Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Religion
Guatemalans are a religious bunch - atheists and agnostics are very thin on the ground.
People will often ask what religion you are quite early in a conversation. Unless you really
want to get into it, saying 'Christian' generally satisfies.
Orthodox Catholicism is gradually giving way to Evangelical Protestantism amongst the
ladinos
, with the animist-Catholic syncretism of the traditional Maya always present. The
number of new Evangelical churches, especially in indigenous Maya villages, is astonish-
ing. Since the 1980s Evangelical Protestant sects, around 58% of them Pentecostal, have
surged in popularity, and it is estimated that 30% to 40% of Guatemalans are now Evangel-
icals.
Catholicism's fall can be attributed in part to the civil war. On occasion, Catholic priests
were (and still are) outspoken defenders of human rights, attracting persecution (and
worse) from dictators at the time, especially from the Evangelical Ríos Montt.
Catholicism is fighting back with messages about economic and racial justice, papal vis-
its and new saints - Guatemala's most venerated local Christian figure, the 17th-century
Antigua-hospital-founder Hermano Pedro de San José de Bethancourt, was canonized in
2002 when Pope John Paul II visited Guatemala.
Catholicism in the Maya areas has never been exactly orthodox. The missionaries who
brought Catholicism to the Maya in the 16th century wisely permitted aspects of the exist-
ing animistic, shamanistic Maya religion to continue alongside Christian rites and beliefs.
Syncretism was aided by the identification of certain Maya deities with certain Christian
saints, and survives to this day. A notable example is the deity known as Maximón in Santi-
ago Atitlán, San Simón in Zunil and Rilaj Maam in San Andrés Itzapa near Antigua, who
seems to be a combination of Maya gods, the Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado and
Judas Iscariot (see the boxed text,
Click here
)
.
To get a handle on Maximón and shamanism around Lago de Atitlán, check out
Scandals in the House of Birds:
Shamans and Priests on Lake Atitlán
, by anthropologist and poet Nathaniel Tarn.
