DELGADO, JOSÉ MATÍAS

Churchman and political leader who played an important and controversial role in the independence movement of El Salvador and in the organization of the Church in that region; b. San Salvador, El Salvador, Feb. 24, 1767; d. there, Nov. 12, 1832. Delgado belonged to an aristocratic family that had contributed to the initial conquest of Guatemala. At an early age he was granted a scholarship by the archbishop of Guatemala to study in Guatemala City. In addition to completing his studies at the seminary and being ordained, Delgado received a law degree from the University of Guatemala. In August 1797 he was appointed pastor of San Salvador. During a difficult period when El Salvadore suffered from earthquakes and economic problems, Delgado came to be admired for the zeal and integrity with which he fulfilled his priestly duties. In the independence movement in Central America, Delgado headed the region's first revolutionary uprising of Nov. 5, 1811. When this movement collapsed, he was recalled to Guatemala, where he remained for the next ten years, except for occasional visits to San Salvador under the close supervision of royal authorities. On Sept. 15, 1821, when Central America established its independence without having to resort to warfare, among the signers of the declaration of independence was Delgado. Together with fellow Liberal Manuel José Arce, Delgado served on a governing junta in San Salvador under the jurisdiction of the federal government of Central America in Guatemala. When Mexico tried to annex all of the Central American provinces, only El Salvador protested. Preferring annexation to the U.S. to absorption by Mexico, Delgado framed the futile request (Jan. 5, 1823) to the North American government to take over El Salvador. When Central America reasserted its independence, Delgado was overwhelmingly elected president of the First National Constituent Assembly of Central America.

For many years before the end of the colonial period, El Salvador had vainly sought establishment of a diocese. When El Salvador began its existence as a semi-autonomous province within the Central American confederation and convened a joint congress and constituent assembly, that body on April 27, 1824, created a diocese and appointed Delgado as bishop. Delgado was invested in his new office on May 5. The following month the Spanish-born archbishop of Guatemala Ramón Casaús y Torres published an edict declaring null and void the actions of the Salvadorean congress in creating a diocese and appointing Delgado bishop. The Federal Assembly in Guatemala City likewise declared illegal El Salvador's controversial ecclesiastical decrees. Though lacking papal confirmation, Delgado refused to renounce episcopal powers. The Salvadorean government dispatched a representative to seek confirmation in Rome, but Leo XII on Dec. 1, 1826, fully backed Archbishop Casaús. Delgado was instructed to renounce his office within 50 days, under pain of being branded a schismatic. By the end of the following year Delgado had relinquished all claims on the disputed bishopric. Meantime, however, the Salvadorean government had exiled many ecclesiastics who opposed the Delgado cause.

The controversy over the Diocese of El Salvador produced political ramifications throughout Central America. Liberals supported Delgado, while the Conservatives or "Serviles" backed the Guatemalan archbishop. By 1829 liberals under Francisco Morazán had gained control of the Central American federal government in Guatemala and shortly began to promulgate the most anticlerical series of laws that had appeared in Latin America up to that time. With liberalism ascendant, Delgado was more popular than ever in El Salvador. In 1832 a new Salvadorean assembly elected Delgado its presiding officer. Throughout his life he had thought it possible to defend both liberal political principles and the Catholic faith. In the last moments of his life Delgado is reported to have said: "I hereby declare that I have lived and die happily in the religion of Christ, the only true one, in communion with the Roman Apostolic Catholic Church; that my conscience is at peace regarding the ecclesiastical matters of this state and that before the Divine Presence we shall see who is the one at fault …."

Bibliography: r. lÓpez jimÉnez, José Matías Delgado y de Leén: Ensayo histórico (San Salvador 1962). r. barÓn castro, José Matías Delgado y el Movimiento insurgente de 1811 (San Salvador 1962).

[p. tennant pike]