THE PRIVILEGE OF SICKNESS: DISCALCED FRANCISCANS AND EXCLUSIONARY HEALING IN THE SPANISH PHILIPPINES, 1578-1775

This dissertation is about the Discalced Franciscans and their healing activities in the Spanish Philippines between the years 1578-1775. In historical and religious literature, Franciscans have always been known to be healers or healthcare givers but few works, if any, have really interrogated this predisposition to heal and the significations of their healing practices. Here I focus specifically on the Discalced Franciscans, a reformed branch of the Franciscan family founded in the late fifteenth century. They practiced a more rigorous form of piety which was more in line with the way of life of medieval Franciscans than that of their early modern brothers. In the seventeenth century, these discalced friars found themselves in the Spanish Philippines where they established healthcare facilities and assumed a leading role in the colony’s healthcare system. Against a background of globalization, colonialism, encounters and exchanges between indigenous and western traditions, the Discalced Franciscans, with an emphasis on healthcare practice, sought to recreate the way of life of medieval Franciscans in the early modern Philippines. This work explores their motivations and intentions in order to gain a richer and fuller understanding of why they heal, how they heal, and what it meant for them to heal. Through a close reading of primary documents from various archives, I approach this study with an analysis of why and how healing became integral in early Franciscan missions, followed by an examination of the emergence of the Discalced Franciscans and their practice of healing in the Philippines in the long seventeenth century. Ultimately, I argue that the Discalced Franciscans exercised an exclusionary type of healthcare approach, one which focused solely on the sick, which, at times, even placed the healthy at risk