The clock marked 4:42 p.m. on July 30, 2002 at the Hipodromo del Sur, in Guatemala City, when the pope John Paul II He pronounced the key phrase that elevated the first Canarian saint to the altars: “After having reflected for a long time, invoked divine help many times and heard the opinion of numerous brothers of the episcopate, we declare and define Blessed the blessed Brother Peter of San José de Betancurt and we inscribed it in the catalog of saints”.
At that moment the bells of the churches on the island of Tenerife began to ring, beginning with the temple of San Pedro Apóstol, in Vilaflor de Chasna, his hometown. A thousand people who were following the liturgy on television from the El Médano cave, a pilgrimage point where Brother Pedro used to go down with his herd of goats, burst into endless applause. In Guatemala, the country where Brother Pedro carried out much of his work and in which he founded the Bethlemite Order, dedicated to caring for the sick and poor, people celebrated in the streets and bells, rockets and you whistle
In the homily, which culminated a 350-year canonization process, John Paul II, visibly tired by his advanced age, referred to the religious chasnero as a man of “deep prayer both in his homeland, Tenerife, and in all stages later in his life.” One of the most anticipated moments of the mass occurred when the young Adalberto González, 22, took communion, whose healing, in 1985, served as a document of the miracle necessary for canonization. Bertito overcame a serious intestinal illness at the age of five due to the effect attributed to prayers made with a relic of Brother Pedro.
The ceremony, which was attended by seven heads of state and in which 700 priests from the Archipelago and all the Central American countries participated, lasted two and a half hours and was attended by an important delegation from the Islands made up of 400 people, headed by the President of the Government of the Canary Islands, Román Rodríguez; the Bishop of Tenerife, Felipe Fernández; the president of the Cabildo, Ricardo Melchior, and the mayor of Vilaflor de Chasna, José Luis Fumero. The flags of Spain, Tenerife and the Canary Islands waved alongside those of the Vatican and Guatemala on the immense esplanade presided over by a large altar made up of 6,000 white roses and 200 floral arrangements, including typical Canarian flowers.
Brother Pedro was born in Vilaflor on March 19, 1626. At the age of 23 he left Tenerife and arrived in Antigua de Guatemala two years later. There he gave himself body and soul to the most disadvantaged. He visited hospitals, prisons, homes for the poor and unemployed migrants, and founded the Bethlemite Order, which today continues to carry out its apostolic and charitable mission in America, Italy, India and Spain. He died on April 25, 1667, aged 41. He was beatified in Rome, also by Pope John Paul II, on June 22, 1980, together with the lagoon missionary José de Anchieta, apostle of Brazil, who would become the second saint from the Canary Islands on April 3, 2014 in a ceremony officiated by Pope Francis.
Brother Pedro and human rights
For Nelson Díaz Frías, magistrate, historian and official chronicler of Vilaflor de Chasna, Brother Pedro can be considered the “most relevant and universal figure of all those who have come to the world in the Canary archipelago, a true precursor of Human Rights in the seventeenth century, which preceded the Universal Declaration.
Díaz Frías remarks that the religious chasnero “offered his help and consolation to all those who needed it in the stratified Guatemalan society of the 17th century without making distinctions based on race, sex, age, social or ethnic origin” and underlines that he was a “precursor ” in child literacy, especially of Indian and black children, in addition to being “advanced” for his time, as he was the first to promote social assistance in America after founding the first Convalescent Hospital, “given that at that time many sick who escaped from a serious illness later died during their convalescence unattended as they had no one to take care of them”.
Miguel Torres, full member of the Academy of Geography and History of Guatemala and one of the great experts on the life and work of the Tenerife saint, explained to this newspaper the admiration that his compatriots feel for the Tenerife religious: “He is one of the fathers of the homeland of my country, because when he arrived there were no public education or health institutions, and he took care to create them”.
“Specialized facilities for the care of people were born, where the indigenous population was cared for,” said Torres, who highlighted the continuity of his work through the so-called Obra Social del Santo Hermano Pedro and the “key” role he played in promoting an equal education. “Not only did it allow access to education for poor children, but it also introduced the concept of education for both sexes.”
For the mayor of Vilaflor de Chasna, Agustina Beltrán, “Little Brother Pedro, as we continue to call him with special devotion and admiration in the municipality, is a source of pride, and the twentieth anniversary of his canonization is an opportunity to highlight the qualities of this great neighbor, who was born, lived and walked our streets, later bearing the name of our town, but also that of Tenerife and the Canary Islands to the other side of the Atlantic, where he did a great job”.
Precisely, on April 22, the City Council of Vilaflor de Chasna unanimously approved requesting that Brother Pedro be appointed co-patron of the Nivariense and Canariense dioceses.
The remains of the religious chasnero rest in the Church of San Francisco, in Antigua Guatemala, a pilgrimage point visited by thousands of faithful every year.
