Armed mob storms church in Guatemala - anti-Catholic Mayan sect Cofradia

Cofradia beat parishioners, force Maryknoll priest to flee

GUATEMALA CITY - About 1,000 pickax-wielding supporters of the Cofradia, the traditional Mayan religious group, stormed the church of Maryknoll priest Father Robert Crohan on March 6, attacked the 500 people inside and drove Crohan out of San Juan Alotenango, Sacatepequez.

"Men were hitting women, children were hitting children. It was horrible," said Augustine Rancho Chava, a construction worker and close friend of Crohan.

The Cofradia represent a fusion of Mayan and Catholic traditions. They were named by the president of Guatemala to, among other things, protect church idols after all foreign clergy were expelled in 1871. Foreign clergy were readmitted to Guatemala in 1942.

Tensions between the church and the Cofradia have been growing ever since. The Cofradia have been losing power during the past 30 years because of their rigid rules and the presence of other religious sects who offer social programs, said Maryknoll Regional Superior Ronald Hennessey.

Before the March 6 incident, Crohan had asked the Cofradia to move their church idols so the church's roof could be rebuilt. The Cofradia took offense to the request, saying it violated their rights, and accused Crohan of being an imperialist and trying to steal their idols.

The armed crowd besieged the church and hurled stones at government and Maryknoll officials who had arrived to try to rescue Crohan, who was biding in his chambers. Eight people were hospitalized.

Now in the capital, Crohan is reportedly healthy but unnerved. Hennessey said the church must direct more attention to indigenous culture.

"After the 500 Years of Resistance Celebration and Rigoberta Menchu there is a reidentification of what it means to be Mayan, and the church will have to recognize that and cooperate with it," he said.

Meanwhile, the prosecuting attorney for the Michael Devine murder case, Enrique Gonzalez, was severely injured in a suspicious car accident Feb. 28, two weeks before the public hearing against the alleged mastermind of the crime, Capt. Hugo Contreras. Devine, who was from the United States, was murdered in Guatemala in 1990, a crime that prompted the United States to suspend military aid to Guatemala.

Carl West, an investigator for the Devine family, called the Gonzalez accident "really suspicious." West said that some think Gonzalez had been beaten before the accident.

According to Beatriz Gonzalez, her husband had been receiving death threats since he accepted the Devine case. When he did not return home that day, she alerted the American Embassy, which denounced his disappearance two days later, March 2.

Gonzalez was eventually found in the intensive care unit of San Juan de Dios public hospital. He was unconscious, suffering a fractured skull, a second-degree concussion and a broken arm.

Last year a military court found five army soldiers guilty of kidnapping Devine from his home in Poptun, northern Guatemala, on June 6, 1990, and killing him. Two days later, Devine's body was found on a roadside. He had been decapitated, and his hands and feet were bound.

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