San Lucas Tolimán

After the Spanish conquest of Guatemala, San Lucas Tolimán was part of the Tecpán Atitlán "corregimiento" (English: Province) and when it turned into a major municipality in 1730, it became part of it as well;[4] regarding the Catholic faith, this was in charge of the franciscans, who had convents and doctrines in the area covered by the modern departaments of Sacatepéquez, Chimaltenango, Sololá, Quetzaltenango, Totonicapán, Suchitepéquez and Escuintla. The "Provincia del Santísimo Nombre de Jesús" (English:"Province of the most Holy Name of Jesus"), as the Franciscan area was then called, reached up to 24 convents.[4] In 1586, friar Alonso Ponce refers to San Lucas Tolimán as "little town".[5]

Under franciscan tenure, both in the Santiago Atitlán convent town as in the native towns in its annexed doctrines —such as San Lucas Tolimán—, there was religious teaching for 6-year-old girls and older starting at 2:00 pm and for boys of the same age starting at sunset; the class lasted for 2 hours and consisted on memorizing the church teaching and prayers and to make some exercises with the catechism and it was run by a priest or by elder natives, called "fiscales".[6] Adults attended Mass every Sunday and holiday and after mass, there were religious teachings in their own language.[6] Lent was a time of the year when the friars prepared the natives thoroughly, using their own language to accomplish their goals; every Friday of Lent there was a procession following the Rosary steps all the way to the Calvary temple.[7]

In 1754, as part of the borbon reforms, the Franciscans where forced to, give their doctrines to the secular clergy;[8] thus, when archbishop Pedro Cortés y Larraz visited Panajachel in 1770, he described it as a member of the "Santiago Atitlan parish".[9]

The town was elevated to municipality category on 2 September 1877, during the liberal regime of general Justo Rufino Barrios.[10]

The area is well known as being the site of the San Lucas Tolimán Mission, overseen by the Roman Catholic Diocese of New Ulm in the city of New Ulm, Minnesota, which is a suffragan see in the Ecclesiastical Province of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. The Mission was founded in the 1960s by Monsignor Gregory Thomas Schaffer, who was responsible for starting up a series of education, health, and agriculture initiatives, including the granting of 3 acres of land each to 4,000 families, the launch of medical clinics, and the start of a fair-price coffee initiative. Katie Wallyn, a missionary for the Catholic Church from Minnesota, has been helping the downtrodden their with her foundation L.E.A.S.T, helping the elderly with a loving manner.[11] Monsignor Schaffer encouraged a group of his lay volunteers to found Agua del Pueblo (AdP).[12] AdP is the oldest non governmental organization dedicated to water supply and sanitation in the world. Following the death of Monsignor Schaffer at the age of 78 in St. Paul of a rare form of lymphoma, a new group called the "Friends of San Lucas" has been appointed to continue the work in the area.[11]

On 13 October 2015, the Santiago Atitlán Courthouse issued a warrant for the arrest of the still mayor of San Lucas Tolimán, Oscar Pic Solís, for several charges; municipality secretary, Gaspar Cholotió Hernández, and treasurer, Alberto Cumes Cali were also arrested.[13] Pic Solis had been mayor since 2007, with the Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza party, but he was not re-elected in the 2015 elections.[13]