The Catholic Church in Belize is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of the Pope in Rome. The country falls under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Belize City-Belmopan. Approximately 40% of the population of Belize is Catholic.Belize at the CIA World Factbook.
The nunciature to Belize is combined with the nunciature to El Salvador. In 2005, Archbishop Luigi Pezzuto was appointed the apostolic nuncio to Belize. Bishops in Belize are members of the Antilles Episcopal Conference.
History Historians distinguish at least three periods in the history of the Catholic Church in Belize.
The first period saw missionaries accompany Spanish conquistadors among the Mayas in western Belize from 1524 until 1707. A century later separate incursions into the central, southern, and northern parts of the territory led to the first permanent residency of the Jesuits in Belize, in 1851. This marks the beginning of the second period, which saw the rapid spread of mission churches throughout Belize. The third period began with appointment of the first native bishop, thus handing over to the native, diocesan clergy administration of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Belize City-Belmopan.
Missionary ventures: 1524 to 1851
1524 to 1707: Friars accompanied the earliest Spanish expeditions into Central America, in accordance with the Patronato system and its intermingling of politics and religion. While the Spanish pursued the false hope of finding gold in Peten, Guatemala, the missionaries accompanied them south from Yucatan, Mexico, and north from Cobán, Guatemala. Scattered physical and documentary evidence of friars among the Maya in Western Belize exists for the period 1524 to 1707.Waddell, D.A.G. British Honduras: A historical and contemporary survey (London: Oxford University Press, 1961).Thompson, J.E.S. The Maya of Belize: Historical chapters since Columbus. (Belize: Benex Press, 1974). Citing D. Lopez Cogolludo’s Historia de Yucatan, first edition published in Madrid, 1688; Capt. Francisco Perez, census 1655, Mexican National Archives; Francisco Vasquez 1937-44, Crónica de la provincial del Santisimo Nombre de Jesus de Guatemala de la Orden de Nuestro Seráfico Padre San Francisco, Bk 4, Chap. 79, Guatemala, 1714-16; Joseph Delgado, O.P., memorandum 1677, National Library, Paris; F. Ximenez from 1721, Historia de la Provincia de San Vicente de Chiapa y Guatemala de la Orden de Predicadores, 1931, Guatemala. Near the Maya site at Xunantunich in west central Belize lies Tipu with the remains of a primitive church building, mentioned in Spanish records, and a large number of Maya skeletons around its confines.Dobson, N. A History of Belize (London: Longman Group, 1973), p. 46. Tipu ceased to exist as a Maya/Christian settlement in 1707 when the Spanish moved its residents to the shores of Lake Petén Itza. Sixty miles to the north of Tipu lies Lamanai (Indian Church) with the remaining stone walls of a missionary church and the ruins of a second church. Maya rebellions were frequent since the system of reducciones—gathering the scattered Maya into Spanish-controlled villages—meant paying taxes and loss of freedom.Thompson, J.E.S. The Rise and Fall of Maya Civilization, 2nd ed. (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966). The South witnessed the only recorded martyrdom of missionaries in Belize: in 1684 at Paliac (Rio Grande, Toledo) three Franciscans and some Spaniards were martyred, presumably a sacrificial offering following the Maya method of ripping out the heart. But it was usually the political rather than the Christianizing effort that provoked Maya resistance. Missionaries who resumed the evangelizing effort over 100 years later would attest to remnants of Christian belief.
1830 to 1851: Around 1830 Catholic priests reappear in the historical record of Belize."Armstrong to WMMS" (November 19, 1830) in Johnson, W.R. A history of Christianity in Belize: 1776-1838. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985). Mestizos had come as refugees from Honduras to Mullins River south of Belize Town. Fray Antonio worked among them from 1832 to 1836 when he was replaced by Fray Rubio from Bacalar in Yucatan. Rubio built in Mullins River in 1837 the first Catholic church in modern Belize.The Angelus. (September 1894). Retrieved at Roman Catholic Diocese of Belize archives. Then in 1840, Frs. Sandoval and Rivas from Yucatan built a chapel in Belize Town. This had been the coastal center of the British logging industry in the central part of the colony since the late 18th century. The town was served by Anglican, Baptist, and Methodist ministers but Spanish merchants from Yucatan, along with mestizos and Garifuna from the South, would enlarge the Catholic community in the mid-19th century.
A large migration of Garifuna had come up the coast from Honduras in 1832, to what became Punta Gorda and Dangriga in the south of Belize. Their ancestry, of African and Carib Indian mix, traces to Saint Vincent. There they rebelled against the British in 1797 and were expelled to Roatán, from which they spread along the Honduran coast. By the 19th century they were settling along the southern coastline of Belize. They had been catechized by Spanish priests while on St. Vincent, as evidenced in “makeshift beads and crosses to ward off evil and danger."Johnson, W.R. A history of Christianity in Belize: 1776-1838. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985), p. 185. They would be sought after by the British as strong warriors and sturdy workers.Shoman, A. 13 chapters of a history of Belize (4th ed.). (Belize: The Angelus Press, 1994), p. 78. But it was as good students and educators that they impacted Catholicism in Belize, with several priests and the first native bishop coming from their number. The Holy Family Sisters would come in 1898 specifically to minister to Garifuna communities, and within a century 45 Belizeans had joined these sisters.Behrens, S.F. (January 2013) "The New Orleans Sisters of the Holy Family." Edward T. Brett (review). The Catholic Historical Review. 99(1): pp. 185-187. doi: 10.1353/2913.0061.
