Religion in the Revolution? -- A Look at Golconda
Edwards, Rick
".... In Colombia, the 'case' of Camilo Torres Restrepo did reveal one thing of importance: there exists a revolutionary potential in Christianity which can be understood and felt by the masses...
...The police forces, accompanied by the Archbishop and his confidant priest attacked the people with tear gas and the butts of their firearms, installing the new padre by means of violence...
...38...
...Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y...
...2) To elaborate a scientific methodology of investigation and work which will keep us from falling into empiricism and pragmatism...
...The Cali hierarchy was less circumspect in its attitude toward priestly dissenters than that of Bogota, which did not want to repeat errors it had committed in the case of Camilo...
...Similar encounters occurred a week later in Cali's three major universities, Santiago de Cali, the Aut6noma, and del Valle, with similar success...
...Golconda recognizes that through its evangelization the Church has instilled in the Colombian people a false consciousness, resigned to oppression and exploitation...
...The hierarchy is vulnerable5 8 because Golconda bases its program on prescriptions for church reform and social change contained in the Medellin documents which the bishops approved...
...Ibid...
...2 9 From the urban upper classes come those select few with the aristocratic qualifications necessary for entry into the hierarchy...
...8 In accord with the Medellin document on Peace, they "join, without any discrimina-tion whatsoever, with all those who strive for that change: 'to encourage and praise the initiative and work of all those who in various fields of action contribute to the creation of a new order which will assure peace for our people...
...Ibid., including all quotes in this paragraph...
...Carmelo Gracia, a Spanish priest assisting Father Alfonso Vanegas with the parish of Gachantiv in Boyaca department near Bogota, was arrested in November by the DAS and summarily deported from the country for Golconda-related activities...
...It is is principally from the urban sector, with few exceptions, that the "rebel" priests come...
...Question: The function of Frente Unido seems quite basic, for a mass movement like that which Golconda aspires to build...
...But not before...
...Left-wing defenders of the church, he says, often "identify with the Communist parties of Latin America . . in which the interests of the party taRe priority over the interests of the people...
...Valencia differs with most of the hierarchy on the implications of the Medellin documents of the Latin American Bishops Conference...
...Bishops Whoever resistk authority, my son...
...Social Research and Counterinsurgency -- The Science of Neocolonialism...
...Martin Tirador" is the pseudonym of LAD's Colombian correspondent...
...Opposite this page, a new study-guide, number 12, picks up the lesson and clinches it...
...A new collection of Camilo Torres' writings edited and introduced by John Gerassi is soon to be published by Random House...
...5 2 Revelation for Golconda is the insight which makes people aware that human needs in the present historical situation can only be met through liberation from dependency and oppression...
...Jaime Torres and Juan Manuel Herrera, proceeded from Bogota to undertake their defense...
...Once this is done, the contra* In the colder, mountainous regions of Colombia, a poncho-like woolen garment called the ruana is the "topcoat" of the people...
...rather it becomes a commitment to the oppressed and to political action which takes seriously the "anguish and hopes"51 of the people...
...imperialism that were violently repressed by the FRENOL government...
...The small groups which at one time could have sought to take over the movement have resigned themselves to working within it...
...For Golconda, "Marxism" provides the "methodology of investigation and work" and means of "understanding objective reality...
...For to convince the deeply religious masses of Colombia that revolution is indeed a "Christian imperative," an interpretation of rites, scriptures, and traditions totally distinct from that prevailing in the country needed to be devised...
...The first, which constitutes twothirds of the 5,500 priests in Colombia, is derived from the rural middle class: middle peasants and peasant or small town merchants...
...The immense majority of the Jesuits on entering seminary were residing in urban areas, and only four percent were from towns of less than 10,000 population...
...Willing to risk neither error nor the fury of ecclesiastical authorities, they refrain from action...
...This is an excerpt from an article which resulted from an interview with German Zabala by Hector Borrat, "Las Rutas de Camilo," appearing in Marcha, Montevideo, November 14, 1969...
...Ibid...
...14, 1969, No...
...The priests have the confidence of the workers who live in their parishes and, at the same time, the educational level and professional status to relate effectively to the student revolutionary mentality...
...On] various occasions...the people have risen up in times of deep collective frustration against the Church...
...On February 15, 1966, Camilo was killed by the FRENOL army._ The significance of Camilo for Colombia, as Golconda's Father Ren6 Garcia has eloquently stated, is that he "opened the way for the Colombian Revolution...
...But soon after the manifesto appeared, the oligarchy began its counterattack...
...Hlctor Borrat, "Las Rutas de Camilo," Marcha (Montevideo), Nov...
...In this way, in Bogota, we have had surprising success...
...Golconda has set out to change the structures, and the bishops, with the exception of Msgr...
...On occasion, priests have been assassinated and ecclesiastical properties burned (for example, the famous 'Bogotazo' of 1948...
...Their situation, however, is radically different from Camilo's: they are parish priests, living and working from day to day with the masses...
...FRENOL PRESSURE ON THE CHURCH Why did the Bogota bishops, conscious as they were of the dangers inherent in driving rebel priests from the Church, finally throw caution to the winds and remove Currea and Garcfa...
...R D" For the Homefront War...
...With its methodology it brings us face to face with reality and to a commitment to that reality...
...There, for the first time, the reformist sector of the Latin American Church captured the initiative...
...FRENOL, desiring to frighten the Church hierarchy into compliance with its wishes, proposed changes in the provisions of the Concordat regarding the selection of bishops...
...it has chosen an approach which awakens revolutionary consciousness, employing new liturgical and educational devices as well as traditional language with transformed symbolic content...
...2. Among the important political events of 1969 were (1) a conflict between the government of President Carlos Lieras Restrepo and the management of Bavaria, S.A., Colombia's largest industrial corporation, over the firm's investment policies...
...4 As a Catholic priest he succeeded in invalidating the old accusation that revolution was an idea of foreign ideologies by declaring that it was a "Christian imperative...
...do something besides agitating around campus issues and throwing rocks at the police who are simply deceived and exploited members of the working class...
...Golconda arose within the post-Vatican II Catholic Church in Latin America...
...Polloesna: God...
...Golconda Statement," p. 7. 34...
...In September and October, FRENOL was going through the last stages of the ritual of presidential candidate selection, in less than perfect order due to conflicts between interest groups within the oligarchy...
...This activism, found in various ecclesiastical quarters and in nearly every country of the continent, included a variety of ideological and methodological characteristics...
...According to Garcia, "Their theology cannot respond to the Revolution, for theology is done in action...
...Ibid., p. 2. 21...
...We do not discuss," observes Zabala, "as elsewhere, whether spirit or matter is more important . . . we simply meet and identify ourselves in our work, the 'we' and the 'you' disappearing...
