Missionaries and Resistance in Guatemala: The Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary during 'La Violencia'

Catholic missionaries in the revolutionary movements of the 1970s and 1980s in Guatemala.

In Guatemala, the 36-year armed conflict from 1960 to 1996 claimed 200,000 lives, over two per cent of the population, and displaced a million more. In the 1970s and the 1980s the widespread and violent repression of social movements fighting for justice and human rights reached unimaginable proportions, involving assassinations, disappearances, and exile. Even parts of the Church, traditionally considered an ally of the powerful and the wealthy, were not spared this fate.

Missionaries and Resistance in Guatemala chronicles the involvement of certain Catholic missionaries in popular and revolutionary movements. Based primarily on their own accounts, it narrates their gradual progression from conservative theological and pastoral practices to radical positions, informed by their solidarity with the poor and a theology of liberation. Their stories are situated in a wider geopolitical and ecclesial context.

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Mario Trinidad was a member of the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and served in Guatemala in the 1970s. He now resides in Australia and is a retired social worker and university lecturer.