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The Catholic Church and the Closed Corporate Community During the Guatemalan Revolution, 1944-1954*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Blake D. Pattridge
Blake D. Pattridge*
Affiliation:
Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana
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Extract

Scholars have debated the effects of the Guatemalan Revolution (1944-1954), i.e. the political and social changes carried out during the decade, on the closed corporate community. Many scholars, including the anthropologists Carol Smith and Ralph Beals, have looked at the political pressures and changes during the Revolution in attempts to explain the decline of the traditional community during the decade. Meanwhile, the historian Jim Handy has challenged the common political explanations for the downfall of the community and questioned the degree to which the communities are “closed” and “corporate.” Most scholars agree, however, that the revolutionary period witnessed a breakdown in the traditional village structures.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , July 1995 , pp. 25 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1995

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Footnotes

*

The author would like to thank Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr., Roderic Camp, Richard E. Greenleaf, and Fredrick B. Pike for the support, assistance, and comments.

References

1 See especially Handy, Jim, “National Policy, Agrarian Reform, and the Corporate Community during the Guatemala Revolution, 1944–1954,” in Comparative Studies in Society and History 30:4 (1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Beals, Ralph, “Acculturation,” in Social Anthropology, Nash, Manning, ed., Vol. 6 of Handbook of Middle American Indians, Wauchope, Robert ed. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967), 449–68Google Scholar; Wasserstrom, Robert, “Revolution in Guatemala: Peasants and Politics under the Arbenz Government,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 17:4 (1975), 443–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Smith, Carol, “Local History in Global Context: Social and Economic Transitions in Western Guatemala,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 26:2 (1984),CrossRefGoogle Scholar 193–228. The scholar who initiated much of the work on the closed corporate community was, of course, Eric Wolf. See especially his “Closed Corporate Peasant Communities in Mesoamerica and Java,” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 13 (1957), 1–18. The precise nature of the “closed corporate community” remains a hotly debated topic. Some scholars claim that the concept itself is highly problematic.

2 Cofradías are religious brotherhoods that tend to local church matters, particularly care for the church building as well as the coordination of religious festivals. The cofradías and cargos (political entities) were the central elements of traditional village life, i.e. the closed corporate community.

3 A separate study by the author, “Pope and Prelate, Priests and Parishioners: Conflict in the Catholic Church in Guatemala, 1944–1954” (M.A. Thesis, Tulane University, 1992), contains a complete description of the Catholic Church during the period.

4 Chea, José Luis, Guatemala, la cruz fragmentada (San José, Costa Rica: Editorial Departamento Ecuménico de Investigaciones, 1988), pp. 70–79.Google Scholar

5 Archivo Eclesiástico de Guatemala (hereafter referred to as AEG), Censo de Clero de Guatemala, 1946. There were also 13 of 15 churches vacant outside of the capital in the Department of Guatemala. AEG letters from 1943–1956 provide numerous examples of communities writing to the curia to request a priest, usually for specific fiestas, but sometimes on a permanent basis.

6 Taken from Chea, , La cruz fragmentada, pp. 78–80.Google Scholar By 1959, moreover, almost 97% of the clergy in Guatemala was foreign.

7 Bruce Calder notes that this change proved to be a significant one in the Guatemalan Church from 1944–1966. He also says that it is entirely possible that many of these communities had existed independently of the institutional church for hundreds of years (e.g. in the colonial era). See Crecimiento y cambio de la iglesia católica guatemalteca, 1944–1966 (Guatemala: Editorial José de Pineda Ibarra, 1920), pp. 23, 100–01.

8 Dussell, Enrique, ed., La historia de la iglesia en Latino América, Tomo 6, América Central (México, 1985), p. 366.Google Scholar

9 Calder, , Crecimiento y cambio, p. 40.Google Scholar

10 Holleran, Mary, Church and State in Guatemala (New York: Columbia University Press, 1945), p. 237.Google Scholar Calder also notes that the foreign priests unquestionably had strong cultural biases (see Crecimiento y cambio, p. 100).

