Liberation theology in actual practice:

...marines and died in 1932) might replace veneration of Jesus, and that the independence of the faith and of the church might be swallowed up in revolutionary mobilization...

...But even their small hut has only two beds (one of them in a grain-storing bin) for a family of eight...

...it was 426 to the dollar when I was there...

...Starkist produces four hundred thousand cans of tuna a day, we were told...

...They recognized the complexity of many contributing factors...

...Defenders further believe that, inspired by liberation theology, much of the church has done the right thing in supporting a revolution that is both under external American and Somozist pressure and subject to internal evolution...

...But their inclusion in Ecuador and other countries placed them in the lowest rank of the class structures inherited from Spanish colonialism...

...But borrowing from Marxist analysis does not mean advocating Marxist-Leninist tactics - a distinction which critics of liberation theology rarely make...

...The daunting test of liberation theology in Nicaragua will be whether, in the face of revolutionary fervor, political maneuvering, and CIA-sponsored "harassment," its "practice" can create truly effective and democratic politico-economic structures...

...In groups of eight to twelve they reflect on their life situation in the light of the Gospel...

...More discouraging are the endless miles of sand and barren soil along the coast and the impenetrable jungles further in...

...But Peru has suffered even more...

...Already the nationalization of some hospitals and health services and the displacing of Archbishop Obando of Managua as a regular on the televised Sunday Masses had contributed to these fears...

...They are generally the most impoverished people in Latin America and furthest from liberation...

...Simple community actions, such as forming co-op stores, grow out of such prayerful discussions...

...Maria Concepcion, a sixteen-year-old catechist, comes from one of the "better off" families...

...Critics can legitimately argue that such analysis relies too much on one model and tends to oversimplify problems by making capitalism "the" enemy and socialism the easy solution...

...None of the homes has electricity...

...instead it goes to the United States, with much of it sold as pet food...

...The Christian base communities, on the other hand, reflected much of the active, popular support for the Sandinist regime...

...It continued with the creation of "one-crop dependencies," i.e., each Latin American country providing some special natural resource (copper, coffee, bananas, tin, etc...

...The dependency of Latin America's economy on developed countries of the first world was often noted...

...A network of Fe y Alegria schools has been created to provide better education for children in poor barrios...

...A group of priests and seminarians, living four to a room on bunk-beds, moved into one of the neighborhoods a few years ago...

...Netzahualcoyotl, by contrast, which lies on the outskirts of Mexico City, is a vast shanty-town of over two million people...

...In the year since my visit, Lima's government has lamented U.S...

...Even liberation theologians have not addressed this issue at any great depth...

...The most typical "practice" of liberation efforts focused on educating and organizing the poor to act on their own behalf, to create better living conditions in their communities, to obtain better job skills, to gain more education...

...one serves on the Council of State...

...Some estimated unemployment and underemployment as high as seventy percent in this depressed city of more than 300,000...

...Some aspects of Marxist analysis do influence the liberation perspective - too much so, I felt, in Mexico, but less than I expected in Peru...

...measures affecting Peruvian revenue from silver and textile exports...

...In popular presentations, the picture of the "social tree" - with the trunk as an economic base, the branches as political structures, and the leaves as the realm of ideology (religion, morality, the media) - conveys Marx's economic base/superstructure analysis...

...Critics of liberation theology complain that its slogans and pronouncements have merely provided a religious blessing for the government's authority...

...Native American Indians in Latin America were not corralled into reservations and excluded from the culture as they were in North America...

...But their attire cannot cover their poverty...

...What was clear is that work with the poor is a growing commitment of many church people in Peru, and that those engaged in the work are bringing greater skills and organizing ability to their work...

...Though I did not gain a sense of the long-range vision of liberation efforts in Peru, there was little discussion of Marxism...

...This has long historical roots, beginning with Spanish exploitation of silver and gold in countries like Peru...

...Nicaragua's future is uncertain...

...But I had no lived experience of situations in Latin America nor of the work of the church in responding to these situations...