...There, only one half of one percent are able even to begin a university education...
...1) In April in Medellin, and in December in Bogota, the hierarchies sought to remove Golconda priests from working class parishes and transfer them to middle- or upper-class neighborhoods...
...Certain groups within the traditional left which pursue goals within the present social structure desire to subsume any mass-based movement such as Golconda within their own strategies...
...Camilo was committed not to an ideology but to the situation of his people...
...implicit or explicit, of the work achieved by these priests reveals complicity, perhaps unconscious but no less real, with political and economic systems which maintain permanent situations of injustice denounced by the Conference of Latin American Bishops when it met in Medellin...
...Already, however, the hierarchy had attacked him for departing from the accepted doctrine of the church, never specifying which doctrine he had contravened, nor in what respect...
...Religion in the Revolution...
...5 0 Destruction of the antinomy also requires transformation of the semantic content of religious symbolwords...
...But rebel priests in working-class barrios of the major cities and provincial towns are a serious threat, especially when they spend their time proclaiming that the government's most sacred ritual -- elections -- is a farce...
...A monthly paper in its third period (the second was directed by Monsignor German Guzman), it has just doubled the 10,000-copy run it printed in May...
...Participation in the liturgy demands fundamentally a community dedicated to social change and the building of a society where there is love and justice for all...
...1 - Martin Tirador, October, 1969...
...Golconda's credibility is intimately related to the durability of its commitment to struggle "to the very end...
...The effective communication of this transformation to the popular classes is crucial to the revolutionary role of Golconda...
...A centerfold poster with a red background tops it off: Gaitgn chose the electoral path and the oligarchy killed him...
...2 5 When the Colombian politicians desire to please secularists, they talk of reforming the Concordat to allow civil divorce in Colombia...
...1 4 In Bogota, the encounter was effected without incident...
...Shortly after Holy Week services in which the poor people themselves testified to the conditions of oppression and exploitation in which they live, many prominent members of the ruling elite -- secular and clerical -were convinced that "Communism" had indeed invaded the Church...
...Botero Salazar, issued a declaration attacking the imprisoned priests on the grounds that 1) they had neither sought permission from nor informed their respective superiors regarding the action planned in Medellin...
...It is the first revolutionary paper to achieve this...
...While from the beginning, "On the lay level the Golconda group has become a union of Marxists and Christians,"3 7 relations among the various component sub-groups have ranged from power struggle to cooperation...
...The Archbishop of Medell'n, Msgr...
...Ibid., p. 4. 22...
...Translation by NACLA staff...
...Jesuit seminarians who will become part of Colombia's conservative clerical elite, says Prez, are only about 22 percent of rural origin...
...Furthermore, in the opinion of Lopez, they were "letting themselves be manipulated by Marxist elements...
...It proposes a new evangelistic style in which "faith [is] presented as a factor of change directed' toward a more just and human society...
...12, 1969, p. 4. 42...
...they can be counted on to give passive support to or at least to refrain from opposing innovative programs, such as birth control (a high priority for FRENOL...
...instead they are to be a revolutionary celebration...
...Golconda is committed to work ithin the structure which houses the Colombian men ality, in order to open that mentality to the possibility of revolution...
...of 1970...
...Valencia Cano of Buenaventura, continue to hold desperately to the past...
...Our action is not for Golconda...
...38 The "dialogue" which takes place in this movement between Christians and Marxists is not an intellectual luxury, but a practical necessity...
...He was subjected to continuous harassment by police and government security agents, as well as a campaign of distortion and vilification by the national press, monopolized by the oligarchy...
...he acknowledged that there was Communist infiltration, but denied that it had reached the "high circles of the Colombian clergy...
...Revelation" thus "places us in the process of the Revolution.,"53 "Resurrection" likewise ceases to be an ancient miracle, and is for Golconda the sign of the "new man," who is being born in the commitment and struggle of "making new the worldly society...
...We take pictographs, Chibchas*** that we have copied from stones of the Sabana**** and we have the people express voluntarily what they want with these elements...
...Though many Angelicals consider themselves Marxists, they have no "praxis...
...Implicit in such an attitude is a critique of elitism, sectarianism, opportunism and democratic centralism...
...Other Golconda priests came immediately to Medellin in support of these victims of ecclesiastical repression, issuing an open letter to the Colombian bishops expressing solidarity with the three...
...FRENOL STRATEGY TO DESTROY GOLCONDA FRENOL, however, faced with a combination of apathy and passive resignation to its program among the Colombian people, depends on continuing support from the Church in its role as agent of social control...
...The language is direct, concise, incisive...
...At this moment, after three years, and nearly four, of working with them, we find that the copla popular** is one of the most important tools, as is also the massive development of pre-Colombian art in its classical aspect...
...The Angelicals are those who "talk and do not'act," including some portions of the ecclesiastical lift...
...Valencia, in an interview with the present writer, Feb...
...An ad-libbed verse form common to the people of Colombia, usually used in conjunction with music as a cogent and contagious means of communicating a sentiment or an idea...
...Padre Camilo," the priest, caught the imagination of persons who would never have heard a Camilo Torres, secular revolutionary...
...4 5 RELIGION UPSIDE DOWN Critics of Golconda hasten to see in this movement the portent of a "new clericalism...
...A larger number of Golconda priests and laity were directly affected by this wave and the heavy hand of FRENOLis U.S.-advised repressive apparatus was more clearly in evidence...
...The successes achieved by Golconda in the university "seizures" in Bogota, Cali, and Medellfn, are menacing signs...
...For the priests and laity of Golconda, he is the model of authentic commitment...
...became a child crying, "I'm hungry, I'm hungry...
...38, February 1970, pp...
...The Archbishop feared that "the group of Colombian priests which have placed themselves on the side of revolutionary ideas could have been infected by the NACLA NEWSLETTER Vol...
...3 5 Correspondingly, the Marxists whb are attracted to Golconda are precisely those who understand Marxism as a scientific methodology which involves a commitment to "that reality...
...The forcefulness of their commitment to learn from the masses would of itself contradict such an interpretation...
...The word "concientizaci6n" refers to the awakening of consciousness through group-based education...
...Opposite the editorial, a page of "people's orientation" picks up the same theme in the form of a "study-guide," under a quotation from Father Vicente Mejia and a photograph of students carrying such a guide...
...Very important to Golconda in this respect is the presence in its ranks of Msgr...
...Joseph Novitski, "Radical Priests in Colombia, Heirs to Slain Guerrilla, Have Forged an Open MarxistCatholic Alliance," New York Times, February 16, 1970...
...We are the 70 percent of the Colombians who do not vote, and many of the remaining 30 percent who are completely disillusioned...
