Oriental religion the world would not have had Chartres or Giotto or Chaucer or Michelangelo.
Nick Joaquin, Culture and History, Anvil (Mandaluyong City, Philippines: 2004), p. 121. This is a point that came up in discussing Shusaku Endo's Silence a couple of years back.
