Free exercise of religion in Honduras. Virgen de Suyapa, La Morenita, Patroness of Honduras.
- Markina Ben
- Feb 3, 2020
- 6 min read
Updated: Feb 5, 2020
This weekend, pilgrims from all over Honduras as well as from Mexico and Colombia and the neighboring Central American countries, have been arriving in Tegucigalpa to pay their respects to Our Lady of Suyapa – colloquially referred to as La Morenita.
To them, she is the saint who will intercede on their behalf before God to perform miracles and special favors. The festivities include mariachis, musical groups, fireworks, songs and prayer are all in the program. You can find the link to the 2020 hymn for Our Lady of Suyapa at the end of this article.
Many faiths have the figure of patron saints or heavenly advocates, most notably in the Roman Catholic, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox and Anglican denominations. Latin America is eminently Roman Catholic as a result of Spanish colonialism (1492 through the early 1800s). Honduras is no exception, though a there has been a growing diversification of Christian denominations in recent decades.
The Roman Catholic Church has been a powerful institution in Honduras since colonial times. In the 1880s the Roman Catholic Church its economic and political power was reduced as the colonies gained independence from Spain. Nevertheless, in the twentieth century the church has remained an important player and the majority of Hondurans have remained Roman Catholic.
The current constitution promulgated in 1982 provides for the free exercise of all religions.
Article 77 of the Constitution guarantees "...the free exercise of all religions and cults without precedence, provided they do not contravene the laws and public order."
However, the government officially recognizes only the Roman Catholic Church. It classifies all other religious groups as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) or as unregistered religious organizations, according them fewer rights and privileges than the Catholic Church. By law, only the legislature has the authority to confer status as a legally recognized group. Those recognized by law receive benefits such as tax-exempt status for staff salaries and church materials according to the U.S. State Department Religious Freedom 2018 Report.
The Roman Catholic Church in Honduras launched an ambitious evangelical campaign in the 1950s with the objective to increase church membership and encourage more active participation. This activism had grown among certain sectors of the church into denunciations of the military's repression and the government's exploitation of the poor in the 1960s and 70s. This phase in the Roman Catholic Church in Honduras was terminated in 1975 with a murder of two priests, two students and ten peasants. Foreign priests were expelled and arrested. The Roman Catholic Church reduced its activism during in the late 1970s but resumed its criticism of government policies during the 1980s.
Protestant, especially evangelical, denominations have undergone a tremendous growth in membership during the 1980s. The largest numbers are found in Methodist, Church of God, Seventh Day Adventist, and Assemblies of God denominations. These churches sponsor social service programs in many communities, making them appealing to the lower income population. The evangelical leadership usually exerts a conservative influence on the political process.
According to the Honduran Institute of Statistics (Instituto Nacional de Estadística – INE), the Honduran population is estimated to be over 9 million. According to a 2016 survey by a local marketing research and public opinion company quoted in the U.S. State Department’s 2018 religious freedom report, 48% of respondents self-identified as evangelical Protestants, 41% percent as Roman Catholics, 3 percent as other, and 8 percent as unaffiliated. In the 2015 Latinobarometro regional public opinion survey, 43.6 percent of respondents identified as Catholic, 42.1 percent as evangelical Protestant, 1.8 percent as other, and 12.4 percent as unaffiliated.
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The story of Our Lady of Suyapa starts with her appearance presumably 273 years ago – in the late 1760s or early 1770s. According to accounts from those times, Our Lady of Suyapa manifested herself, appearing and returning after having been discarded - as a small wooden carved image. It happened to Alejandro Colindres, a local peasant who decided to spend the night on the road on his way to the Suyapa locality near Tegucigalpa. As he lay down on the ground to sleep, he felt an object under him. He grabbed it and threw it away. However, he felt it again as he lay down again. This time he put it in his bag. When daylight came, he saw it was the carved image. An 18th-century cedar wood statue (6 cm/2.3 in.) that he had been sleeping on a tiny statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which he took home with him and set up on the family altar in his mother's house. There it remained for the next 20 years.