...4 3 TWO TENDENCIES IN THE CHURCH Garcia takes care to distinguish Golconda from two tendencies within the Church which in his judgement are "evasive" of the real issues...
...In that city, the Archbishop decreed the transfer of Father Manuel Alzate out of his parish in the immense working-class barrio Alfonso Lopez...
...78-80...
...It is reported through informed sources in the Colombian hierarchy that such a solution was being sought to the problem of Camilo just prior to the announcement that he had joined the ELN guerrilla forces...
...III, No...
...Police placed them under "preventive arrest" before they were able to effect any part of the plan, which had been realized peacefully and without incident once in Bogota and in three different universities in Cali...
...A United Front to take power for the people...
...if the police come to bother us, more are sold immediately...
...The Catholic Church in Colombia since the Medellfn Conference, September, 1968, to September 1, 1969," prepared by Colleen A. Kiedrowski, Librarian, under the direction of Myriam Ord 6 ez, Director, Department of Social Research, ICODES, Bogota, D.E., September 17, 1969, pp 1-2...
...In an accompanying document extracted from a report on Golconda by Hector Borrat, which appeared in the Uruguayan weekly Marcha, the use and promotion of a new Frente Unido, is discussed...
...such possibilities result from its deeply rooted position in the minds of the people...
...3) FRENOL's police and security apparatus has been used to harass, beat, jail, and fine Golconda priests...
...In fact, it has been the oligarchy's principal instrument of social control, with complete power over the educational system and continuous influence over the masses through its moral teachings, communicated through the press, radio, television and the spoken word...
...197-198...
...The protests of the people against this action were vehement, preventing the departure of Alzate from the parish :for several days...
...He added, "This is not the same as saying, 'If it is necessary to kill, we will kill...
...4 9 Otherworldly hope is transformed into hope for liberation from9 oppressive and exploitative social and economic structures, and love is desentimentalized to become the functional solidarity of men and women struggling toward the future...
...7. "The Golconda Statement," translated by James E. and Margaret Goff, Apartado 1024, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico, November 10, 1969, p. 7. 8. Ibid., p. 8. 9. Ibid., p. 8. Includes quotation from Paz, Sec...
...This . . marked his break with revolutionary opportunists who wanted to take advantage of him as a priest...
...even Msgr...
...25, Gonzalo Castillo Cfrdenas, The Colombian Concordat (Cuernavaca: Centro Intercultural de Documentacin -- CIDOC, 1968...
...There the group elaborated a revolutionary, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist manifesto, in which they committed themselves personally to work for the revolution "to the very end...
...Valencia engaged students in dialogue on the night of the 24th -- the first time anyone remembers when a bishop had rapport with students of the National...
...A page devoted to "Education" gives the definition "Revolution is: to change the relations of production," and responds with text and drawings to the subsequent question: "What are relations of production...
...In this instant any kind of work, of experimentation, of production, can be carried out...
...To show the people that the elections are a charade, and that no justice has come from them or will come from them is an essential part of the program of delegitimizing FRENOL by unmasking its democratic myth...
...Ibid., p. 88...
...3 3 These two points are the basis of an understanding between Marxists and the priests...
...The potential is evident...
...Taking the documents of Vatican II and CELAM in Medellfn at their word, they turn the Church upside down...
...But the present six editors of Frente Unido are...
...It is in precisely this sense that Camilo "opened the way for the Colombian Revolution...
...The hierarchy, noting his talents, sent him to the University of Louvain, Belgium, to study sociology...
...Tirador, "Violence," p.4...
...The press reports of these dramatic and innovative enactments of ritual caused scandal among the rulers of the people...
...From the Christian point of view," said Garcia, "it is logical to use violence against institutionalized violence...
...l 7 Domingo Lain, a Spanish priest and member of Golconda, expelled from his parish in Cartagena in March, was arrested by the DAS (Administrative Department of Security, the Colombian FBI) after the Medellfn incidents...
...A series of roadblocks was placed in their way, the authorities refusing them permission to interview their clients and denying them access to information necessary for the defense...
...REPRESSION Repressive actions against Golconda by the FRENOL government and its allies in the ecclesiastical hierarchy came in two waves in 1969, the first in the wake of Holy Week, and the second from October through December, following upon the university takeovers and coinciding with the official rites of presidential candidate selection and campaigning...
...These are the "Angelicals" and the "Developlentists...
...4. There is democracy in this country only for those who have 5. Against the electoral farce: the of the people...
...Words are those of Msgr...
...Of course, the organization at the national level is still skeletal, but we have found sales techniques based on scientific research in the study of communications...
...In December, however, Carol O'Flynn, an American who had -worked for several months with Golconda in Gachantivi, being continually harassed by the DAS, was also deported from Colombia...
...In the first half of the 'sixties, he succeeded in creating a Faculty of Humane Sciences at the center of the university, and in relating effectively to the student revolutionary movement...
...The various techniquesoF-oup formation, awakening of consciousness, and the place of political orientation all are excellently treated in the document...
...technical advice has undertaken a thorough repression of the students, effectively neutralizing their political leverage, at least for the present...
...This is a Paschal process [of death and rebirth], in which, through the painful struggle of the revolutionary in the masses and for the masses, we will arrive at a new society...
...He continues, "violence is not the only form of struggle...
...Colombia: Dificultades del Profetismo...
...Camilo belonged to the clerical aristocracy, and in the end had no organized grassroots constituency...
...German LiEvano, "El Estudiante: Una Presencia Hist6rica," OCLAE, No...
...Golconda, working within the religious frame of reference which functions in the subjective consciousness of Colombians, is perhaps capable of cutting through the religious arguments against revolution which have been so effective in blocking the development of a mass revolutionary movement...
...Which Marxists...
...The legacy of Camilo is made explicit by the movement's newspaper, Frente Unido, which devotes the largest typeface on its masthead to proclaim, "Founder, Camilo Torres...
...10, February, 1970 Published monthly, except May-June and July-August when it is published bi-monthly, at 418 W. 25 St., New York, New York 10001: Subscription price: $5 per year...
...And this 'potentiality' alone produces a superstitious panic among the domineering and exploiting classes...
...For several months he toured the country speaking to workers and students...
...Commitment "hasta las tdltimas consecuencias:"-- to the very end -- means that "if it is necessary to die, we will die...
...To change areality it is necessary to start from what it is...
...Father Lain recently joined the guerrilla forces of the ELN, the same group to which Camilo belonged...
...the encyclical specifically mentioned certain injustices characteristic of the capitalist order...
...When the Golconda 20 were jailed in Medellin, their lawyers, Drs...
