The tour we availed of for our Bacolod-Iloilo-Guimaras tour last year included a city tour of Iloilo. We visited a lot of places that day, but notably we went to Iloilo’s “male” and “female” churches.
We first went to the “male” church, the Jaro Metropolitan Cathedral. On the pamphlet our tour guide gave us, it says:
“Also known as the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Candles”. Established in 1984. The late Graciano Lopez-Jaena was baptized here. The church also possesses the relics of St. Josemaria Escriva. The church was constructed in the Romanesque Revival style with its distinctive feature: a bell tower located across it. Another distinctive feature is the shrine featuring the Statue of Our Lady of Candes. Another feature is its all male saints placed on columns, with the exception of the Marian central image. The arrangement is in response to Molo Church’s all-female theme.”
It’s pretty massive, actually. So massive in fact that there is literally a busy road in between the church and the bell tower mentioned in the write up. I still can’t wrap my head around the idea of a church having that big of a courtyard.
Afterwards we went to the “female” church, St. Anne’s Parish. It’s more commonly known as the Molo Chruch and the write up says:
“Established in 1862. Also known as the “Feminist” Church because it features the images of 16 female saints. Made of white coral rock, it is a Gothic-Renaissance Church and its two pointed belfries is its most remarkable gothic feature. Our national hero described it as ‘la iglesia bonita’ or beautiful church.”
I personally liked this church better – and not only because of that whole feminist thing. To my eyes, it’s definitely more imposing than the Jaro church. It must be the red tips. There’s also a small plaza outside of the church where I imagine school kids can hang out and practice school related routines as the grass lawn is shaded by a line of trees.
It was also very interesting to me that one of the pavilions in the plaza had statues of (what I think) Greek gods. I don’t know if they’re just being ironic or just really, really open minded about other religious icons.
Have you been to these two churches?
