Pedro of San José de Betancur He was born in Vilaflor de Chasna on March 21, 1626. At 23 years He left, within the same empire, to what is today Latin America, ending up in the current Guatemala in 1651. To a city that at that time was Santiago de los Caballeros and is now known as Antigua Guatemala. The beginning and the end of a life that yesterday shook hands in Tenerife.
The mayor of Vilaflor, Agustina Beltrán, and the councilor of the Guatemalan city, Víctor Hugo del Pozo, presided over the twinning of both municipalities at the Youth House, all in an official act that took its first steps two decades ago and was attended by both the bishop of Tenerife, Bernardo Álvarez, as the magistrate and official chronicler of Vilaflor, Nelson Díaz Frías. They were accompanied by a delegation of members of both local corporations, as well as the mayor of San Miguel de Abona, Arturo González, and councilors from La Laguna and Adeje, as well as the former mayor of Vilaflor, and deputy, Manuel Fumero, the insular delegate of Acción Exterior of the Cabildo of Tenerife and the honorary consul of Guatemala in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
A hospital that still provides service
The two mayors signed the declaration of twinning, after the minutes were signed in February in Guatemalan territory.
The end of the road occurred yesterday at noon, with an objective that “is not economic or touristic, but truly, with a joint work program and the celebration of a week each year dedicated by one municipality to the other,” said Victor Hugo. del Pozo, who recalled that the remains of the Canarian saint are still venerated in the church of San Francisco in this city and that he claimed to hear from his grandmother “stories about miracles worked” by Pedro de San José de Betancur. Likewise, Del Pozo Coronado stressed that the work he started more than three centuries ago, the Convalescent Hospital, is still in service and offers 10,000 surgeries a year. Agustina Beltrán, for her part, recalled the ties that unite the towns of Vilaflor and Antigua through the chasnero saint. “We all know what unites us. All the municipalities of the South have become favorite children of Brother Pedro, whether you are religious or not. He is a universal figure for his humanitarian work,” stressed the mayor of Vilaflor.
Pioneer of human rights
Nelson Díaz Frías expressed his conviction that “if there are two localities for which it makes sense to formalize their desire for a relationship of friendship and brotherhood, they are these,” he said, in addition to remembering that Brother Pedro was “the first native of the Canary Islands to be canonized” and that “his figure is so exceptional that his memory remained alive after more than 350 years” of leaving his native municipality.
The official chronicler put Brother Pedro as a precursor example “of human rights, helping everyone without exception in the stratified Guatemalan society.”
For his part, the bishop expressed his conviction that this is a figure that “unites us” and invited those in attendance to “do everything we do for love.”