...In Colombia, the 'case' of Camilo Torres Restrepo did reveal one thing of importance: there exists a revolutionary potential in Christianity which can be understood and felt by the masses of Colombia...
...Rodrigo Parra Sandoval, "Las Actitudes de los Seminaristas: Estudio de un Caso Colombiano" (Bogota: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Sociologia, 1962), p. 19...
...8, 1970...
...The last thing the hierarchy desires is to contribute to the apotheosis of another priest of the stature of Camilo as a hero of the Revolution...
...The open letter attacks the hierarchy for serving as silent accomplices of "privileged classes interested in maintaining and strengthening the so-called 'established order.' 1 6 Moreover, the letter declared, "The reproval...
...Campus radicalism usually is reported in great detail in Colombia's "gran prensa...
...On October 16, 1969, four Golconda priests and sixteen laymen were arbitrarily arrested in Medellfn as they prepared to participate with poor people in a symbolic seizure of the University of Antioquia...
...The great majority of the latter are reformists...
...Fear of expulsion kept many Cali priests in their parishes...
...The methodology of Golconda also includes the "concientizaci6n" technique developed by Paulo Freire of Brazil...
...rather it is that vision "which lets us see the political power as guardian and promoter of a system of privileges which the National Constitution was supposed to justify and which the Church sacralized...
...Late in January, 1969, Senator Jos6 Restrepo Restrepo took to the editorial page of conservative daily La Patria of Manizales, to fulminate against the "Communist virus" which had again lodged itself in the Colombian clergy...
...As the interview by HectorBorrat (attached to the present article) suggests, Golconda is a movement in which experimentation in methods is pursued positively...
...On the other hand, Golconda acknowledges that the Church hierarchy and clergy are guilty of bad faith, of betraying the people...
...For example, small theater groups present the newspaper articles in two or three minute skits in the streets, and then the vendors come...
...The words, "I thirst" became "I thirst for justice, for equality, for liberation from want, for education, etc...
...In fact, these documents served to legitimize an existing tendency within the Church to increased activism in behalf of and in cooperation with the marginal and oppressed elements of Latin North American Congress on Latin America...
...Why hast Thou abandoned me...
...3 4 Moreover, "Marxism is a guide for action...
...33, p. 76 of the CELAM-Medellfn documents...
...Ibid., p. 1. 51...
...This is the conflict between the Church's past and present role in the Colombian social order and the conception of the Church delineated in the Medellin documents,and from which the Golconda declaration of December 1968 follows logically...
...We could dispense with everything Camilo said and he would not lose stature...
...Answer: Well -- replies Zabala -- the newspaper arose only at the moment when we thought it had to, at the height of a process...
...Camilo himself, in abandoning the priesthood, not only rebuked the hypocrisy and pharisaism of the Church but also that of certain sectors of the left...
...4 8 Golconda represents a renovating movement within the Church which begins with the negation of the institution's corrupt alliance with an oppressive and exploitative social system, and ends with a revolutionary thrust toward the "new man...
...2) all Christians and especially priests "should give an example of submission to the law since all authority comes from God and whoever resists authority, also resists God" 2 1 and 3) Colombia's Concordat with the Vatican requires that priests "submit themselves to the consequences of violating a Colombian law...
...Implicit in such tactics is the threat of assassination, always present for Camilo in his months of revolutionary agitation...
...5 The object of this transformation of symbols is not to make the Church palatable to the Revolution, says Golconda...
...The only free education to be had in Colombia, except in several large cities with a limited number of state-supported schools, is obtained in the seminaries...
...We are going out to learn from the masses...
...If Golconda succeeds in accomplishing this breakthrough, it will have perhaps also pointed the way for the liberation of other Latin American peoples...
...LASA Conference -- Come to Washington...
...Ecclesiastical repression also followed Holy Week in Call...
...4 6 It would be erroneous, however, to suppose that the Golconda fathers intend an opportunistic manipulation of the people's "primitive religiosity" in order to advance the revolutionary cause...
...4 4 The "Developmentists" (among which he includes the Christian Democrats) are those who "try to conciliate the various sectors of society without favoring radical changes in society toward a new man...
...Ibid., p. 9. 49...
...The undeniably provocative insight of Golconda is that "we cannot pass lightly over the primitive religiosity of our people...
...In the words of Father Noel Olaya, "In the last analysis we could say that the only way to save the church is that it not be important to us...
...4) a bitter struggle within FRENOL over the selection of a presidential10 candidate for the April, 1970, elections, which resulted in a split within the ruling coalition...
...Torres, Revolutionary Writings, pp...
...Your question is the most important, since our fundamental object is to go to the masses, and with that perspective we expend every effort to strip ourselves of any and all sectarianism and in essence avoid proselytizing...
...The only solution is to begin to take the first steps to organize for taking power...
...The message of the people and the priests to the students was: You are a privileged class...
...2 0 They refused to pay fines of $35.00 (500 pesos) each, contending that to do so would imply that an offense had been committed, which they denied...
...we have to use many different kinds...
...But for us to remain inactive, with our arms crossed, just contemplating the corruption of the system, would be a sin of omission...
...See Chapter 21, "The United Front," pp...
...5 Golconda priests are heirs to Camilo's program...
...Botero Salazar of using this authority in an absolutist manner, without consideration for the opinions of the people in the parishes in question...
...a perusal of the Golconda statement alongside Camilo's writings 6 makes the fact clear...
...At the same time, the contradictions in the hierarchy's stance testify to a very deep embarrassment resting on a more serious contradiction...
...Come to the barrios, teach the people, build a revolutionary mass movement...
...The social declarations of the Second Vatican Council called for the Church's involvement in the search for humane solutions to the economic and social crises of the secular world...
...The represseive apparatus of FRENOL had the support of ecclesiastical collusion in its action against Golconda...
...This content change is best illustrated by looking at three such symbolwords: Incarnation, Revelation, and Resurrection...
...it has suffered the violence of.repression and knows it will suffer again...
...The priests of Golconda play a crucial legitimizing role for their movement...
...2, p. 3. 33...
...Gustavo Prez, El Problema Sacerdotal en Colombia (ogota: Centro de Investigaciones Sociales -- CIS, 1962), p. 76...
...Ibid...
...FRENOL and its allies in the hierarchy have pursued both courses in the recent waves of repression...
...52...
...moonshot effort...
...A curious fact to most observers was the absence of press coverage of the Bogota and Cali encounters...
...The popular fervor which Camilo Torres aroused was intimately related to the almost superstitious respect for priests pervasive among the people...
...1470, Secc...
...The press focuses on religious ceremonies throughout the country...
...Deeply moved by the example of Camilo, but restrained by the official and ecclesiastical repression which had thwarted his efforts, they proceeded developing strategies and tactics at the parish level...