...My own sympathies may influence my assessments (just as my own antipathy for dogmatic Marxism-Leninism may also influence my judgments...

...The pastor of Ojo de Agua, like the pastor of nearby Gam-boa de Santa Cruz, follows the "liberation line" of pastoral ministry in his care of several villages...

...they are discouraged from learning Spanish just as young girls in Mexico are often discouraged from attending school...

...Milk and potatoes have become too expensive for most family incomes...

...The long-range goal of the liberation movement is not a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship or a total collective control by any state, but making peasants and workers the "active subject" of the productive process, a premise that is the central tenet of Pope John Paul II' s encyclical Laborem Exercens...

...From the writings of liberation theologians I had gained a theoretical understanding of its method...

...Despite Peru's bleak situation, and with little hope of any significant change in the immediate future, the church of the poor appeared remarkably vibrant...

...They own their own small plot of land and have some few livestock...

...The bishops feared the Marxist orientation of many Sandinista leaders...

...The late Hugo Echegaray's La Practica de Jesus is a much-discussed theological source for understanding the political context and the political dimension of Jesus's ministry...

...Quechua Indian women, by custom, do the carrying of heavy burdens on their backs...

...In the United States it has roused both enthusiastic supporters and ardent critics...

...As we moved on to Peru, the gravity of the problem became even more evident: frequent physical abuse of wives by husbands (explainable in part by the pent-up anger men repress at work), women expected to "ask permission" from their husbands to leave the house in the evening, women who have little identity of their own...

...The inflation rate fluctuates from 40-70 percent a year...

...The days of manifestos, the emphasis on simply awakening consciousness, even the appeals to Marxism, have given way to more immediate efforts in organizing local communities, and helping poor people to develop work skills and a sense of their own dignity...

...Pope John Paul II's visits to Mexico and Brazil did not resolve the controversy, for he warned against church involvement in politics but at the same time he championed work for social justice and called for an "integral" liberation theology...

...at the same time, events there have moved so quickly since my visit, and the reports on all sides are filled with such passionate conviction that it is hard simply to evaluate them, let alone generalize from them...

...None of the homes has running water...

...In Peru, less emphasis is placed on the development of small base communities and more effort goes into the development of "popular parishes" in the barrios where the poor are crowded...

...Theological reflection at a base community meeting focuses primarily on Scripture and its application to the lives of community members...

...But a sharper focus on this problem came from the Peruvian experience...

...But many criticisms I had entertained of liberation theology and its practice in years past were answered by what I saw in Latin America...

...An earthquake in Chimbote, a decade ago, shifted fishing beds, destroying much of the once immensely productive fishing industry...

...Their reflections include a growing awareness of broader social problems that affect them (e.g., land-ownership...

...PRIESTS, RELIGIOUS, and ministers who follow the "liberation line" still constitute a minority in most of Latin America...

...A fairly typical meeting will include songs, the reading of Scripture, and a discussion of how the Scripture ) relates to life...

...We found also a sense of "solidarity" with poor peoples in other countries: thus many Mexican base communities honor Archbishop Oscar Romero and have led demonstrations in favor of the struggling poor in El Salvador...

...They feared that promises to respect religion might be an opportunistic effort to win international support and co-opt potential domestic opposition...

...The largest group (91 families) average between $20 and $40 a month, or less than $500 a year in family income...

...They are problems, inherited in part from a Spanish colonial past, with which liberation efforts must contend: the status of the indigenous Indian population, the omnipresence of military power, machismo attitudes toward women, and the economic dependency of Latin American nations on foreign countries...

...Women suffer from traditional machismo attitudes to a degree that was deeply disturbing...

...This would be difficult to summarize because we picked up different bits and pieces from different sources...

...Popular catechisms encourage social consciousness by presenting Jesus as proclaiming a kingdom in which people work together, share together, and struggle together against injustice...

...The actual practice of the Christian communities, as I have already noted, addresses immediate concerns through non-violent means of social change...

...Contrary to the stereotyped picture of liberationists stirring up revolutions, the actual practice runs closer to the work of Saul Alinsky-type community organizing in the United States...

