Casáus y Torres, Ramón (1765–1845)

Ramón Casáus y Torres (b. 1765; d. 10 November 1845), archbishop of Guatemala (1811–1845). Born in Jaca, Huesca, Spain, Casáus entered the Dominican order in Saragossa and later earned his doctorate in Mexico City. He was bishop of Oaxaca when appointed archbishop of Guatemala in 1811. As archbishop, he worked to improve educational facilities and donated his library to the University of San Carlos. He was especially interested in Indian languages and arranged for teaching Quiché and Cakchiquel at the university and the seminary. He opposed independence from Spain and Mexico and became closely associated with conservative political interests in the civil wars following independence. He strongly resisted establishment of a separate diocese for El Salvador.

Liberal victory in 1829 resulted in Casáus's exile from Central America by Francisco Morazán. He spent the remainder of his life in Havana. The state of Guatemala declared him a traitor on 13 June 1830. After Rafael Carrera came to power, in 1839, the Guatemalan government invited him to return, but the continuing turmoil on the isthmus deterred the archbishop from returning to his see before his death. His remains were brought to Guatemala for burial in 1846.

See alsoGuatemala .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Francisco Fernández Hall, "Historiadores de Guatemala posteriores a la independencia nacional: El Doctor don Francisco de Paula García Peláez," in Anales de la Sociedad de Geografía e Historia 15, no. 3 (1939): 261-278.

Mary P. Holleran, Church and State in Guatemala (1949).

Carlos C. Haeussler Yela, Diccionario general de Guatemala, vol. 1 (1983), p. 323.

                         Ralph Lee Woodward Jr.