...ll GOLCONDA AT WORK The task to which the Golconda group had committed itself was enormous...
...A variety of measures have been employed...
...Special skits were prepared for each of the seven words, in which workers and other Golconda activists portrayed ad libitum the revolutionary meaning of the words...
...Following the publication of the Medellin documents, basically the same group met in the poverty-stricken city of Buenaventura on Colombia's Pacific Coast, December 9-13...
...Still in limited ways, certainly, but we believe that we have found one of the most important vehicles for knowing our people...
...3. See Germin Guzmn Campos, E1 Padre Camilo Torres (Mexico City: Siglo XXI Editores, 1968...
...sponses made by FRENOL and the church, and to add in some measure to the understanding of Golconda's internal methodological and ideological development...
...For the traditional left there is a temptation to manipulate and use such groups as Golconda in nonrevolutionary ways for its own purposes...
...5 9 He thus recognizes the validity of armed struggle, but the Golconda group does not advocate it...
...1 3 Camilo had once said, in his "Message to Students," "Personally, I feel that we are fast approaching zero hour for the Colombian Revolution...
...The Church is not an 'in-itself' but a 'for.'t 5 7 If Golconda is to achieve this transformation of traditional religion into a revolutionary force, it must maintain its stance of "learning from the masses...
...4. Rene Garcia, "Father Ren6 Garcia Answers Students' Questions at the National University of Colombia, Bogot6, April 11, 1969," translated and edited by James E. Goff, p. 3. S. Ibid., p. 3 . 6. Camilo Torres, Revolutionary Writings, (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969...
...Both men rejected the new assignments, preferring to remain with their work of organizing the people to seize power...
...There, the arrest of four Golconda priests and 16 lay leaders who had come to the city for the occasion, and the police interception and forced return to Buenaventura of Msgr...
...FRENOL or the hierarchy might also attempt through third parties to encourage the more "dangerous" rebel priests to leave the country, and then refuse them reentry...
...Radicals like Camilo who take to the hills with the revolutionary guerrilla forces can be dealt with by the military...
...Garcia, "Answers Students' Questions," p. 2. 35...
...The Medellin documents of CELAM, prepared by theological and sociological experts rather than by the much more conservative bishops who did, however, approve them (seemingly unaware of their troublesome potential), proposed a pastoral policy of social involvement designed to lead to peace through social justice...
...He was accused of manipulating subversive secret codes (which provoked hilarity among many Colombians who assumed the reference was to his Latin missal) and then was summarily expelled from the country without anv of his personal possessions on April 19.18 Following these events, students at Medellin's University of Antioquia declared a protest strike...
...In this, "every creative act is a protest against the established order...
...A logician and mathematician, Zabala has long been committed to the search for an educational methodology which integrates the disciplines and is suitable for work among the Colombian popular classes...
...2 3 In November, Golconda repression reached the provinces, having been hitherto confined to the large urban centers...
...Garcia, "Answers Students' Questions," p. 5. 50...
...24, April 1969, p. 88...
...Camilo fought for four months as a guerrilla infantryman, refusing the proffered rank of "commander" on the grounds that in the guerrilla all rank must be won in combat...
...170-200...
...But this only the proper authorities, the workers and farmers, can say...
...Golconda's labors received little attention from the national press until Holy Week, March 30 until April 6, 1969...
...When a student crossing the streets of Bogota is murdered by military authority," says the editorial, "the Colombian people can see that the corruption of the authorities is arriving at the maximum...
...To make serious matters worse, the Golconda priests are building a significant alliance of students and the lower classes...
...The rate of non-voters has often risen to 70, percent of those registered...
...Indeed, resistance to the transfer of these priests was forcefully expressed by the people, who took over the parishes for several days, refusing to let the priests be removed...
...Carta Abierta al Episcopado Colombiano," in Iglesia Latinoamericana: Crisis y Renovaci 6 n," Cuadernos de Marcha, No...
...3 6 Such work is carried out with the assistance of a fifty-member "scientific and political" team, in which Zabala is an important figure...
...Revelation, which means the manisfestation of God in history, is not simply what is supposed to have occurred in biblical times...
...Especially noteworthy are the strictures against opportunism in.the left, responding as they do not only to Golconda's struggle to maintain its authenticity, but also to the experience of Camilo...
...In any case, FRENOL, with U.S...
...Such struggle leads through "a desert of sorrows" toward the "Promised Land...
...resists God...
...The Colombian oligarchies are Catholic par excellence: They have consecrated the country -- by an act of the National Congress -- to the Sacred Heart of Jesus...
...conduct of the priest Camilo Torres...
...The suffering of Jesus is transformed into a sign of revolutionary struggle which is a "Paschal process" leading through the destruction of an oppressive system, the establishment of a socialist system, and finally to the "new man...
...Golconda proposes that religion, traditionally a prop of oppression, exploitation and privilege, is to be the bearer of the revolutionary message...
...The following month, Pope Paul VI came to Bogota for the Eucharistic Congress, and CELAM met in Medellin...
...2 2 Perhaps a clearer testimony to what was really bothering the hierarchy was given in Bogot...
...We make puppets...
...2) Repeatedly the oligarchic press has attempted to undermine the Golconda priests by distortion of their views, unfounded reports, and outright vilification and character assassination...
...Luis Currea in Bogota continues to live in his old barrio, and drives a taxi...
...The priests have refused such parishes, in some cases adopting the role of worker-priest (though without ecclesiastical authority...
...Camilo is an attitude, an exemplary Christian attitude, an attitude impossible to duplicate...
...22 in the Sondeos series...
...The remaining third of the clergy is drawn from the urban upper and middle classes...
...The revolutionary movement in Colombia has repeatedly come up against the rigidly conservative mentality of the Colombian people...
...Consequently, they were condemned to thirty days in the notorious La Ladera prison, before being removed to religious houses for the duration of the sentence, on the request of the ecclesiastical authorities...
...On these occasions, workingclass people came to the universities accompanied by priests, nuns, students, and independent labor leaders -- all cooperating in the work of Golconda in the barrios -- for dialogues with university students...
...Press was to increase, however, after October 16 in Medellfn...
...The strategy of Golconda depends on keeping the hierarchy off balance...
...The model posed for us a whole spatial criterion and permitted us to locate in the sector we are penetrating...
...Work side by side with the masses...
...in Ncleo (Bogota), No...
...Golconda, in conjunction with MOIR (Independent Workers Revolutionary Movement) and the two political organizations supporting guerrilla fronts in the north of the country, planned an organized protest against the legislative and presidential elections in March and April...
...Consequently, Golconda is committed insofar as possible to remain within the Church, which is where the Colombian people are...
