page_title: Bethlehemite Brothers
section_title: Foundation
hierarchical_section_title: Bethlehemite Brothers / Foundation
caption_attribution_description: Talla que se encuentra en la conocida Cueva del hermano Pedro
context_page_description: The Bethlehemite Brothers are a religious institute founded in Guatemala in 1653 and restored in 1984.
  Their official name is Order of Bethlehemite Brothers, or Bethlehem Brothers, and the members, like the members of two other Catholic religious orders, are known as Bethlehemites. They are also known as the Order of the Brothers of Our Lady of Bethlehem.
  In 2007, the order had 17 members, living in a single community.
context_section_description: The Bethlehemite Brothers were founded in Guatemala in 1658 by Peter of Saint Joseph Betancur, a native of the Canary Islands. From childhood he had led a pious, austere life and in 1650 left family and country to carry out his desire of going to the West Indies. During the following year he reached Guatemala, the capital of New Spain, where he intended to prepare for the priesthood that later he might go forth and evangelize Japan. Three years of unsuccessful study at a Jesuit college led him to abandon this idea and, after holding the position of sacristan for a while in a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, he rented a house in a suburb of the city called Calvary, and there taught reading and catechism to poor children, but this charitable work did not furnish sufficient outlet for his zeal.
  The condition of the sick poor excited his compassion and he sheltered them in his home which he converted into a hospital. His zeal elicited benefactions from those around him and the bishop and governor supplied him with all the conveniences he required. Several individuals provided for the purchase of the houses surrounding the one he then occupied and on their site was erected a hospital in which this servant of God could labour to better advantage. He himself worked with the masons. The hospital was thoroughly equipped and stocked and even offered an opportunity for the religious installment of those who tended the sick. The institution was placed under the patronage of Our Lady of Bethlehem.
  Helpers soon joined Pedro and at length formed a congregation of brothers generally known as Bethlehemites and so called on account of their house. But the care of the sick did not totally absorb their attention; they likewise lent their assistance in the two other hospitals of the city and Pedro continued to befriend poor children. The prisoners also excited his compassion. Every Thursday he begged for them through the city and visited them in their cells.
  The neglected souls in purgatory were also the objects of his solicitude and at the principal gates of the city he founded two hermitages, or chapels, wherein religious of his community begged, so that masses might be celebrated for the souls of the deceased. He himself would travel the streets at night ringing a bell and recommending these souls to be prayed for.
  Peter's devotion to the Blessed Virgin was inspiring and during a novena of preparation for the Feast of the Purification his religious, with arms extended in the form of a cross, recited the rosary in their chapel at midnight in the midst of a great throng. In 1654 he made a vow to defend the Immaculate Conception even at the peril of his life. He died, exhausted by labour and penance, 25 April 1667, at the age of forty-eight. His funeral was impressive and at the request of the Capuchin Friars he was buried in their church where, for a long time, his remains were held in veneration.
  Before establishing his Guatemala hospital, Peter had become a member of the Third Order of St. Francis, adopting its religious habit, which he still retained after founding his congregation. He personally trained his first disciples and had no wish to organize a community, but simply to establish his hospital. He sent Brother Anthony of the Cross to Spain to solicit the king's approbation of the work. The favour was granted, but Peter died before the messenger's return.
caption: Statue of the order's founder, Saint Peter of Saint Joseph Betancur, in the pilgrimage shrine of the Holy Brother Pedro in Tenerife
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