The Universidad Francisco Marroquín is webcasting a celebration of the life of Manuel “Muso” Ayau, its founder, live on Sunday, Sept. 12, at 1 p.m. local time. Watch the event here. The University also has published a special web page dedicated to the legacy of Ayau, with videos and other resources.
Read Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg’s PowerBlog remembrance of Ayau.
The following appreciation of the life and work of Ayau is from Rev. Robert A. Sirico, president and co-founder of the Acton Institute:
When in January of 1990 I was invited to present a paper at the Mont Pelerin Society in Antigua, Guatemala, I had no idea that the visit to this small Central American country, and the people I would meet at the conference, would have such a lasting effect on me and the work I would end up doing the following two decades.
The president of the Mont Pelerin Society that year was Manual Ayau, known as Muso to his friends, among which I would be honored to be numbered.
Muso had a testy relationship with the Church. Although his daughter was a nun (in fact, the foundress of a monastery with a ministry to orphaned children), Muso found the opinions of numerous clergy on economic matters to be superficial at best and odious at worse, His special ire was directed at proponents of the attempted Christian-Marxist hybrid, Liberation Theology, which he saw as lending a moral patina to the socialist experiments his nation and much a Latin America suffer from.
So it was amusing to see Muso’s delighted reception of my speech in Antigua in which I endeavored to take apart the various fallacies of liberation theology: anthropological, theological and economic. At first his seems incredulous that priest could invoke Mises or Hayek, but he soon warmed up and invited me to join him on a speaking tour of remote parts of his country during his run at the presidency of Guatemala. Is country is worse off for not having elected him.
Muso was a man gifted with keen entrepreneurial talents which was not merely direct at building businesses: He used them to build a movement of ideas in a hostile environment.
Along with a band of brothers, Muso saw the effects of poverty in their homeland, and the ideology of the Fabian movement that would insure its continuance. This band of brothers, whom Muso described as “rebellious improvisers,” began a counter movement with the translations of solid books making the case for the free society. They formed, in 1959, one of the first think tanks in Latin America to promote the free economy, The Center for Social and Economic Studies.
Muso’s crowning achievement, and other than his family, his lasting legacy, will be the Universidad Francisco Marroquín, from which I had the honor of receiving an honorary doctorate at Muso’s hands. This university, one of the finest in Latin America, is guided by a clear philosophy of human liberty and organized in such a way to ensure that all who complete its curriculum grasp the interconnection between economic and personal liberty and the practical implementation of these principles in their respective spheres of influence.
Convinced that in order for a given society to appreciate the principles of human freedom, it was necessary for its leaders to be imbued with these ideas. The UFM today churns out young business and academic leaders who are capable of defending the free society.
Muso was as friendly as he was contentious; a man of vision and accomplishment, he could also be humble and an attentive listener.
Muso passed into eternity with his beloved wife Olga at his bedside and will be buried on the grounds of the monastery where it was his wish to watch these little, abandoned ones in the care of his daughter, Mother Inez Ayau at the orphanage she founded. A great champion for the cause of liberty has departed this world, leaving our hearts a bit dimmer. May the Author of Freedom grant him eternal repose in His presence.