...it is deeply rooted now in many sectors of the church, and these sectors are growing...

...The tactics and solutions of classical Marxist-Leninism (e.g., the need for a single vanguard party, for a dictatorship of the proletariat, for state control of everything, for armed revolution) were conspicuously absent from the popular presentations noted above...

...Conference of Catholic Bishops last September...

...Most families subsist on a diet of beans and tortillas, with some soup, rice, and fruit at the main meal...

...Their work includes courses in theology, appreciation of Peruvian culture (e.g., folk songs and native art), and developing job skills (e.g., training unskilled urban immigrants as electricians and mechanics, or training rural peasants in improved and cooperative methods of farming...

...This we found to be true in Mexico, but it was especially true in Ecuador where traditions from the Spanish colonial past still predominate...

...The problems most often addressed are immediate community needs for water, sewage disposal, electricity, transportation, and jobs...

...The priests and religious engaged in liberation work are almost all Mexican, in contrast to other countries, where missionaries often predominate...

...They saw their work as helping to "build a new society'' through a variety of community works (e.g., as part of educational programs, as medical corps volunteers, in neighborhood cleanups, and especially in neighborhood patrols which greatly diminished crime in many communities...

...The Ecuadorian experience did not add any special new understanding of liberation efforts, but it did sharpen our awareness of some problems peculiar (at least in their form) to Latin America...

...Since that time, conflicts between the church and the government have increased, provoking a protest from the U.S...

...The work does differ, however, from simple community organizing in two respects: theological reflection is an integral part of it, and social analysis provides a broader and long-term perspective on social problems...

...So the summer before last I joined a group of Roman Catholic religious (eleven of us) for a seven-week trip through Mexico, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Peru...

...THE economic DEPENDENCY of Latin America constitutes the most serious structural weight of the past and present...

...The parish they serve has all the usual religious activities - Mass, baptism, fiesta celebration...

...The exchange rate of Peruvian soles to the dollar was 38 to 1 a decade ago...

...Peru faces a "long haul" in dealing with the poverty of its masses...

...In Lima and other parts of Peru, the failures of the military government, which ruled for a dozen years and which tried to initiate reforms from above, left the economy in a shambles...

...Some of the social analysis seemed still too dependent on Marxism, but the actual practice of nearly all the Christian groups we encountered impressed me as responsible and rooted in faith.esponsible and rooted in faith...

...Defenders point to the fact that five priests are prominent in the Sandinist regime, some in areas where a priest's presence flies in the face of Marxist-Leninist doctrine...

...It stresses the need for a faith that expresses itself in commitment to the poor...

...In Mexico and Nicaragua (but considerably less so in Peru and Ecuador), the social analysis is clearly influenced by Marxist analysis...

...All this suggests that it is over-simple to define the regime as nothing but Marxist-Leninist...

...Parish members form Christian base communities...

...But great effort has gone into the development of base communities whose members serve as catalysts in organizing neighborhood efforts to obtain water, electricity, paved roads, and police protection...

...Nearly two thousand people, including even illiterate people, attend Gustavo Gutierrez's school of theological reflection during the summer months in Peru...

...the nearest clean drinking water is two miles away...

...What kind of social analysis did we find being employed in Peru...

...they were not encouraged to follow Marxist-Leninist tactics or to look to Marxist parties for their salvation...

...A very simple form of social analysis is often built into the catechisms...

...It could remain impoverished or become simply another authoritarian regime in Latin America...

...Solidarity" - within communities, between communities, among workers and peasants - has become a key concept for expressing the importance of Christian concern and support for others...

...Deepening the faith of the people is a central concern of these liberation efforts...

...The women of the community have assumed leadership roles in these efforts...

...But I did not find the Peruvians who spoke to us simply blaming all on foreign imperialism...

...So, too, have conflicts within the church (several, for example, over the transfer of clergy identified with the revolution and popular in their localities) - provoking a letter from the pope warning of the potential for ideological and political abuses in the concept of a "people's church...

