personally trained his first assistants and had no wish to organize a community, but simply to establish his hospital. Soon, however, he wrote up an adaptation of the Rule of St. Augustine (although Betancourt was a Franciscan) for the community, which was also adopted by the women who were involved in teaching the children. This led to the formation of the Order of Our Lady of Bethlehem () or Bethlemitas who tend to the sick. The men and women who joined his religious community also served in the two other hospitals of the city and Pedro continued to befriend poor children. The Bethlemite Order belongs to the Franciscan community. Later years Prisoners also excited Betancourt's compassion. Every Thursday he begged for them through the city and visited them in their cells. He begged for alms to endow the Masses celebrated by poor priests and also endowed Masses to be celebrated in the early hours so that the poor might not miss Mass. The neglected souls in purgatory were also the objects of his solicitude. He would travel the streets at night ringing a bell and recommending these souls to be prayed for. Betancourt died on April 25, 1667, at the age of forty-one, in Antigua Guatemala, exhausted by labor and penance. At the request of the Capuchin Friars he was buried in their church where, for a long time, his remains were held in veneration. Betancourt devoted his life to helping those marginalized: lepers, prisoners, slaves and Indians and served as precursor of Human Rights. Veneration Betancourt was distinguished by the humble spirit and austere life with which he practiced mercy. He was beatified on June 22, 1980, and canonized on July 30, 2002, by Pope John Paul II. At the homily read by Pope John Paul in Guatemala City on July 30, 2002, Betancourt was called the "first Tenerifean and Guatemalan saint", and he "... personifies "a heritage which must not be lost; we should always be thankful for it and we should renew our resolve to imitate it". The healing of a child with an intestinal lymphoma was taken by the Catholic Church as the miracle required for his canonization. The circumstance occurs that this child was precisely a native of Betancourt's native locality, Vilaflor. This apostolic journey of Pope John Paul II also included Canada and Mexico, the latter country where he canonized Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, a