Whenever somebody was in dire need, the Colindres family would arrive with the little statue so that the Virgin of Suyapa might visit the suffering soul. Her reputation as a miracle worker spread quickly among the local population.
One day, an aristocratic military officer of Spanish descent, Captain Joseph de Celaya, from the Hacienda San José El Trapiche, asked the Virgin of Suyapa to cure his painful disease (bladder stones). He promised to build her a chapel and have masses held in her honor throughout the year if she answered his prayer. Captain Celaya was cured very shortly after his plea. The news of the miracle spread and the Church hierarchy became aware of La Morenita. By 1777 a chapel had been completed in a property donated by Mr. Bernardo Fernández. By 1780, it was consecrated* and Hondurans from all over the country started arriving in Suyapa to receive her blessings.
*Consecration establishes a valid place of Catholic divine worship as confirmed by the local ordinary (Bishop).
Pope Pius XI declared Our Lady of Suyapa, Patroness of Honduras in 1925, also designating February 3rd as her feast day.
The process to establish sainthood within the Catholic Church demands several requirements. Verified miracles is one of them. In the case of La Virgen de Suyapa, the first verifiable miracle that made her famous – her finding or appearance - was officially documented in 1796. Many also credit the swift ending of One Hundred Hours´ War between Honduras and El Salvador to Our Lady of Suyapa. Honduran soldiers involved reported visions of the Virgin, which calmed their fears during the fighting. In 1969. Therefore, La Morenita was declared Captain General of the Armed Forces of Honduras.
In 1954, a large basilica was built next to the original smaller shrine. The statue of the Virgin spends most of her time in the chapel, but every year before the celebration of her festival, the statue is moved into the larger basilica to accommodate the crowds.
In 1982 Our Lady of Suyapa was declared Patroness of Central America.
On March 8, 1983, Pope John Paul II offered a mass on his only visit to Honduras, in front of the altarpiece of Our Lady of Suyapa. Ten years later in 1993, the sanctuary of Suyapa was declared a zone of moral reserve and the celebration of the Virgin as a national holiday.
The night of September 1st, 1986 La Morenita was stolen. A nationwide search for the image of ended when the statue was found in the Terraza de Don Pepe a restaurant´s bathroom in Tegucigalpa. It had been stripped of its gold, silver, and jewels – but the statue was intact.
That must have been quite a blow to the Orden de los Caballeros de Suyapa which has the responsibility to care for the image and the small chapel as well as to escort the statue whenever it leaves the chapel to travel around Honduras, as it often does every February. The order is a group of lay caretakers, all male. It was founded in 1954.
The sanctuary of Suyapa was officially inaugurated in 2005, 12 years after the it had been declared a zone of moral reserve.
Pope Francis gave the status of Basilica on the 9th of September, 2015.
Driven by faith and fervor.
Regardless of your beliefs and/ or faith, it is impossible to remain unmoved when watching and hearing the testimonies of pilgrims who have been faithfully visiting the Basílica de Suyapa year after year - attesting to the many miracles they have experienced after praying there.
Many of them are from very humble origins, part of the large proportion of the population that has limited opportunities. Their resource, when all doors seem to close, is their faith. Most of the pleas and requests are health related, but in the past two years more immigration related ones have surfaced in the live coverage.
Something to ponder is whether the number of pilgrims would be the same if Honduras had a better public health system. The quality of and access to health care are directly tied to income levels. Adequate health care is available to those able to pay the high cost. Health care for the urban and rural poor is extremely limited.
San Pedro Sula, February 2, 3020.
The 2020 Hymn in honor of Our Lady of Suyapa.
· https://www.latribuna.hn/2020/01/27/mas-de-un-millon-de-peregrinos-a-venerar-virgencita-de-suyapa/
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