Pedro Betancourt was a Cuban-born Franciscan lay brother who spent most of his adult life in Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala, founding hospitals and welfare institutions for the poor in the 1650s and 60s. He was beatified in 1980 and canonized by John Paul II in 2002 — the same year this coin was issued, directly marking the canonization event. Guatemala claimed him as its own patron saint despite his Cuban birth, a tension that quietly persisted through the canonization process.
Pedro Betancourt was a Cuban-born Franciscan lay brother who spent most of his adult life in Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala, founding hospitals and welfare institutions for the poor in the 1650s and 60s. He was beatified in 1980 and canonized by John Paul II in 2002 — the same year this coin was issued, directly marking the canonization event. Guatemala claimed him as its own patron saint despite his Cuban birth, a tension that quietly persisted through the canonization process.