Rossell y Arellano, Mariano (1894–1964)

Mariano Rossell y Arellano (b. 18 July 1894; d. 10 December 1964), archbishop of Guatemala (1939–1964). A native Guatemalan, Rossell y Arellano became a priest in 1918. He served as the private secretary of Archbishop Luis Javier Muñoz y Capurón and held the posts of secretary and chancellor in the metropolitan curia. In 1935 he became vicar-general under archbishop Luis Durou y Sure, upon whose death in 1939, Rossell became archbishop. The arrival of foreign missionaries and Rossell's active promotion of the lay apostolate helped to relieve a long-standing clerical shortage in Guatemala.

During the administrations of Juan José Arévalo and Jacobo Arbenz, the archbishop and lay Catholic leaders promoted social-justice teachings and criticized the government for its failure to stem the growth of communism. Their anticommunist crusade played a role in the downfall of Arbenz in 1954. Under the conservative leadership of president Carlos Castillo Armas, Rossell worked for the reversal of nineteenth-century liberal anticlerical laws, the repeal of which was achieved in the constitutions of 1956 and 1965.

See alsoCatholic Church: The Modern Period; Guatemala.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bruce J. Calder, Crecimiento y cambio de la iglesia católica guatemalteca, 1944–1966 (1970).

José Luis Chea, Guatemala: La cruz fragmentada (1988), esp. pp. 67-100.

Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr., ed., Central America: Historical Perspectives on the Contemporary Crises (1988), esp. 85-105.

Additional Bibliography

Pattridge, Blake D. "The Catholic Church and the Closed Corporate Community during the Guatemalan Revolution, 1944–1955." America 52:1 (July 1995): 25-42.

                                      Hubert J. Miller