COLOMBIA. – State of South America; the only one on the continent to border both the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.
I. GEOGRAPHY
It is a very large country (1,100,000 sq km, almost four times the size of Italy), but still not fully known and of which only a small part has been developed. Apart from the narrow, impassable and sparsely inhabited coastal strip along the Pacific, Colombia consists of a western, mountainous section (the Andes), interspersed with broad valleys (Atrato, Magdalena, Cauca), and an eastern, flat section, traversed by tributaries of the Orinoco and the Amazon. The latter alone covers more than half the country, covered by forests in the south and savanna in the north, but is almost uninhabited.The population is concentrated instead in the Andean region, where the altitude (in the so-called Tierra templada, 1,000–2,000 m, lives 50% of the population) tempers the excesses of the hot-humid tropical climate and sometimes extremely rainy (7,000 mm of rainfall annually on the Pacific slope). Colombia has immense natural resources, but their exploitation is delayed and hindered by the low population density (9 inhabitants per sq km; comparable to Norway), the difficulty of communications (mostly fluvial; there are 3,440 km of railways) and the relative instability of the government. The latter is related to the lack of homogeneity in the population (over 10 million people in 1946), of which 40% are mestizos, 15% mulattos, 10% blacks, 7% Native Americans and just over 25% pure whites (among foreigners, there are 2,000 Italians). Agriculture and extractive industry are balanced as productive activities. Coffee and oil are the mainstays of exports, but Colombia is also well-suited, among other things, to the cultivation of bananas, tobacco, cotton and sugarcane, which now thrive there, while the subsoil yields gold, silver, platinum, coal, precious stones, etc.; livestock already boasts a significant herd (12 million head of cattle) and the forest (more than 50% of the territory) can be said to be still intact.
Colombia is a unitary republic with a bicameral representation. The country has the following administrative divisions.
The capital is Bogotá (600,000 inhabitants in 1948), at 2,640 m above sea level.
The state religion is Roman Catholicism; however, among the indigenous tribes of the interior, pagan cults are still preserved.
II. ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY
I. Evangelization
From the beginning of the 16th century, the northern coast of present-day Colombia was occupied by the Spanish, and the cities of Santa Marta (1525) and Cartagena (1533) were founded. From the south, the conqueror of Quito, Sebastián de Belalcázar, advanced northward, founding in 1537 the city of Popayán and reaching in 1538 the territory of the Chibchas or Muyscas on the high plateau of Boyacá and Cundinamarca. At the same time, Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada from Santa Marta and Nicolás Federmann from Coro (Venezuela) burst into this Chibcha territory. Quesada’s claims were recognized, and the province (audiencia) of the New Kingdom of Granada was founded, with its capital at Santa Fe de Bogotá. The New Kingdom of Granada, initially an audiencia of the Viceroyalty of Peru, was elevated to a viceroyalty in 1739, encompassing Colombia, Panama, Ecuador and Venezuela. In 1810, the independence movement began, which, after some setbacks, led to the establishment of the Republic of Colombia in 1819.With the founding of Santa Marta, the evangelization of the indigenous people of the northern coast began. The Dominicans settled in Santa Marta and Cartagena, which became dioceses in 1534, thus forming centers of missionary activity among the indigenous tribes of the region. In Cartagena, a college was opened for the sons of chiefs. It was in Cartagena that the Dominican St. Louis Bertrand developed his beneficent activity among the indigenous people in the 16th century. The first missionaries in Popayán (made a diocese in 1546) were the Mercedarians, while with Quesada the Dominicans from Santa Marta came to Bogotá (elevated to an archdiocese in 1564 with the suffragans of Popayán, Cartagena and Santa Marta). In 1566, the Dominicans administered 170 doctrinas in the New Kingdom of Granada and founded an independent province in 1577. From 1550, the Franciscans worked in the New Kingdom of Granada, which grew into a province in 1565. Also present in the country were the Augustinian Recollects, with their first foundation in Bogotá in 1575, and the Recollects of St. Augustine, who, from their first foundation at “El Desierto de la Candelaria” in 1597, were called Candelarians.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, missionary activity was generally limited to the mountainous regions due to their healthier climate, as the aforementioned Dominicans, Franciscans, Augustinians, Augustinian Recollects and Recollects had organized their doctrinas among the Chibchas and the numerous other tribes of the country. In the 17th century, missions also began among the indigenous people of the unhealthy plains, coasts and rivers and the eastern plains (Llanos). It was mainly the Jesuits, who had initially worked in the colleges of the Spanish colonies from 1598. In 1604, they founded the vice-province of the New Kingdom of Granada. From 1624, and after an initial setback, again from 1659, they began missions in the Llanos, especially founding in the 18th century reductions in Casanare, on the Meta and Orinoco rivers, which in 1754 included 10,000 indigenous people, and further south, the famous reductions of Mainas, which extended in part into present-day Colombian territory. The Jesuits also worked among the numerous enslaved blacks.
