Mary Jo McConahay

Journalist Mary Jo McConahay began covering Guatemala and Central America as a correspondent in the 1980s. Her work has appeared in more than 30 magazines and periodicals, including Rolling Stone, the San Francisco Chronicle, Time and Vogue. She is the author of several books, including Playing God: American Catholic Bishops and the Far Right (Melville House).

By this Author

Ana de Leon, from the Maya Ixil people and a survivor of the internal armed conflict, reacts while participating with others in a ritual, outside the Supreme Court and prior to a hearing in the Maya Ixil genocide trial, March 25 in Guatemala City, Guatemala. (OSV News/Reuters/Cristina Chiquin)

Aug 06, 2024

Guatemala genocide trial exposes effort to destroy Mayan and Catholic cultures

Analysis: Amid the genocide case against Gen. Benedicto Lucas García, experts debate whether acts committed during the counterinsurgency led by Lucas between 1978 and 1982 should be called genocide, or termed "war crimes."

Ixil Indigenous authorities attend a hearing where survivors of the internal armed conflict testify in the Maya Ixil genocide trial at the Supreme Court, in Guatemala City, Guatemala, April 8, 2024. (OSV News/Reuters/Cristina Chiquin)

Jun 10, 2024

Details of genocide, murders of Catholic religious, emerge in Guatemala trial

One expert witness who has researched the violence in Guatemala since 1986, called the first phase of the genocide when religious workers and community leaders were eliminated "selective assassination."

Ixil Indigenous Jacinta Ceto, survivor of the Guatemalan civil war, attends the hearing against retired Gen. Benedicto Lucas García at a court in Guatemala City on April 8. A Guatemalan court began a trial against Lucas, 91, already convicted of crimes against humanity, for the massacre of more than 1,200 Indigenous Ixil Maya people between 1978 and 1982, a period when his brother Romeo Lucas Garcia was in power. (AFP via Getty Images/Johan Ordonez)

Apr 18, 2024

Guatemala Archdiocese a force behind genocide trial of retired general

A landmark trial is underway in Guatemala against Benedicto Lucas García, architect of a counterinsurgency campaign in a war where some 200,000 persons, mostly unarmed Maya, were killed or forcibly disappeared in the 1980s.

San Francisco is seen around noontime on Sept. 9, 2020, as wildfires in the Pacific Northwest turned the sky an ominious orange haze, and blanketed the city in darkness. (Unsplash/Patrick Perkins)

Oct 23, 2021

Like prior stand against nuclear weapons, climate emergency calls for bold leadership from US bishops

Once before, U.S. bishops issued a collective public address on an existential issue from the point of faith and morals when the future of the world hung in the balance. Then, it was nuclear weapons. Today, it should be climate change.

Oct 23, 2019

Catholics in the Amazon await the synod's decisions

People in the Amazon region are hoping that the synod will recognize that the more that Amazon residents can control their own resources, and the young are encouraged to stay and carry on traditions of preserving an ecologically sound way of life, the greater chance for the Amazon to survive.

Oct 23, 2019

A gracious overnight with an indigenous Catholic family in the Amazon

San José del Guaviare, Colombia, is known as the "gateway to the Amazon," and in the forest there I stayed with an indigenous family in their traditional maloca house and learned about how they view their Catholicism, their customs, and a changing world.

Sep 30, 2019

Cardinal-designate has defended indigenous people, migrants for decades

For over 30 years, Bishop Álvaro Ramazzini has championed social justice for those on the margins in Guatemala, weathering death threats as a peace mediator and advocating for the environment.

Sep 30, 2019

Reporter's notebook: Tracking Bishop Ramazzini over the years

Reporter's Notebook: Memories of previous reporting assignments in Guatemala testify to the dedicated character of the now future cardinal Álvaro Ramazzini.

Sep 25, 2017

Guatemalan people celebrate Fr. Stanley Rother's beatification

Sept. 23, the people of Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala celebrated the beatification of their beloved "Padre Apla's" with an outpouring of prayer, song and splendid display that commemorated his violent death and road to sainthood as the first U.S.-born martyr.