...Not only did it involve the development of an analysis of the Colombian situation, but also a methodology of communication, the resumption of Camilo's newspaper Frente Unido, the formation and orientation of workers' and peasants' groups in their parishes, the building of working alliances within the Colombian revolutionary movement, and the long slow process of demonstrating convincingly the illegitimacy of the FRENOL establishment...
...In the past, the student movement has been used to forward the ends of the liberal oligarchy, as for example in the overthrow of military dictator Rojas Pinilla in 1957...
...and at least they cease to have contact with and agitate among the urban masses...
...Aware that his life was in danger (already he had been the target of assassination attempts), he decided to join the National Liberation Army (ELN), a guerrilla army operating in the Santander region...
...Ibid., including all quotations in this paragraph...
...Perez, Problema Sacerdotal, pp...
...The pages that follow attempt to place this phenomenon in its historical context, review the activities undertaken by the "rebel priests" and the repressive reThe NACLA NEWSLETTER is published ten times a year by the Minimum contribution for one-year subscription: $5.00...
...39...
...One such person is German Zabala, an associate of Camilo in the research group which worked with the "first stage" of Frente Unido...
...5) For the Church, the most stringent penalty applicable is suspension from the priesthood a divinis, meaning excommunication...
...All this leads us to see that to collaborate in the next electoral contest is to make ourselves accomplices of immorality...
...Faith ceases then to be an intellectual affirmation about purely "spiritual" matters and becomes "incarnate in work and development...
...And it pays for itself," emphasizes Zabala...
...Ibid...
...Golconda Statement," p. 9. 48...
...Despite the intense religiosity of the Colombian popular classes who, "especially in the rural areas, maintain a reverential respect for the priest which is almost superstitious," 3 0 class antagonism against the clergy has been demonstrated repeatedly in Colombian history...
...It must always start from where the people are...
...Msgr...
...Holy Week in Colombia is a time when businessas-usual practically stops, when the only movies shown are passion dramas, and the radio stations play only funereal music all day Thursday, Friday and Saturday...
...This commitment imposes a limit on its tactical options...
...5 6 The Church as institution gives way to the Church as the people of God whose reason for being resides in its commitment...
...now it is not the hierarchy but the people...
...Yet in .December it was finally decided to remove Fathers Rene' Garcila and Luis Currea from their working-class parishes, transferring them to middle and upper class neighborhoods of Bogota...
...Tirador, "Violence," p. 6. 31...
...Colombians traditionally have expressed protest against their governmental system by refusing to vote in elections, and the incidence of abstention has been especially high under FRENOL...
...Indeed, religion will have made its place in the revolution...
...The revision proposed in November by FRENOL would empower the state to nominate three candidates to a vacant bishopric, from which the Vatican would choose the new bishop...
...If the students 'rise to the popular class,' without any sense of paternalism, with more of a spirit of learning than of teaching, they will be able to judge objectivelv the historic moment...
...The intervening year has been eventful, for Colombia's Oligarchic National Front government (FRENOL),i as for the Golconda group...
...Consequently, the critics are blind to the possibility that oppression's own instruments of social control may be used as weapons against the oppressive' order...
...In the face of the crisis this second step brings, when the police system begins to act, the necessity arises for political orientation, not given gratuitously, but demanded by the masses -- that is very important...
...Garcia, "Habla Golconda...
...We discovered space, a general psychology which produces spatial elements Very basic to a concrete ecology...
...Meet with your family, friends, and fellow workers in discussion groups to find organizational paths," it says at the foot of the page...
...Ibid...
...4-9, for a brief history of the student movement in Colombia...
...The priests argued for "multiple forms of revolutionary action against imperialism and the neocolonial bourgeoisie, " 7 separation of Church and State, and the "establishment of a socialistic organization of society which will permit the elimination of all forms of exploitation of man by man and respond to the historic tendencies of our time and to the idiosyncrasies of the Colombian people...
...57...
...Still the parish "refused to accept the change and took over the church in an effort to impede the new priest from assuming his new position...
...Presidential emissary Nelson Rockefeller, which provoked protest demonstrations against U.S...
...What these changes mean is the total destruction of the traditional antimony (dualism) of spiritual and temporal which is deeply rooted in the Colombian consciousness...
...Organize the people...
...37, Sept...
...and 3) the campaign to activate Colombian's traditional passive protest against FRENOL through massive abstention in the forthcoming elections...
...One of the most important reasons such persons enter the clergy is to attain professional status, which represents security for themselves and their families...
...Torres was even jailed for two days when the police decided he was a "subversive...
...6 0 Golconda is not afraid of violence...
...So far the Bogota hierarchy, dominated by Archbishop Anibal Munoz Duque (who is also head of the Colombian Church), had carefully refrained from punitive measures which might lead to more radical action on the part of Golconda...
...The future is something we still do not know, it will go on taking shape...
...M I2 America's population...
...For Golconda -- as for Camilo in 1966 -- the organization of an "active, belli-gerent and revolutionary abstention" is a means of shaping a nascent revolutionary consciousness to give it content and focus...
...It is a real danger for the Golconda priests...
...His radical interpretation is a constant embarassment to other bishops who also approved them...
...Ibid...
...2 8 Professional sta-tus comes with education which is a scarce commodity in Colombia...
...The program was realized without the priests, but many of the workers and students who participated were harassed and arrested upon leaving...
...Designs used in stone or metal by the Chibcha people, who occupied the Bogota plain before the Spaniards came...
...Garcia, "Answers Students' Questions," pp...
...Ibid., p. 4. 24...
...16...
...The Archbishop of Manizales replied on January 27...
...Beset by liberal prejudices against religion and properly mindful of the distortions religion has wreaked on human personalities in the past, such critics often neglect the creative possibilities in religion...
...Fourteen months ago, the NACLA Newsletter published a summary and analysis of the manifesto issued in December, 1968, by 48 priests and a bishop of the Catholic Church in Colombia...
...The Bogotg hierarchy, based on its experience with Camilo, refrained from punitive action against the Golconda priests of that city...
...We know that it is very difficult not to do so, but our effort is always directed toward that end...
...Moreover, Golconda in all seriousness proclaims that "revolution is a Christian imperative...
...They were quickly succeeded in 1967 by Pope Paul VI's encyclical, Populorum progressio, which focused on unjust relationships between the privileged and the underdeveloped nations...
...Tulio Botero Salazar, who proceeded in April to remove Fathers Vicente Mejfa and Gabriel Daz from their respective parishes in "tugurios" or slums, and Father Oscar Vlez from his post in Acci6n Cat61ica, from which he had been aiding the work of the former...
...Incarnation ceases to be a mysterious occurrence restricted to Jesus which curiously saves souls...
