BELIZE, APOSTOLIC VICARIATE OF. — The mission, begun in 1851 by the Jesuits of the Apostolic Vicariate of Jamaica and separated from it due to the elevation of Honduras to an Apostolic Prefecture (16 May 1888), was raised to the status of a vicariate on 3 January 1893 at the request of the Catholics. It then changed its name to that of Belize (15 December 1925).
The area of the vicariate, whose borders largely coincide with those of the colony, is 24,600 sq. km.; total population (approximate census of 1939): 57,767 inhabitants: 35,000 Catholics, of whom about 18,000 are Maya, speaking Mayathan and Mopán, who immigrated from Guatemala and Yucatán, preserving the faith instilled in them by the Franciscans; about 17,000 mestizos and 250 foreigners. There are also about 22,370 Protestants, 35 Jews, 30 Muslims, and 200 pagans. The mission’s works, distributed across 9 primary stations and 132 secondary ones, were attended to (January 1949), in addition to the ordinary clergy, by 4 diocesan priests and 30 Jesuits, 4 scholastics, and an equal number of Jesuit coadjutors. There are about 100 sisters (Mercy; of Bethesda, Maryland, U.S.A.; of the Pious Missions of Limburg on the Lahn; St. Agnes; Holy Family; and Black Sisters).
Serious obstacles arise from the dispersal of the 54 stations for the Maya, settled in tribes in the western and northern parts of the colony, mostly in the jungle; as well as from widespread moral corruption and the scarcity of missionary personnel. However, the fortunate growth of schools (59 elementary with 6,608 pupils, and two secondary schools with over 200 pupils in 1948) and the activity of other cultural centers have contributed to the formation of a Catholic elite, forming the basis for a more rapid and secure development of the mission.