THE ENTREMUNDOS REPORT Churches and their rol of political, economical and social power in Guatemala. DIANA PASTOR In Guatemala religion makes up a fundamental aspect in the lives of the most of Guatemalans and although the religious tendencies have changed by the time, the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Church count the biggest number of followers. According to a study of the Pew Research Center in 2014, 50 percent of Guatemalan people declare themselves as Catholic and 14 percent as Evangelic. Just 3 percent of the interviewed confessed having another religious affinity than the ones mentioned before, and 6 percent comment not having an affinity to any church. Apart from the previous data, it can be said
that the Catholic as well as the Evangelic church represent the two big protagonists in Guatemala, and that their strength and territorial presence have converted them into spiritual entities of recognizable importance. Nevertheless, the facts in history demonstrate that both churches have played more than once an evangelizing role, a fundamental paper in political, economic and social situations. Let’s review and analyze some concrete examples when both churches have exercised positive or negative influence according to the events they intervened. July 27th, 1981, Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala. Father Stanley Rother got murdered by the Guatemalan army when armed men burst his parish church in the night. His murder, cannot be an isolated event. Beside him 20 other priests were murdered, and another 200 did abandon the country to be safe. The war was not only declared against the guerilla and numerous indígena communities, but also the Catholic church. However, not always the Catholic church was considered as an enemy of the state. Before the revolution of 1944, the high Catholic standing hold a public power audience, as Edelberto Torres Rivas expressed in his article The Conservative Restauration: Rafael Carrera and the destiny of the nation State in Guatemala. Torres explains: ‘The church was a big owner of finance, livestock, houses and other resources, and the biggest owner proprietor of slaves.’ That’s why it didn’t happened by chance that during the years of revolution the Catholic church considered their privileges as limited and so
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the supported the counterrevolution make recommendations about the necessity of removing the government of Jacobo Árbenz who was accused of being communist. The position of the church had to shift unexpectedly as soon as the liberation theology and armed conflicts came up, not only in Guatemala but also in other countries of Latin America. The Catholic Church’s paper went from being conservative and passive to promote the demand in the indígena sector, among the poor and the margins. The education, the literacy and the organization were important elements in the endeavor of many Catholic religions in poor Mayan communities. To defend the Human Rights and their support and the protection of persecutors of the army, many priests were murdered (like in Rother’s case) and the liberation theology was considered as a synonym of revolution and subversion. During this process of persecution of Catholic worshippers and priests, the Evangelic church acquired higher profile in Guatemala raising the percentage of followers from 19.10 percent to 30 percent. according a research from the Ecumenical and Christian Council of Guatemala. For many survivors of the war, the benefits that the mentioned Evangelics gave them in times of poverty and persecution were reasons enough to convert from Catholic to Evangelic. CONTINUED ON PAGE 17...
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