...The urban and rural clergy is divided, chiefly into conservative and modernizing groups...
...organize...
...It is premature to predict the fate of this venture...
...The conflict in Gachantiva thus remained in stalemate...
...Ibid...
...It is presumptuous for me to speak of Camilo," Garcia once said to the students of the National University...
...NOTES 1. Martin Tirador, "Violence against Priests in Colombia," mimeographed text circulated by the Latin America Department of the National Council of Churches, 475 Riverside Drive, New York, N.Y...
...There was major participation from the large working class barrios where Golconda organizers had been active...
...THE LEGACY OF CAMILO TORRES Social consciousness within the Colombian Church, while benefiting from this progression of events within the hierarchy, also derives from the powerful example of Father Camilo Torres Restrepo...
...Garcia, "Answers Students' Questions," p. 6. Influential in Golconda's understanding of violence in relation to liberation has been the thought of the Freres du Monde...
...Ibid...
...everything which separates you from the people is reactionary...
...The political conflicts were connected with confrontations between various regional and economic interest groups...
...Tirador, "Violence," p. 10...
...All were severely beaten...
...Such priests receive urban parishes, but also from this group come the priests who receive advanced education, often in Rome or other European Catholic centers, and become scholars or Church administrators...
...Fathers Vicente Mej'a and Luis Currea were belted in the testicles with billy clubs...
...Ibid., p. 4. 23...
...Eighteen months after the appearance of the Populorum, in August of 1968, the Latin American Bishops Conference (CELAM) met in Medellfn, Colombia...
...4) Deportation of foreign priests -- whose presence is common throughout Latin America -- and lay persons engaged in Golconda activities has occurred three times...
...While recognizing the bishops' canonical authority to move and remove clergy, the Golconda priests accuse Msgr...
...3) a "blood and guts" debate in the national Senate over "influence peddling" in INCORA (the Agrarian Reform Institute, whose creation in 1961 was directed by then-Senator Carlos Lleras Restrepo...
...A brief news item to this effect appeared in New York's Spanish language daily E1 Diario, February 17, 1970: it carries Lain's explanation: "Obeying a moral imperative, born of the awareness that as a revolutionary I do not belong to myself but to the masses, and at the same time responding to the public character which the priestly function still carries in our society, I am complying with my duty as orientator of the people in joining the guerrillas of the ELN...
...Father Rent Garcfa, speaking to students of the National University, put the matter succinctly: "The Christian needs a methodology and that methodology is given by Marxism...
...This penalty was applied to two Golconda priests, but it has not succeeded in destroying their work with the people...
...6 1 The Golconda group, which is experimenting with a variety of methods for awakening revolutionary consciousness in the Colombian popular classes, may be the agent which can bring the Colombian masses to the Revolution through the door Camilo opened...
...From a theology of supernatural values superimposed on natural ones we shift to a theology in which the supernatural is integrated with the natural...
...Ii that net -Fronts TIni do (%irft+06 t2^,_ ece I I IValencia Cano, arriving from his post at Buenaventura, was met by the police at the airport and forced to return home...
...He continues to participate in the annual conferences of Colombian bishops, however, and last July used such a meeting to denounce the buying and selling of Indians in Colombia's eastern territories, as well as the misappropriation of resources represented by the U.S...
...Tirador, p. 5. 27...
...The ones who were working with Camilo," Zabala specified, "and who remained with him, that is, the research arm of Camilo's Frente Unid.t,32 First among the goals outlined in the Golconda manifesto of December, 1968, are the following: "1) To insist on the insufficiency of mere good will and the necessity of understanding objective reality...
...2 6 A sociological analysis of the clergy reveals two basic divisions...
...Garcia excepts the Cuban Communist Party from this judgment...
...Borrat, "Rutas...
...Not all are priests in Golconda...
...he therefore calls them "Marxoiogists...
...2. Father Vicente Mejia is being expelled for defending the 3. The present agrarian reform is a failure because the are running it...
...The FRENOL-appointed chief magistrate of Gachantiva then sought to remove Vanegas by means of military force, but faced determined resistance on the part of loyal members of the parish...
...19...
...This attack on ecclesiastical prerogative was enough to bring the Archbishop of Bogota and his associates into line...
...Consequently, it has drawn its -clergy from the privileged classes which own and operate Colombia to their own advantage...
...FRENOL revived an old issue periodically resuscitated in Colombia for demagogical ends: it threatened to reform the Concordat...
...Our position is not that of reaping for Golconda, but that Golconda should be a service to the Colombian people...
...In the words of Martin Tirador, a Colombian correspondent, "The priests were first taken to the . . . DAS and there tortured by the order of a lieutenant...
...After completing his studies in Louvain, he joined the National University in Bogota as Chaplain and professor of sociology...
...Camilo was committed to the people, and was murdered for that reason...
...The following week, on April 11, in the National University of Bogota, Father Rena Garcia, whose role as spokesman for Golconda results from his presence in the national capital, addressed himself to student radicals...
...In the workers' barrios of Bogota, Medellin, and Cali -- Colombia's principal industrial cities -- special preparations were made for the traditional observance of the rite of the "Seven Words" of Jesus on the cross...
...4 1 In the opinion of Golconda, revolutionaries who fail to learn from the masses run the grave risk of sectarian elitism or "groupism...
...A strategy to destroy Golconda as a threat to FRENOL and the class structure on which it rests must either 1) discourage them from their revo7 lutionary commitment, or 2) destroy their credibility as priests...
...2, 6. 13...
...MARXIST ROLE "...The reality [said Noel Olaya] is that it is a movement in which priests, nuns, Marxist groups, groups of Christians, and the people participate...
...Actions taken against Golconda by government and church ranged from vilification and distortion through the press, to jail, beatings, suspension from priestly functions, and expulsion from the country...
...2) an attempt to open dialogue between student revolutionaries and the people...
...Among us Democratic Centralism has been converted into the bureaucracy of the few and the servilism of the many, which paralyzes the formation of revolutionaries and the dynamic inherent in the Revolution toward the definitive contradiction in-seizing power for the people...
...Gerardo Valencia Cano, Bishop of Buenaventura...
...Garcia, "Habla Golconda...
...It required that the traditional Colombian religious mentality be turned on its head, just as Karl Marx had once upended Hegel...
...Less cautious was the Archbishop of Medellfn, Msgr...
...Many of the priests, however, did not attend...
...Golconda had something special ready for the reporters, who took note...
...But how can this function be extended to include those who do not know how to read, numerous as they are...
...At the same time that they are leaders of a revolutionary group, they have the special status reserved in the Colombian mentality for clergy...
...Rather than submit himself to the scandal of excommunication, Camilo chose the lesser one of laicization, leaving the priesthood voluntarily in July of 1965 to devote himself full-time to political organizing...
