page_title: Religion in the Philippines
section_title: Catholicism
hierarchical_section_title: Religion in the Philippines / Dominant religions / Christianity / Catholicism
caption_attribution_description: English: A view of the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral.
context_page_description: Religion in the Philippines is marked by a majority of people being adherents of the Christian faith. At least 92% of the population is Christian; about 81% belong to the Catholic Church while about 11% belong to Protestantism, Orthodoxy, Restorationist and Independent Catholicism and other denominations such as Iglesia Filipina Independiente, Iglesia ni Cristo, Seventh-day Adventist Church, United Church of Christ in the Philippines, Members Church of God International and Evangelicals. Officially, the Philippines is a secular nation, with the Constitution guaranteeing separation of church and state, and requiring the government to respect all religious beliefs equally.
  According to national religious surveys, about 5.6% of the population of the Philippines is Muslim, making Islam the second largest religion in the country. However, A 2012 estimate by the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos stated that there were 10.7 million Muslims, or approximately 11 percent of the total population. The majority of Muslims live in parts of Mindanao, Palawan, and the Sulu Archipelago – an area known as Bangsamoro or the Moro region.
context_section_description: Catholicism (Filipino: Katolisismo; Spanish: Catolicismo) is the predominant religion and the largest Christian denomination, with estimates of approximately 80.6% of the population belonging to this faith in the Philippines. Spanish efforts to convert many on the islands were aided by the lack of a significant central authority, and by friars who learnt local languages to preach. Some traditional animistic practices blended with the new faith.
  The Catholic Church has great influence on Philippine society and politics. One typical event is the role of the Catholic hierarchy during the bloodless People Power Revolution of 1986. Then-Archbishop of Manila and de facto Primate of the Philippines, Jaime Cardinal Sin appealed to the public via radio to congregate along Epifanio de los Santos Avenue in support of rebel forces. Some seven million people responded to the call between February 22–25, and the non-violent protests successfully forced President Ferdinand E. Marcos out of power and into exile in Hawaii.
  Several Catholic holidays are culturally important as family occasions, and are observed in the civil calendar. Chief among these are Christmas, which includes celebrations of the civil New Year, and the more solemn Holy Week, which may occur in March or April. Every November, Filipino families celebrate All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day as a single holiday in honour of the saints and the dead, visiting and cleaning ancestral graves, offering prayers, and feasting. As of 2018, Feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 8 was added as a special non-working holiday.
  Census data from 2010 found that about 80.58% of the population professed Catholicism.
caption: The Catholic Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral, built on the site of the Church of St. Vitales, the first church built in the Philippines
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