Landed at Cartagena; among them stood out St. CLEVE (v.). The Augustinians, Dominicans, and Franciscans continued in this period to undertake, alongside the existing *doctrines*, new missions. The Franciscans founded two missionary colleges: Pamasqui (in 1699), moving it in 1747 to Popayán, and Cali (in 1756) for the Indians of the Caquetá, Chocó, and Urabá regions. The Capuchins began the Goajira mission in 1693, which continued until the wars for independence.
The expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767—whose missions were initially administered by the Dominicans and Franciscans—and the turmoil of the independence struggles greatly hindered missionary work, which collapsed entirely in the 19th century. In the early days of the Republic of Colombia, the convents, principal centers of missionary activity, began to disappear in part due to the lack of support from Spain.
With the concordat of 1887, the reorganization of missionary work among the half-civilized and non-civilized Indians also began. For their evangelization, the following vicariates and prefectures were established: Goajira, Capuchins (returned to the mission in 1883; apostolic vicariate in 1905); Casanare, Augustinian Recollects (apostolic vicariate in 1893); Caquetá, Capuchins (begun in 1895; apostolic prefecture in 1904; apostolic vicariate in 1930); plains (Llanos) of San Martín, Montfortans (two apostolic prefectures in 1903–1904; single apostolic vicariate in 1908); Tierradentro, Lazarists (from 1905; apostolic prefecture in 1921); Chocó, Claretians (apostolic prefecture in 1908); San Andrés y Providencia, Mill Hill from 1912; Capuchins from 1927; Urabá, Discalced Carmelites (apostolic prefecture in 1918, suppressed and united to the diocese of Antioquia in 1941); Arauca, Lazarists (apostolic prefecture in 1915); San Jorge, Spanish institute of St. Francis Xavier of Burgos (apostolic prefecture of Sinú in 1924; renamed San Jorge in 1931); Tumaco, Augustinian Recollects (apostolic prefecture in 1927); Magdalena River, Jesuits (apostolic prefecture in 1928); Labateca, seminary of Yarumal in Colombia (apostolic prefecture in 1945).
2. Modern History
At the Congress of Angostura on 17 December 1819, the Republic of Colombia arose. Its first president was Simón Bolívar, “Libertador of Colombia, father of the fatherland, terror of tyrants.” The new state (Gran Colombia) included not only present-day Colombia but also Venezuela and Ecuador. The constituent assembly of Cúcuta in 1821 proved very favorable to the Catholic religion, and the new republic immediately sought to establish ties with the Holy See. However, this aim was hindered by the patronage rights that the King of Spain held over South American dioceses. Thus, the Colombian envoy Tejada’s mission to Rome in September 1824 failed. Only after the Battle of Ayacucho (9 December 1824), which marked the definitive end of Spanish rule in South America, and the recognition of the new state by Great Britain, did Leo XII on 18 January 1827 decide *motu proprio* to fill the vacant episcopal sees. This measure, welcomed with joy by Colombian Catholics, was particularly pleasing to Bolívar, who subsequently issued a series of laws favorable to the Church.After the assassination of Sucre, the “Libertador’s” beloved disciple (4 June 1830), and the resignation and death of Bolívar (17 December 1830), the Republic of Colombia split into the three states of Venezuela, Ecuador, and New Granada, and in 1861 its name was changed to the current Colombia. Since the new state’s constitution had expressed the fervent desire to establish regular relations with the Holy See, President Santander entrusted the relevant negotiations to the aforementioned Tejada, who in November 1835 obtained the Holy See’s recognition of the republic and the establishment of a papal diplomatic representation in Bogotá.
Under the presidency of General Herrán, a new constitution was promulgated in 1843; the Catholic religion was recognized as the state religion, and the Society of Jesus, expelled during the time of Charles III, was readmitted to the republic. The following two decades, until 1867, saw the triumph of radicalism and the sectarian predominance of Mosquera, who exiled the bishops, confiscated convent property, and sought in every way to subject ecclesiastical ministers to state authority. Indeed, the new constitution of 21 May 1853 and the law of 15 June of the same year had sanctioned the separation of Church and state.
