In Part 4 of my Guanajuato Revisited series, I will show the church and explain who founded the Betlemite Order and why they were important to colonial Mexico. The Templo also carries the name Parroquia de la Corazon Inmaculada (Immaculate Heart Parish). A parroquia designation refers to a stable community of faithful with its own priest, rather than a physical building. Such a community has geographical boundaries and is part of a larger diocese organization.
The Templo has a single tower and a Churrigueresque facade. The facade resembles an altar retablo, with niches containing five statues. The church is located between Calle Mendizábal and Callejon Cañitos, directly across from the Mercado Hidalgo (see Part 3) on Avenida Benito Juarez. A sign on the church wall states that the monastery complex was founded in 1717. However, other authoritative sources say it was established a decade later in 1727.
San Antonio de Padua is one of the five statues on the facade. San Antonio (1195-1231) is often displayed holding Jesus as a child, symbolizing Jesus' vulnerable love. Antonio was a Portuguese priest and a friar of the Franciscan Order. He was known for his powerful preaching, knowledge of scripture, and devotion to the poor and sick. Among other attributes, San Antonio de Padua is the patron of people looking for lost articles. He was canonized less than year after his death, a record never equaled.
Santo Domingo de Guzman stands on the other side of the entrance. Santo Domingo (1170-1221). was a contemporary of San Antonio de Padua, but it is unclear whether they ever met. He was the founder of the Dominicans, also known as the Order of Preachers. Highly educated from an early age, he decided to become a missionary among the Cathars, an heretical offshoot of Catholicism. His work attracted many followers and resulted in the founding of the Dominican Order.
The old wooden door shows flowery Baroque carvings. The Betlemite monastic complex once included a hospital, hospice, cemetery, school, gardens and a cloister (area for living and work). After its founding in the early 18th century, work went slowly on the Templo because the Betltemites were focused on their hospital. The complex was finally finished in 1775 when a wealthy silver mine owner threw his financial support behind it.
The church has a Latin Cross floor plan with a single nave. The interior style is Neo-Gothic, which became popular from the 1840s through the early 20th century. Sometime during this period the Churrigueresque elements of the Templo's interior were replaced by Neo-Gothic, although most of the exterior facade was left in the original style.
Interior of the dome covering the transept. A transept is found in a cruciform (Latin cross) architectural design. It is the area in front of the altar where the main nave intersects with the spaces created by left and right side chapels. Domes like this are usually supported by four arches, in the corners of which are paintings of various important figures, typically saints.
Along the right wall of the nave are the pulpit and a retablo. Both are richly decorated with paintings and the niches of the retable also contain statues.
The main altar overlooks the transept. The retablo behind the altar contains multiple statues, including one of Our Lady of the Immaculate Heart, for whom the Parroquia is named. Below her on the left is the Archangel San Miguel, seen in the first photo of this posting. To the right is Archangel San Rafael. Between the Archangels is a Christmas creche scene.
Archangel San Rafael with Tobias, the fish and the boy's dog. The story is that Tobias was sent by his blind father to retrieve money from a relative. San Rafael went along in disguise to protect the boy. While crossing a river, Tobias was attacked by a big fish, but the Archangel saved him. San Rafael told him to keep the fish to make medicines from its organs. Tobias did so and later used a portion to cure his father's blindness.
Exterior of the Templo
The Nave
The Convento de Belén was founded by members of the Orden de los Hermanos de Nuestra Señora de Bethlehem (Order of the Brothers of Our Lady of Bethlehem) or Betlemitas for short. Their religious Order was founded in Guatemala in 1658. From there a delegation traveled to Guanajuato in the early 18th century to create a new convento/hospital in the booming silver town. José de la Cruz designed the complex, but the Betlemites did much of the work themselves.
In 1727, the site chosen for the Convento de Belén was part of the Hacienda de Cervera, a silver refining operation. It was owned by a noblewoman named Doña Isabel Hertado de Mendoza, the Mariscala de Castilla. Work on the Templo dragged on for decades until 1775. Then, Don Antonio de Obregón y Alcocer, the Conde de Valenciana stepped in and used his vast silver mining fortune to complete the work.
Unfortunately for the Betlemites, they located their Convento along the same arroyo as the Franciscan Convento de San Diego (see Part 2). In 1780, only five years after completion of the Templo, hospital and most of the Betlemite complex, the same great flood that destroyed the Franciscan monastery inundated Convento Belén. When the level of the city streets were raised, the Templo was left partially underground in a semi-ruined state for a number of years.
The Conde de Valenciana began to fund reconstruction, but he died in 1786. His widow continued to pay for the work, including plans drawn up in 1788 by the architect Francisco de Bruno. He was famed for his work on the Templo de San Cayetan Confesor, near the Valenciana silver mine. However, internal conflicts among the Betlemites ultimately caused the widow to end her support. Lack of funds and the start of the Independence War finally brought the end to the Convento.
