When the Holy Redeemer Catholic parish was founded in 1852, it was the only parish in

Belize Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a wa ...

and from it missionaries covered the whole country. When other parishes were founded Holy Redeemer remained a parish with its own history but with its leadership connected to the

Catholic church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

in all of Belize under titles of governance that evolved over the years from

apostolic prefect An apostolic prefect or prefect apostolic is a priest who heads what is known as an apostolic prefecture, a 'pre-diocesan' missionary jurisdiction where the Catholic Church is not yet sufficiently developed to have it made a diocese. Although it ...

apostolic vicar Apostolic may refer to: The Apostles An Apostle meaning one sent on a mission: *The Twelve Apostles of Jesus, or something related to them, such as the Church of the Holy Apostles *Apostolic succession, the doctrine connecting the Christian Chur ...

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ...

. It has remained the hub of the diocese, the bishop's church, as well as a parish in its own right.

From mid-nineteenth century

In the first half of the 19th century, merchants accounted for most of the Catholic presence in

Belize Town Belize City is the largest city in Belize and was once the capital of the former British Honduras. According to the 2010 census, Belize City has a population of 57,169 people in 16,162 households. It is at the mouth of the Haulover Creek, wh ...

– several Spaniards, the German Cramer brothers, the Portuguese Melhados, and the Frenchman Richards. But then during the War of the Castes in Yucatan in the 1840s, the Catholic population in northern Belize swelled to about 7,000. This occasioned action by the

Jesuits , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders = ...

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of Hispa ...

who were over the Vicariate which included Belize. In 1851

Vicar Apostolic A vicar (; Latin: ''vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English pr ...

James Eustace Du Peyron established a Jesuit presence in Belize Town on the coastline of Central Belize, from which missionaries set out to establish parishes in the North and in all of Belize. (The priests and brothers listed below were all Jesuits except for Facundo Castillo.)

Origin

In 1852 Fr. Bertolio came to build the first Catholic church in Belize Town, for Holy Redeemer Parish. With him came a schoolmaster Henry Trumbach, whose mother would teach the girls. There were then about 250 Catholics in Belize Town. In 1853 Fr. George Avvaro was appointed the first Jesuit Superior in Belize, serving until 1872. As mission superior residing in Belize Town, he functioned also as pastor of Holy Redeemer parish. On July 17, 1856, fire swept through the north of town destroying the church and rectory. Land was obtained from Belize Estate and Produce Company (BEC) for building a rectory, school, and church. The church and school were of brick, the rectory of wood. The church building, dedicated in 1858, would be enlarged and restored over the next century and become the present

Holy Redeemer Cathedral Holy Redeemer Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral in the city of Belize City, Belize. It is canonically the mother church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Belize City-Belmopan. It shares the role with Our Lady of Guadalupe Co-Cathedral in ...

, home to both the parish and the bishop.

Salvatore di Pietro

Salvatore di Pietro arrived in 1869 along with an Irish school administrator Bro. Mark Quinn who would take charge of

Holy Redeemer Primary School Holy Redeemer Primary School is a Catholic, parish primary school located in the heart of Belize City, Belize. History Located at the Cathedral parish in Belize City, it began operation in 1869. In 1883 the Sisters of Mercy arrived in Belize and ...

. In 1872 di Pietro became superior of the mission and pastor of Holy Redeemer, first as mission superior then as prefect (1888), then as vicar apostolic (1893) with Holy Redeemer as his home parish. In 1879 the Catholic Association was formed in the parish, spreading to the other parishes in Belize. Henry Fowler, the Colonial Secretary, was its first president. It would be responsible for the great pilgrimage of 1890. In 1879 di Pietro also initiated the tradition of Catholic processions around town that in the late 1940s came to include the annual Guadalupe procession for protection against hurricanes.

1880s

The Mercy Sisters came to Belize in 1883 and assumed the task of running Holy Redeemer girls’ and boys' primary schools. In 1885 Fr. Henry Gillett began publication of ''The Angelus'', "a Catholic monthly … written partly in English and partly in Spanish." Angelus Press was located in the

rectory A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of religion. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, parsonage, rectory or vicarage. Function A clergy house is typically o ...

on North Front Street. In 1887 Henry's brother Fr. Cassian Gillett founded a "Select School" for young men at Holy Redeemer rectory. This would grow into today's St. John's College with its high school, junior college, and extension divisions. It opened with 14 boys in 1887, grew to 35 by 1890, and to 65 by 1896, when it was dedicated to St. John Berchmans and moved to a new building at the back of the parish rectory. It remained there until 1917 when it moved to the spacious Loyola Park campus south of town.