11 Calder, , Crecimiento y cambio, pp. 91–4Google Scholar; Adams, Richard N., Cultural Survey of Panama-Nicaragua-Guatemala-El Salvador-Honduras, (Washington, D.C.: Pan American Sanitary Bureau, 1957), pp. 349–53.Google Scholar

12 Adams, , Cultural Survey, pp. 352–53.Google Scholar

13 Ibid., pp. 353–55. For a detailed description of the cofradías in a specific town (Chinautla), see Reina, Rubén E., Law of the Saints (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company 1966), pp. 97–165.Google Scholar Reina shows that cofradías wielded great power in the political realm, and that the entire community, even Protestants, had to act in relation to the decisions of the cofrades, particularly the elders.

14 Ibid., pp. 356–57.

15 Calder, , Crecimiento y cambio, pp. 94–101.Google Scholar Essentially, priests and cofradías represented different institutions and competed for the affections of the faithful. Holleran writes in 1949 that the Indian “seems to regard him [the priest] as a complete outsider.” (Church and State, p. 232). Although priests were often feared and resented, however, they usually emerged victorious in their attempt to control the local church.

16 See Rossell, Mariano y Arellano, , Carta pastoral del excelentísimo y reverendísimo señor don Rossell Arellano, arzobispo sobre Acción Católica (Guatemala: Tipografía Sánchez y de Guise, 1946),Google Scholar in which the prelate encourages the formation and growth of Catholic Action groups. Although Catholic Action formally began on May 7, 1946 (Verbum, May 15, 1949), Chea says that the first groups appeared in 1935 (La Cruz Fragmentada, p. 71).

17 Calder, , Crecimiento y cambio, pp. 88–90.Google Scholar

18 Handy, , “National Policy,” p. 720;Google Scholar Calder, , Crecimiento y cambio, p. 89.Google Scholar

19 Beals, , “Acculturation,” pp. 449–66.Google Scholar On p. 466 he gives a description of the breakdown which occurred in the period. See also Adams, Richard, Political Changes in Guatemalan Indian Communities: A Symposium (New Orleans: Middle American Research Institute, 1957).Google Scholar

20 King, Arden R., Cobán and the Verapaz: History and Cultural Process in Northern Guatemala (New Orleans: Middle American Research Institute, 1974), pp. 166–68.Google Scholar

21 Falla, Ricardo, Quiché Rebelde, (Guatemala: Editorial Universitaria, 1980), pp. 427–42.Google Scholar Falla points out that there was enormous conflict in the entire western highland area of the country (p. 9).

22 McArthur, Harry S., “La estructura político-religiosa de Aguacatán,” Guatemala Indígena, 1:2 (1961), 52.Google Scholar

23 AEG, legajo T3 53, March 31, 1946, letter not numbered.

24 Handy, , “National Policy,” p. 720.Google Scholar

25 McDowell, Paul Vance, “Political and Religious Change in a Guatemalan Community,” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of British Columbia, 1975), pp. i–ii.Google Scholar This work is the best, most detailed account of the breakdown of the traditional political-religious hierarchy in one town. McDowell notes that offices in the cofradía were rotated annually and hierarchically arranged. Service for those chosen by the elders was compulsory. The only reward was high esteem in the community.

26 Ibid., pp. 1–214. McDowell also notes that the AC in Cantei provided numerous social services to people, such as a medical clinic and a school.

27 Hinshaw, Robert E., Panajachel: A Guatemalan Town in a Thirty Year Perspective, (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1975), pp. 49–163.Google Scholar Many people had joined Protestant groups for financial reasons, i.e., they did not wish to be burdened with the compulsory fiscal responsibilities accompanying membership in the cofradías.