In 1810, the last religious ceremony at the Templo was conducted by the Betlemites. By 1813, the semi-ruined church had become a permanent water reservoir. The last Prelate to oversee Guanajuato's Betlemites was Fr. Vicente de San Simón, who died in 1825. At that point the State Congress took over the hospital. In 1827, the School of Architecture was established at the Universidad de Guanajuato. The site chosen was the old hospital, to the right of Templo Belén.
In the mid-19th century, Guanajuato's Catholic Diocese repaired and remodeled Templo Belén and it became the home of the Parroquia de la Corazon Inmaculada. It was during this architectural process that the Templo's interior gained its Neo-Gothic style.
The Altar area
The Betlemite Order had a rather odd beginning as these things go. It grew out of a peculiar mix of other Orders, who were often rivals. Pedro de San José Bentacur was born in the Canary Islands and, from an early age, he wanted to follow a religious life. Accordingly, he left home in 1650 for Antigua, Guatemala, then capital of that Spanish colony. Pedro intended to prepare for the priesthood at a Jesuit college so he could evangelize in Japan, but was unsuccessful in his studies.
After failing to become a Jesuit priest, Pedro took a position as sacristan, preparing and overseeing the clothing and other articles used by priests during the Liturgy. On his own time, he began teaching poor children to read and doing other charity work. In the process, he discovered the desperate health needs of the poor in his area and began taking care of them in his own home. Pedro soon turned his home into a hospital, thus beginning his life's work.
Pedro's efforts to build and operate a hospital attracted the attention of wealthy benefactors and officials like the bishop and governor. They provided him with everything the hospital needed, including the purchase of neighboring houses for expansion. The diocese placed the hospital under the patronage of Our Lady of Bethlehem. Helpers at the hospital eventually turned into an informal congregation who became known as Betlemites because of their hospital's patron.
After first attempting to became a Jesuit priest, Pedro had become a Franciscan, and continued to wear the habit of its Third Order even after starting his own community. In actuality, he was far more interested in his hospital than in transforming his community into a new Order. That task fell to others. Exhausted by his work, Pedro died in 1667 at the relatively young age of 48. After a huge funeral in Antigua, he was buried at the church of the Capuchin Friars, still another religious Order to which he was loosely connected.
Left and right side chapels
Retablo and altar at the end of the left transept. Several of the faithful have gathered to pray at an altar, backed by a retablo with a statue of Jesus at its center. The statue is flanked by paintings of two unidentified saints.
Following Pedro's death, Fr. Antonio de la Cruz assumed leadership of the community. One of his first acts was to draw up an official constitution and get it approved by the bishop. When Fr. Antonio was approached by the Capuchins to make changes in the Franciscan habit (robe) used by Pedro and his community to be more in accord with their Order, he agreed. He also took a major step toward expansion by sending two Betlemites to Peru to start a new convent/hospital.
In 1672, this expansion beyond Guatemala was approved by the King of Spain and Pope Clement X. After that, Betlemite convent/hospitals began to pop up all over Latin America. In 1727, they reached Guanajuato. The Betlemite brothers were still not an independent Order, just a group of communities under the prelate of the local diocese where their hospitals were located. By this point, they recognized a need for their own Order, but faced bureaucratic opposition.
The new Betlemite leader, Fr. Rodrigo de la Cruz, eventually overcame all roadblocks. Pope Innocent XI finally approved their new Order, giving them the same privileges as Augustinian friars. So, their original leader Pedro started studying to be a Jesuit, but later became a Franciscan. He was buried at a Capuchin church and his community adopted some of their customs. Then, when they finally became an official Order, it was with the Augustinians. The one consistent factor was always the Betlemites' devotion to their hospitals.
The Betlemite Order came to an end in 1820, when monastic communities in Spain and throughout the European empires were suppressed. Governments had come to envy the wealth that the Orders had accumulated over the centuries. Donations, the wills of wealthy individuals, and loans made by the various Orders to merchants, owners of mines and hacienda owners made them so wealthy they often acted as banks. In actuality, suppressions had started much earlier than 1820.
In 1539, Henry VIII of England had suppressed and seized monastery lands. In 1767, the Spanish Kings had thrown the Jesuits out of all Spanish possessions. The French had confiscated Church properties after the Revolution of 1789. By 1820, monastic suppressions had spread throughout Europe. The Betlemites were restored as an Order by Papal action in 1984 and a small group of them still keep a house in the Canary Islands. San Pedro de San José Bentacur finally attained sainthood from Pope John Paul II in 2002.
This concludes Part 4 of my Guanajuato Revisited series. I hope you enjoyed it. If so, please leave any thoughts or questions in the Comments section below or email me directly. Please remember to include your email address if you leave a question in the Comments section so that I can respond in a timely fashion.
Hasta luego, Jim
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