...The Maryknoll missionaries, in particular, have been praised by many for their commitment to the poor, but excoriated as irresponsible purveyors of Marxism by Andrew Greeley, William !\ Buckley, Jr., Michael Novak and others...

...Recent theological studies have shown the positive, liberating aspects of traditional practices like devotion to the saints...

...Nicaragua represents much of the hope held out for other Latin American liberation movements...

...Most liberation priests and religious we met, moreover, were openly critical of such tactics and quite insistent that the poor themselves must dictate their own means of action...

...one is head of the education of Sandinista youth...

...While discussions include traditional questions about prayer, about family life, about suffering, the social needs of the community do receive special attention...

...The Quechua Indians, the women with their bead necklaces and the men in white pants and fedoras, remain the most visible sign of the past...

...Only tea and bread for breakfast and dinner, some soup and rice with a fruit or vegetable at the main meal, constitute the typical diet for hundreds of thousands...

...Seven weeks gives only a limited perspective, but it provided me with a much better understanding of conditions in Latin America and of liberation theology as it is actually practiced...

...Many Christians are still working hard to make this latter option a reality...

...Even with ideal political and economic systems, the dearth of arable land in many parts of Latin America would constitute a challenge...

...Maria Concepcion, despite her obvious intelligence and vivacity, has little hope of ever going beyond her sixth-grade education...

...We found some church groups quite active in work with the poor: a United Brethren group active in organizing Indian peasant unions in villages north of Quito...

...needed in countries of the Northern hemisphere...

...But in all the countries we visited, great stress was placed on enabling the poor themselves to determine their lives...

...It is certainly more than that...

...The somber and unrelenting gray skies of Peruvian winter along the coastal regions would be enough to create depression...

...But their efforts at action are quite immediate and pragmatic: creating small co-op stores, organizing efforts to obtain a paved road to their village, putting pressure on the government to bring in water and electricity...

...Far from neglecting the faith, these efforts grew out of reflections on Scripture and faith...

...religious women active in similar work further south, and a number of active groups in the diocese of Riobamba...

...MOVING BEYOND THE THEORETICAL DEBATES Liberation theology in actual practice ARTHUR F. McGOVERN LIBERATION THEOLOGY in Latin America has been the source of great controversy in the church for more than a decade...

...Nicaragua followed Mexico on our trip, but I have set aside reflections on it because it is a very special case and deserves separate consideration...

...The median family income for the parish is $80 a month...

...This faith commitment leads to greater awareness and analysis of socio-economic structures which perpetuate poverty, to active involvement in changing these structures, and to a new understanding of the faith in the light of this involvement...

...THE KIND of praxis ("practice") which we found in rural and urban Mexico proved a pattern throughout much of Latin America...

...Money taken out of poor countries far exceeds money invested in them...

...All but six families earn less than $ 150 a month...

...The poor, the great majority of the population, come in increasing numbers to the barrios on the outskirts of Lima...

...Some locales, such as Ilo in southern Peru or Augus-tino outside Lima, have developed teams of a dozen or more full-time educators and organizers, funded by church agencies in Europe, to carry out this work among the poor...

...Three priests hold the posts of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, of Culture, and of Welfare...

...This fish could provide important protein for Peruvians...

...Jesuit seminarians in Mexico, for example, are now trained primarily for work with the poor...

...What I found in Nicaragua was a church in tension with itself...

...Ojo de Agua is a rural Mexican village typical of much of Latin America...

...The parish census counts 271 families...

...One woman economist especially criticized native, land-owning' 'oligarchs'' who, she said, were not even good capitalists because their profits, like those of foreign corporations, were never reinvested to stimulate growth in the whole economy...

...SOME CRITICS of liberation theology once looked upon it as a passing fad...

...Many critics of liberation theology believe it to be a substitution of Marxist revolutionary ideas and actions for works of faith...

...But it may also overcome its problems and develop into an economically stable and democratic nation...

...They feared that the adulation of Sandino (Augusto Sandino who fought against U.S...