28 Ibid., p. 163.

29 Ibid., pp. 53–163. Catholic Action spread to communities around the lake between 1953 and 1955.

30 Ibid., pp. 33–34. Catholics often equated Protestantism with communism.

31 Ibid., pp. 34–35. See also Mendelson, E. Michael, Los escándolos de Maximón (Guatemala City: Seminario de integración social 19, 1965).Google Scholar

32 AEG, legajo 27/8, January 4, 1945, letter # 7.

33 Ibid., legajo T3 53, April 1, 1947, letter not numbered. The priest probably was trying to prevent their Holy Week celebrations.

34 Ibid., legajo 28/6, March 17, 1949, letter # 63. The committee probably indirectly was set up by the elders through government channels in an attempt to give them legal means for controlling the church. Leaders of the group returned to Mazatenango in January of 1951, to request (“they had the boldness to ask me for…”) access to the church (the keys) when the priest was not present (Legajo 29/2, January 13, 1951 letter not numbered).

35 Ibid., legajo 28/6, July 10, 1949, letter # 154. The group maintains that a commission among them had already travelled to meet with the bishop of Quetzaltenango, an effort which accomplished nothing.

36 Ibid., legajo 28/8, February 2, 1950, letter # 84.

37 Ibid., legajo 28/9, April 2, 1950, letter # 192. The group was referring to a schism in Mazatenango in which the archdiocese had suppressed a hermandad (brotherhood) in February of 1947. The brotherhood protested the action quite openly, even issuing a circular “to the Catholic people,” much to the embarrassment of the local parish priest, Méndez.

38 Ibid., legajo 28/9, April 2, 1950, letter # 193.

39 Ibid., legajo 28/9, April 9, 1950, letter # 196.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid., legajo 28/9, May 2, 1950, letter # 245. This letter was actually a telegram sent by the cofrades.

42 Ibid., legajo 29/4, April 23, 1952, letter # 73. Girón asked Rossell to provide a solution to the problem.

43 Ibid., legajo 29/3, December 23, 1952, letter #183.

44 Ibid., legajo 29/3, October 11, 1954, letter not numbered.

45 Ibid., legajo 29/4, February 28, 1953, letter # 28.

46 Ibid., legajo 29/4, June 18, 1953, letter # 109.

47 Ibid., legajo 29/4, August 19, 1953, letter # 145.

48 Falla, Ricardo, “La Evolución Político-Religiosa de indígena rural en Guatemala (1945–1965),” Estudios Sociales Centroamericanos, 1 (1972), p. 39.Google Scholar

49 Ibid., p. 40.

50 AEG, legajo 29/4, June 14, 1954, letter not numbered. This was indeed quite a feat, considering that a number of areas were untouched by the institutional church for many years.

51 Handy, , “National Policy,” p. 721.Google Scholar

52 See McDowell, “Political and Religious Change,” and Falla, “La Evolución Político-Religiosa.” Handy admits that numerous aspects of the Revolution weakened the political-religious hierarchy. He points out that some municipally owned lands were expropriated in the agrarian reform process. The government also protected young men wishing to avoid participation in the hierarchy. The period witnessed a shift from elder control of the municipal government selection process to the hands of political parties (see Handy, , “National Policy,” pp. 720–24).Google Scholar

53 Falla, , “La Evolución Político-Religiosa1,” p. 38.Google Scholar See also Burnett, Virginia Garrard, “Swords and Plowshares: The History of Protestantism in Guatemala” (Ph.D. dissertation, Tulane University, 1987).Google Scholar

54 Ibid., pp. 37–8.

55 See Burnett, Virginia Garrard, “Protestantism in Rural Guatemala, 1872–1954,” Latin American Research Review, 24:2 (1989), pp. 134–42.Google Scholar She says that Protestants enjoyed very warm relations with Arévalo, primarily due to their common interest in literacy campaigns. As the Arbenz government became more anti-imperialistic, however, cordial relations declined. In any case, Protestant sects were growing rapidly during the revolutionary years, so much so that by the end of 1948, the AEG had conducted a sizable survey on Protestantism in the country, evidence of the institutional church’s concern over the growth of these sects. Many of the towns discussed in the examples were listed in this report.