Photographs crowd the back wall.
Such shrines to pagan saints are common throughout Latin America, where many Catholic priests have long tolerated the mixing of Christian and native rituals. They are especially prevalent in Guatemala, where about 60 percent of the population of 10.7 million is Maya. When Pope John Paul II arrives here Monday, he will find a Maya population that more openly practices the animist beliefs long veiled by the cloak of Catholicism. For the first time since Christianity arrived here five centuries ago, Guatemalan Indians are increasingly rejecting Christian worship in favor of ancestral rites, anthropologists and Maya activists say. I personally know three Catholic priests who privately practice the Maya theology.