This history of the Catholic church in Belize has three parts: the historical periods of the Catholic presence in Belize, religious congregations laboring in Belize, and apostolic works undertaken.
Historical periods
Historians distinguish at least three periods in the history of the Catholic church in Belize. The first period saw missionaries accompany Spanish conquistadores among the Mayas in western Belize, from 1524 until 1707 when such activity drew to a close. A century later separate incursions into the central, southern, and northern parts of the territory led to the first permanent residency of the Jesuits in Belize, in 1851. This marks the beginning of the second period which saw the rapid spread of mission churches throughout Belize. The third period began with appointment of the first native bishop, thus handing over to the native, diocesan clergy administration of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Belize City-Belmopan.
Missionary ventures: 1524 to 1851
1524 to 1707 - Friars accompanied the earliest Spanish expeditions into Central America, in accordance with the Patronato system and its intermingling of politics and religion. While the Spanish pursued the false hope of finding gold in Peten, Guatemala, the missionaries accompanied them south from Yucatan, Mexico, and north from Cobán, Guatemala. Scattered physical and documentary evidence of friars among the Maya in Western Belize exists for the period 1524 to 1707. Near the Maya site at Xunantunich in west central Belize lies Tipu with the remains of a primitive church building, mentioned in Spanish records, and a large number of Maya skeletons around its confines. Tipu ceased to exist as a Maya/Christian settlement in 1707 when the Spanish moved its residents to the shores of Lake Petén Itza. Sixty miles to the north of Tipu lies Lamanai (Indian Church) with the remaining stone walls of a missionary church and the ruins of a second church. Maya rebellions were frequent since the system of reducciones—gathering the scattered Maya into Spanish-controlled villages—meant paying taxes and loss of freedom. The South witnessed the only recorded martyrdom of missionaries in Belize: in 1684 at Paliac (Rio Grande, Toledo) three Franciscans and some Spaniards were martyred, presumably a sacrificial offering following the Maya method of ripping out the heart. But it was usually the political rather than the Christianizing effort that provoked Maya resistance. Missionaries who resumed the evangelizing effort over 100 years later would attest to remnants of Christian belief.
1830 to 1851 - Around 1830 Catholic priests reappear in the historical record of Belize. Mestizos had come as refugees from Honduras to Mullins River south of Belize Town. Fray Antonio worked among them from 1832 to 1836 when he was replaced by Fray Rubio from Bacalar in Yucatan. Rubio built in Mullins River in 1837 the first Catholic church in modern Belize. Then in 1840, Frs. Sandoval and Rivas from Yucatan built a chapel in Belize Town. This had been the coastal center of the British logging industry in the central part of the colony since the late 18th century. The town was served by Anglican, Baptist, and Methodist ministers but Spanish merchants from Yucatan, along with mestizos and Garifuna from the South, would enlarge the Catholic community in the mid-19th century.
A large migration of Garifuna had come up the coast from Honduras in 1832, to what became Punta Gorda and Dangriga in the south of Belize. Their ancestry, of African and Carib Indian mix, traces to Saint Vincent. There they rebelled against the British in 1797 and were expelled to Roatán, from which they spread along the Honduran coast. By the 19th century they were settling along the southern coastline of Belize. They had been catechized by Spanish priests while on St. Vincent, as evidenced in “makeshift beads and crosses to ward off evil and danger." They would be sought after by the British as strong warriors and sturdy workers. But it was as good students and educators that they impacted Catholicism in Belize, with several priests and the first native bishop coming from their number. The Holy Family Sisters would come in 1898 specifically to minister to Garifuna communities, and within a century 45 Belizeans had joined these sisters.