1890s

In December 1889 the tradition of church bazaars was inaugurated, as fundraisers. The Governor came to open the three-day bazaar. An 1891 town census indicates that there were 1,200 Catholics in the parish, from a population of about 7,000 in Belize Town. In the 1890s the Catholic Knights of

British Honduras British Honduras was a British Crown colony on the east coast of Central America, south of Mexico, from 1783 to 1964, then a self-governing colony, renamed Belize in June 1973,

was founded. Fr. William Bennett served as pastor of the parish from 1898-1915.

Twentieth century

In 1929 Holy Redeemer Parish Hall (the "Old Barn") became the first multipurpose auditorium in the country, with a fully outfitted stage and an auditorium adaptable for basketball, tennis, and boxing. For 25 years it was the premier venue for indoor events in Belize, until the construction of

Bliss Institute The Bliss Institute is a theatre, museum, and National Arts Council in the cultural centre of Belize City. It is named after Baron Bliss. The original construction started in 1953 and finished one year later. The architectural design was done in ...

in 1955. The parish Catholic Knights began hosting in the hall a banquet for the Knights throughout the country each Ignatius day, July 31. Sodality Chapel Hall was also built in 1929, adjacent to Parish Hall. The Boy Scout movement in Belize was greatly advanced by Brother "Jake" Jacoby in Holy Redeemer parish during his long tenure in Belize, 1928 to 1957. In 1938 Fr. Hugh Harkins started the Drum, Bugle, and Fife Band for the boys of the parish. All of Belize City remained a part of Holy Redeemer parish until St. Ignatius church was built in the south of Belize City in the 1930s. HRwRectory

After the 1931 hurricane destroyed the Loyola Park campus of St. John’s College, it moved back to cramped quarters at Holy Redeemer, later moving to a wooden building at the site of the present chancery. In 1952 the college moved to its spacious Landivar campus. In 1954 St. John’s Teacher Training College was established using borrowed classrooms at

. A hostel nearby was run for the out-district teachers. The next devastating hurricane to strike the parish was Hattie in 1961. In 1937 Fr.

Marion M. Ganey Fr. Marion M. Ganey, S.J., (1904–1984) was a Catholic priest, member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), and missionary to British Honduras, Central America, from 1937 to 1953, where he was instigator of the credit union and cooperatives movement ...

, while assistant pastor at the Cathedral, organized youth clubs and

Golden Gloves The Golden Gloves is the name given to annual competitions for amateur boxing in the United States, where they are awarded a belt and a ring. And the title of nations champion is awarded. The Golden Gloves is a term used to refer to the Nationa ...

boxing tournaments, and went on to found the

credit union A credit union, a type of financial institution similar to a commercial bank, is a member-owned nonprofit financial cooperative. Credit unions generally provide services to members similar to retail banks, including deposit accounts, provis ...

and

cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-contro ...

movement in Belize. Fr. Henry J. Sutti founded the Holy Redeemer Credit Union (HRCU) in 1944. By 2015 it had reached Bz$501,200,000 in assets, with membership recorded at 50,564. In 1969 Fr. Facundo Castillo became

vicar general A vicar general (previously, archdeacon) is the principal deputy of the bishop of a diocese for the exercise of administrative authority and possesses the title of local ordinary. As vicar of the bishop, the vicar general exercises the bishop ...

of the

diocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associ ...

and the first diocesan priest to serve as pastor at Holy Redeemer parish. In 2001 a new diocesan center was built at Holy Redeemer and named

Monsignor Monsignor (; it, monsignore ) is an honorific form of address or title for certain male clergy members, usually members of the Roman Catholic Church. Monsignor is the apocopic form of the Italian ''monsignore'', meaning "my lord". "Monsignor" ...

Facundo Castillo Diocesan Center. The Mercy Sisters of Belize have their motherhouse in the parish, along with a spirituality center and St. Catherine Academy.

Links

* *

History of Roman Catholicism in Belize This history of the Catholic church in Belize has three parts: the historical periods of the Catholic presence in Belize, religious congregations laboring in Belize, and apostolic works undertaken. Historical periods Historians distinguish at l ...

References

Sources

*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) passim, giving remaining references for article. * Roman Catholic cathedrals in Belize Roman Catholic churches in Belize City {{History of the Roman Catholic Church, state=collapsed Parishes of the Catholic Church