The internal life of the republic was disturbed by continual revolts and party struggles. Liberals and conservatives, federalists and centralists contended endlessly for power until the constitution of 5 August 1886 marked the triumph of the conservatives and centralists. The name “United States of Colombia,” in use since 1861, was replaced by that of the “Republic of Colombia,” and the federal states, having lost their autonomy, became departments dependent on central authority.
On 31 December 1887, a concordat was signed in Rome with the Holy See, proclaiming the Catholic religion as the state religion, ensuring full freedom for the Church, and guaranteeing that education would be conducted in conformity with Catholic doctrine and morals. This concordat had been made possible by the new constitution of 6 August 1886 (see especially articles 51 and 56, the latter now modified by articles 13 and 34 of the law of 5 August 1936). In 1892, an additional convention was also concluded on ecclesiastical jurisdiction, cemeteries, and civil status. On 29 December 1902, an agreement was stipulated for the erection of new apostolic prefectures.
In 1903, a revolt broke out in the department of Panama that the central government’s troops were unable to suppress; as a result, the department, with the support of the United States, became an independent republic. During World War I, the Holy See’s diplomatic representation was elevated to the rank of nunciature.
On 5 May 1928, an agreement was stipulated between the Holy See and Colombia regarding mission territories, which, among other provisions, established (article 12) that the appointment of civil officials in mission territories would be made after consultation with the apostolic nuncio, to ensure that they were persons favorable to the missions. A convention amending and supplementing the concordat of 1887—concerning the appointment of bishops, the full civil recognition of canonical marriage, and the transfer of cemetery administration from ecclesiastical to civil authority—was signed in Rome on 22 April 1942.
Colombia – Bolívar Monument by P. Tenerani in Bogotá (19th century).
III. ART OF COLOMBIA – Like all other countries of Central America, COLOMBIA presented at the time of its discovery a lively indigenous civilization which became totally extinct with European infiltration, except in a few manifestations of folk art. After the conquest, the influence of Spanish baroque was felt especially in the architecture and in the sculptural and pictorial decorations of church interiors.
In painting, Gregorio Vásquez Ceballos of Bogotá (1638-1711), a pupil of Gaspar de Figueroa who was the first notable painter of COLOMBIA, achieved particular prominence. Vásquez’s art, almost entirely untouched by European forms, reached very happy moments in the Portrait of Don Enrique Barbosa (1698) in the church of El Rosario and in the Preaching of St Francis Xavier in the Sagrario of Bogotá. After him other painters and sculptors, among them Paolo Caballero and Miguel de Santiago, Giovanni de Cabrera and Antonio de Pimentel, reflected faintly Italian experiences. In the 19th century, after national independence had been achieved, a new expressive language was introduced into COLOMBIA by artists such as the painter Epifanio Garay, who had studied in Europe, and by foreigners who came to COLOMBIA, such as the Italian sculptor Cesare Sighinolfi, who for many years taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bogotá.
For literature, see ISPANO-AMERICANA LETTERATURA.
IV. EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF COLOMBIA – The educational reform of 1930 was carried out through the efforts of Colombian educators Agustín Nieto Caballero, Luis López de Mesa, Gustavo Santos and Carlos Grazia Prada. The entire school system is divided into: kindergartens lasting 2 years, primary schools lasting 5 years, complementary schools also called vocational or rural lasting 2 years, secondary schools called “Colegios de bachillerato” lasting 6 years, and professional schools divided into normal schools and universities.
The universities are as follows: Universidad Nacional in Bogotá founded in 1867; Universidad de Antioquia in Medellín; Universidad de Bolívar in Cartagena; Universidad de Nariño in Pasto; free universities: in Bogotá, the Catholic Universidad Católica “Colegio Mayor de Nuestra Señora del Rosario,” founded in 1652; the Universidad Libre, founded in 1923; the Catholic Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá (q.v.), and the Catholic Universidad Bolivariana in Medellín (q.v.).
In COLOMBIA there are the following missionary schools: 83 catechism and prayer schools, 538 primary schools, 13 lower secondary schools, 13 upper secondary schools, 2 normal schools and 1 professional school. The education of the Catholic clergy is carried out in 13 major seminaries and 3 minor seminaries, of which that of Las Casas is a missionary seminary.
See Plate CXXVI.