page_title: History of the Catholic Church in Belize
section_title: Credit unions and cooperatives
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Catholic Church in Belize / Apostolic works / Credit unions and cooperatives
caption_attribution_description: English: Fr. William Ulrich, SJ, originator of cooperatives among Maya in Toledo District, Belize, CA
context_page_description: This history of the Catholic church in Belize has three parts: the historical periods of the Catholic presence in Belize, religious congregations laboring in Belize, and apostolic works undertaken.
context_section_description: Marion M. Ganey, S.J., was largely responsible for introducing cooperatives and credit unions to Belize beginning in 1943, in response to Pius XI’s social encyclical Quadragesimo anno. Within 10 years of the first credit union, the colony had 22 credit unions and the “various cooperatives embraced consumer, marketing, housing, hog, chicle, and farmers co-operatives.” The religious sisters did their part, the Pallottines in Punta Gorda in the 1940s teaching girls the canning of produce. In 1951 Jesuit Fr. William Ulrich gave the Maya of San Antonio village a scale for weighing their hogs, protecting them from sharkers who grossly underestimated the weight. From increased revenue the villagers bought a truck to carry their hogs and other produce to market, and a hog cooperative was formed. Ulrich's action also impacted village politics. By encouraging “the election of younger and more progressive men to the Alcalde’s Council which had been set up by Fr. Knopp” this “irretrievably altered the traditional relationship between the old and the young.” The credit union movement included Jesuit Henry Sutti, the first priest to come out of Boys Town, Nebraska, and in 1943 founder of the Holy Redeemer Credit Union, which in 2009 was capitalized at Bz$322.7 million with 42,262 members. Since 1956, the Director of the Credit union has been Jane Ellen Usher.
caption: Fr. Ulrich's scale
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