Francisco MarroquÃn
Francisco Marroquin Hurtado (* 1478 or 1499 in the Valle de Tornazo, Cantabria, Spain, † April 18, 1563 in Santiago de Guatemala, Guatemala) was the first bishop of Guatemala.
Life
Marroquín was born into a Spanish noble family. As he took the family name of his mother Juana Ruíz Marroquín del pimaric because they had a higher social rank than the father Pedro del Valle. Marroquin studied at the Colegio Mayor in Burgo de Osma philosophy. He married early and had a son ( Marroquín Alonso ). After his wife Francisca de Palacios died, struck Marroquín a clerical career and became a priest. In 1528, he learned at the Spanish court the Conquistador Pedro de Alvarado know who had conquered Guatemala in 1524. With Alvarado, Juan de Zumárraga ( first bishop of Mexico) and Vasco de Quiroa ( Bishop of Michoacán ) Marroquín traveled to Cuba, Mexico and finally to Guatemala, where he contracted malaria, arrived in 1530.
On April 11, 1530 he took over the wooden church built in 1527, the then capital of Santiago de Guatemala, pastor, he was officially on June 3 in 1530. Shortly afterwards appointed him his superior Zumárraga Vicar General of Guatemala. Marroquín learned several Mayan languages and wrote a lost grammar of the main indigenous languages (Arte para aprender los principales idiomas de Guatemala). He established a rudimentary elementary education and created the conditions for the establishment of the Colegio Mayor de Santo Tomás, which later became the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala emerged. Along with the Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas and others, he pursued alternative ways of missionary work among the Maya.
In July 1532 he suggested the Spanish monarch as Bishop of Guatemala, among other things, on the grounds that he " Protector of the Indians " ( Protector de los Indios ) is. After Pope Paul III. had approved the proposal on 18 December 1534 Marroquín was consecrated in Mexico on April 7, 1537 the first bishop of Guatemala. He received his episcopal consecration Juan de Zumárraga OFM, Bishop of México; Co-consecrators was Juan Lopez de Zárate, Bishop of Antequera, Oaxaca.
A few kilometers south of the present city of Antigua Guatemala Marroquín bought land and built an estate and a Convention (San Juan del Obispo ). He gave large parts of his lands to the suffering under the encomienda system Maya. After the then capital had been destroyed by a natural disaster in 1541, he personally led the reconstruction of neighboring Panchoy Valley and became the founder of Antigua Guatemala. 1548 he taught there also a hospital and a public library. His work for the indigenous population also made him in the years leading up to his death at an exceptional for its time churchman.