RELIGIOUS HISTORY

When the Stones arrived in El Salvador they were unaware of some of the religious history of their new country. At the time practically all inhabitants were nominal Catholics. But Catholics in El Salvador had forms of worship different from those of Catholics in North America. Why? Because Salvadorans practiced rituals of their Indian forefathers in combination with the religious practices of the Roman Catholic Church.

As one historian described the religious situation in Middle America:

“Especially in Indian towns the ceremonies of the Church appeared inseparable from the old pagan forms of idol worship. It may be safely said that in many communities in the [Spanish] colonies, the Roman Catholic religion had broken down and had become devoid of much of its European significance by grafting upon it many non-Christian practices.”​—“Outline History of Latin America,” Wilgus and d’Eca.

Interestingly, historian Santiago Barbarena, in his Ancient History of the Conquest of El Salvador, declared that the Indians already had a high priest or pope called Papahuaquín when the Spaniards arrived in America. The conquistadores found it difficult to account for this and many other similarities to their own religion. Later chroniclers purposely avoided use of this term in order not to confuse the Indian pope with the Roman pontiff.

It soon became obvious to the Stones that the people generally knew little or nothing about the Bible. Most of them, in fact, had never seen a Bible, much less read one. Never having been taught, few knew anything about God’s requirements for Christians.

[Picture on page 36]

Stone relics said to date back to 2000 B.C.E. bearing cross symbols, dug up in El Salvador