Saint Francis Xavier Cathedral Parish, commonly known as Kabankalan Cathedral, is the

cathedral A cathedral is a church (building), church that contains the of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, Annual conferences within Methodism, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually s ...

of the

Roman Catholic Diocese of Kabankalan The Roman Catholic Diocese of Kabankalan (Lat: ''Dioecesis Cabancalensis'') is a diocese of the Catholic Church in central Philippines. The Roman Rite Latin Church diocese is centered in the Kabankalan, City of Kabankalan in Negros Occidental pro ...

in the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

. It is located in the city proper of

Kabankalan Kabankalan, officially the City of Kabankalan (; ; , Spanish: ''Ciudad de Cabancalán''), is a component city in the province of Negros Occidental, Philippines. According to the 2025 census, it has a population of 330,378 people making it th ...

Negros Occidental Negros Occidental (; ), officially the Province of Negros Occidental (; ), is a Provinces of the Philippines, province in the Philippines located in the Negros, Negros Island. Its capital is the city of Bacolod, of which it is geographically s ...

, in the

Western Visayas Western Visayas (; ; ) is an Regions of the Philippines, administrative region in the Philippines, numerically designated as Region VI. The region comprises the islands of Panay and Guimaras Island, Guimaras. It consists of five Provinces of the ...

region of the country.

History

Christianization efforts in the island of Negros were started by the

Augustinian Recollect The Order of Augustinian Recollects (OAR) is a mendicant Catholic religious order of friars and nuns. It is a reformist offshoot from the Augustinian hermit friars and follows the same Rule of St. Augustine. They have also been known as the "D ...

s during the Spanish colonial period. Kabankalan, then spelled as ''Cavancalan'' and ''Cabangcalan'', was formerly a

sitio A ''sitio'' ( Spanish for "site") in the Philippines is a territorial enclave that forms part of a barangay. Typically rural, a ''sitios location is usually far from the center of the barangay itself and could be its own barangay if its popu ...

of the neighboring municipality of

Ilog ILOG S.A. was an international software company purchased and incorporated into IBM announced in January, 2009. It created enterprise software products for supply chain, business rule management, visualization and optimization. The main product ...

. It is named after the bangkal tree. Kabankalan received its first

parish priest A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or ...

in 1848. A

chapel A chapel (from , a diminutive of ''cappa'', meaning "little cape") is a Christianity, Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. First, smaller spaces inside a church that have their o ...

was built in 1905 by Fr. Tiburcio Fernandez. In March 1907, Kabankalan was separated formally from Ilog as an independent municipality through the

Philippine Commission The Philippine Commission was the name of two bodies, both appointed by the president of the United States, to assist with governing the Philippines. The First Philippine Commission, also known as the Schurman Commission, was appointed by Pre ...

's Act 1612. The present church structure was built and inaugurated in December 1935 by Fr. Felipe Lerena. It was dedicated to

Saint Francis Xavier Francis Xavier, SJ (born Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta; ; ; ; ; ; 7 April 15063 December 1552), venerated as Saint Francis Xavier, was a Navarrese cleric and missionary. He co-founded the Society of Jesus and, as a representative o ...

, a 16th-century

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

priest. Among those who helped in building the church were Manuel Montinola, Engineer M. Sales, and the ''hacenderos'' of the province's

sugar industry The sugar industry subsumes the production, Sugar refinery, processing and marketing of sugars (mostly sucrose and fructose). Globally, about 80% of sugar is extracted from sugar cane, grown predominantly in the tropics, and 20% from sugar beet, ...

. The church of Kabankalan was elevated to the status of a

when the

Diocese of Kabankalan The Roman Catholic Diocese of Kabankalan (Lat: ''Dioecesis Cabancalensis'') is a diocese of the Catholic Church in central Philippines. The Roman Rite Latin Church diocese is centered in the City of Kabankalan in Negros Occidental province and c ...

was founded in 1987. The diocese administers the southern portion of Negros Occidental.

References

External links

* * {{Roman Catholic Diocese of Kabankalan Roman Catholic churches in Negros Occidental Roman Catholic cathedrals in the Philippines 20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the Philippines Churches in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kabankalan Jubilee churches in the Philippines