The third and largest migration to Belize followed the Caste War of Yucatan when Santa Cruz Maya drove out mestizos from the coast. Between 1847 and 1855 thousands of mestizos fled from Bacalar to Belize, enlarging Corozal and Orange Walk towns. By 1850 there were 7,000 Catholics in the territory, mostly Spanish and mestizo refugees of the Caste War in Yucatan. These mestizos also settled alongside the Icaiche Maya in the northern forests, with gradual movement down the western high ground, above the coastal swamps. In the West, the township of Benque Viejo del Carmen was followed after some years by El Cayo whose population grew from the timber industry that had moved west along the Belize River. Missionary contacts with the Santa Cruz, Icaiche, and mestizos are mentioned in several of the "Letters and Notices" of the English Province of Jesuits who would arrive in 1851."Letters and Notices," English Province of Jesuits, Volume 7, letter from Fr. Bavastro in 1866, retrieved at
Jesuit mission: 1851 to 1983
In 1837 the Catholic mission office in Rome made Jamaica a vicariate responsible for the whole Caribbean area. With few resources spread over this vast region, little attention was given to the territory of Belize until Catholics of Spanish ancestry were driven from Yucatan to northern Belize during their strife with the Maya (1847–1901). After this influx of Catholics, in 1851, Belize was made a Jesuit mission under the care of the English Province of the Jesuits, eleven years before it became the crown colony of British Honduras. In December 1851 the vicar apostolic from Jamaica, along with his successor in 1855, Jesuit Fr. James Eustace Du Peyron, travelled to Belize to assess the situation. Du Peyron would oversee the building of the first Catholic church in Belize Town for what is today Holy Redeemer parish. The great fire of July 17, 1856, destroyed the north side of town including the church building. By April 1858 the present Holy Redeemer Cathedral building was completed. Other parishes followed along the coastline: Corozal (1859), with a large population of mestizo Catholics; Punta Gorda (1862) with Garifuna on the coast and Maya inland; and Stann Creek (1867) mostly Garifuna. Between 1852 and 1893, 58 Jesuits from 10 countries came to establish these churches: from Italy (18), England (14), Spain (11), Belgian (5), France (3), Ireland (3), Germany (1), Greece (1), Guatemala (1), Columbia (1).Woods, Charles M. Sr., et al. Years of Grace: The History of Roman Catholic Evangelization in Belize: 1524-2014. (Belize: Roman Catholic Diocese of Belize City-Belmopan, 2015).
In 1888 British Honduras became a prefecture and in 1893 a vicariate with Salvatore di Pietro, S.J., as prefect apostolic and then vicar apostolic with the title of bishop. The presence of three American bishops for his consecration evidenced the growing importance of the United States to the mission. In 1894 the Jesuits transferred responsibility for British Honduras from the English Province to the Missouri Province of the central United States. Bishop di Pietro died in 1898 and was succeeded by Bishop Frederick C. Hopkins, S.J., the last of the English Jesuits in Belize.
Permanent parishes among the Maya in west central Belize were begun in Benque Viejo (1905) and San Ignacio (1909). St. John's College, founded at the cathedral in 1887, was moved to Loyola Park in 1917. In 1923 Bishop Hopkins along with two Pallottine sisters drowned when the boat they were taking to Corozal sank. Bishop Joseph Anthony Murphy, S.J., succeeded Hopkins. His tenure was marked by a rebuilding effort following the hurricane of 1931, that destroyed St. John's College at Loyola Park and took an estimated 2500 lives including eleven Jesuits. He also built Holy Redeemer Hall which became the premier indoor facility for large events in Belize, until the construction of Bliss Institute in 1954. In 1938 at the age of 80 Bishop Murphy retired and Bishop William A. Rice, S.J., succeeded him. Rice died of a heart attack in 1946. Next came the last vicar apostolic of Belize, David Francis Hickey, S.J., who would become first bishop of the Diocese of Belize when it was raised from vicariate status in 1956. In 1957 he resigned and Bishop Robert Louis Hodapp, S.J., replaced him. Hodapp remained in office for 25 years, attending all five sessions of the Second Vatican Council and working toward its implementation in the diocese. He resigned in 1983.
Native clergy and laity: from 1983
In 1982 Fr. Osmond Peter Martin, from the Garifuna people, became the first native Belizean to be raised to the episcopacy. He became auxiliary to Hodapp and then in 1983 bishop of the diocese. Martin summoned the first diocesan synod in 1989, focused on activating the laity to take ownership of their church. In April 2001 he inaugurated at the cathedral the Monsignor Facundo Castillo Diocesan Center, home to the diocesan radio, television, and newspaper ministries. Dorick M. Wright became auxiliary in 2002 and succeeded Martin in 2007. Due to Wright's failing eyesight, in 2012 Christopher Glancy was named auxiliary and assumed many of the responsibilities of the diocese. The number of Catholics in Belize had grown by 16,414 or 15% since 1991, while total population had grown by 131,723 or 70% in the same period. The number of Belizeans entering the diocesan priesthood was six from the 1930s through 1950s, then peaked with eleven in the 1960s through 1980s, but from then to 2014 had fallen to three. In 2013 Bishop Wright opened a minor seminary, St. Benedict's Diocesan Seminary, in the facility built by the Benedictines near Santa Elena. Four young men constituted its first class. Bishop Lawrence Sydney Nicasio took office on May 13, 2017. Bishop Emeritus Dorick McGowan Wright died on April 15, 2020.