Guatemala Church celebrates 500 years of evangelisation

Jul 26, 2024

GUATEMALA CITY: The Catholic bishops of Guatemala marked the 500th anniversary of evangelisation in the country with gratitude for the Church’s growth and the spreading of the Gospel. However, they also acknowledged the ongoing journey toward peace, justice, and reconciliation.

“Over 500 years, the Church, in all its communities, has grown and expanded, the good news of Jesus has been welcomed by numerous peoples and has made us grow in dignity, aware of that divine life that He transmits to us, and that does not end with death,” said the bishops in their message for the National Eucharistic Congress, celebrating 500 years of the country’s evangelisation.

Held in Quetzaltenango, 206 kilometres northwest of Guatemala City, where the first evangelisation centre was founded, the meeting’s theme was from the Gospel of John: I am the bread of life.

“The Eucharistic presence of Jesus Christ and His Gospel has illuminated our lives in the midst of the development of the history of the Church in Guatemala, which has known moments of growth and splendour, as well as moments of oppression and persecution,” said the bishops in their message signed by Bishop Rodolfo Valenzuela Núñez of Verapaz, President of the Episcopal Conference of Guatemala, and Bishop Antonio Calderón Cruz of Jutiapa, Secretary General of the conference. “This occasion gives us the opportunity to be grateful for the arrival of the announcement of Christ dead and risen, the beginning of evangelization in our territory that has given meaning to the lives of thousands of believers.”

However, the bishops also noted, “There is still a long way to go to achieve the peace, justice, and reconciliation to which the Gospel of Jesus invites us… to continue working so that the life that the Lord gives us grows and flourishes among us.”

According to a Human Rights Watch report for 2021, Guatemala faces formidable challenges, including weak governance, endemic corruption, pervasive poverty, food insecurity, severe violence, and a lack of respect for human rights.

Before Spanish colonisation in the 1500s, the Guatemalan people practised the traditional Mayan religion. Spanish colonisation introduced Roman Catholicism and became the country’s official religion. Despite conversion, many Guatemalans blended Catholicism with traditional Mayan practices.

The bishops acknowledged the Spanish conquest’s high cost in death and suffering, seeing the anniversary as “an opportunity to continue advancing in the rehabilitation of the wounds and disagreements that occurred and still occur today. From the first evangelisers to the present, we must honestly recognise that the Church is at the same time holy and sinful and that Christ continues to suffer in the pain of our people.”
They also honoured the martyrs who shed their blood, recalling St Pedro de San José Betancur, the first saint of Guatemala and Central America, canonised by St Pope John Paul II in 2002.

A diocese was established in Guatemala in 1534 and raised to an archdiocese in 1743. The last bishop and first archbishop, Peruvian Pedro Pardo de Figueroa, patronised the arts and built the Santo Cristo de Esquipulas church, a significant pilgrimage site for Central America and southern Mexico. Guatemala gained independence from Spain in 1821 and declared itself an independent republic in 1839.

The 1853 concordat with the Holy See was repudiated during the 1870 liberal revolution, leading to the suppression of religious orders and secularisation. The Church regained independence in 1951, and diplomatic relations with the Holy See were eventually restored.

Guatemala’s religious landscape has dramatically shifted over the past few decades. In 2000, 60 per cent of the population was Catholic and 40 per cent Protestant. Today, only 46 per cent of Guatemala’s 17.1 million people identify as Catholic. Protestantism has slightly increased to 42 per cent, making Guatemala the most Protestant country in Latin America. Additionally, two per cent practise other religions, and 11 per cent of the population now claims no religious affiliation. — LCI (https://international.la-croix.com/)