...When it comes to Camilo I think we should all keep quiet and study his acts...
...Martin Tirador states that because students of secondary institutions and universities in Colombia are a privileged sector of the population with bourgeois aspirations, their revolutionary actions tend to lack efficacy and orientation...
...Study-guide number 11: 4 "The law is for the Ruana-wearer*: 1. R6mulo Carvalho was murdered for being a student...
...AGGRESSIVE ABSTENTION The people's takeovers of the universities came at a critical time for the FRENOL...
...Ibid., p. 5. 32...
...We avoided it for many years...
...In addition to this sort of harassment, the national press in service to the oligarchy took advantage of the occasion to distort the facts of the case, in a manner similar to that used previously to discredit Camilo Torres, by mixing unrelated data tending to arouse popular fears regarding the priests, and printing unsubstantiated allegations as facts...
...The credibility and moral force of Golconda within the Church is sustained by documents which set guidelines for all the Latin American Church, and which were signed by the very bishops who are now engaged in the repression of Golconda...
...6 1 RELIGION IN THE REVOLUTION...
...The preceding months saw extended debate in the Colonmbian Senate in which Senator Ignacio Vives of the Caribbean coastal region revealed influence-peddling in the agrarian reform program and was subsequently deprived of parliamentary immunity and jailed...
...In August, 1965, Camilo founded the newspaper Frente Unido (United Front) as one tactic in his effort to unite all groups seeking to overthrow the oligarchic National Front government under one program of struggle through mass organization...
...Ibid., p. 6. 36...
...In at least one case, when the hierarchy desired to suspend a priest, it was compelled to call out the army to remove him against the will of his parishioners...
...Copyright 1970 by the North American Congress on Latin America, Inc...
...The movement is forced therefore to maneuver constantly within the Church, vis a vis the Colombian hierarchy...
...It knows that the hierarchy, as part of the oligarchy, is committed either to the status quo or to piecemeal reformism...
...Valencia, left the dialogue without its leaders...
...if indeed you are committed to the revolution, stop building ideological castles in the air...
...Msgr...
...Novitski, "Radical Priests...
...61...
...4 0 The exclusion of opportunism, elitism and sectarianism extends to Golconda itself, contends Garcia...
...Garcia, "Answers Students' Questions," p. 3...
...Three aspects of Golconda's activity will be discussed here: 1) use of the liturgy for the awakening of revolutionary consciousness...
...There reflecting on the oppression of the Colombian people, Camilo began to prepare himself for involvement in a revolutionary process which led ultimately to his violent death as a guerrilla fighting against the army of the FRENOL and its American advisors...
...Reconciliation between the exploiter and the exploited, for the "Developmentists," takes priority over equality of opportunity for all...
...the latter also suffered head cuts...
...3 9 The unifying theme for all is "to ascend to the masses" and to learn from them the means and the time of the revolution...
...And then, based on our research, small wall newspapers appear, by means of which we begin to penetrate all the sectors...
...we developed a study-model which had never been elaborated before, and thus we have an urbanistic sense of the city, with its political-military importance...
...of all religious orders in Colombia, the Jesuits showed the largest portion in this category...
...1 2 The initiation of dialogue with the students continued formally after a five-month interlude with a series of people's "takeovers" of universities in Bogota, Cali, and Medellhn...
...In July, 1968, a number of them met at a farm called Golconda, to begin the search for a unified strategy...
...And when the hierarchy sent new priests to take over their parishes, "the parishoners organized protest demonstrations that kept the priests there for four days...
...Consequently the Archbishop excommunicated all who sought to block the move...
...2) the visit of U.S...
...Destruction of the antinomy of temporal and spiritual involves for Golconda a refounding of the theological enterprise...
...from an abstract to a political theology in which the people participate in the development of society in its economic, political, and social areas...
...Alfonso Lpez Trujillo, Vicar of the Diocese, retorted that the imprisoned priests were "too young" and "did not know what they were doing...
...3 "Padre Camilo" (as he is remembered by Colombian peasants and workers), was born into an upper class family related to Colombia's incumbent oligarch president, Carlos Lleras Restrepo, and was educated for the priesthood in Colombian seminaries...
...Tirador, "Violence," p. 2. 14...
...4 2 In the same manner, Golconda adopts a stance opposed to bureaucratism and democratic centralism...
...When representatives from the Bogota parishes of the priests imprisoned in Medellin (Currea and Garcla) asked the Archbishop to intervene on their behalf, Msgr...
...Rent Garcfa described for students the movement's attitude toward armed struggle...
...The first page alternates slogans and quotations, and the last carries political cartoons...
...Some 44 percent were born in cities of more than 500,000 population (Bogota, Medellin, Calli...
...The system and the upper hierarchies maintain the poor in oppression in order to continue enjoying their own privileges...
...2, par...
...THE MANIFESTO The period from Camilo's murder in February, 1966, until the meeting of CELAM in Medellin in August, 1968, was for Colombia's radical priests a time of quiet experimentation on a number of local fronts...
...He reasoned that it was better to die in the armed struggle than be ignominiously shot in the streets by an unknown assassin...
...Afterwards also appeared techniques to draw a general attendance generated by the puppet, the marionette, which is then converted into personage, which permits us to present the puppet play, the pamphlet, the caricature...
...1 9 SECOND WAVE The second wave of repressive actions against Golconda began in October, in conjunction with the takeover by poor people of the University of Antioquia in Medellin...
...For the first time since Camilo, a priest entered the arena of political debate in the strongly anticlerical National University...
...The Sabana is the 8,500 foot high grassy plain in which Bogota is located.S diction with the system appears in that sector, but already the group has come upon the scene, and the bond between the people and the individual occurs really for the first time...
...Groups that have not been born out of the real demands of the process are the refuge of persons wishing to avoid action...
...And afterwards, organizational forms begin to appear into which we are entering...
...Garcia, "Answers Students' Questions," p. 4. 41...
...31 Popular mistrust of the clergy, even of priests who have labored side by side with the people, is exacerbated when a priest who has been an ally of the people chooses finally obedience to the hierarchy and its oligarchic allies in betrayal of the people...
...Golconda is firmly committed to maintaining its distinct identity within both the revolutionary and the Christian movements, insisting on the necessity to begin and end with authentic, integral, human development...
...Garcia, however, aroused student enthusiasm with a wide-ranging discussion of the Golconda position in political and theological terms, the group's identification with Camilo and his program, and its opening to Marxism as a methodology for analysis and action...
...2 7 Priests from this background head the small town and rural parishes...
...Golconda in itself does not interest us, because it is not an end...
...The Medellin documents implied a thorough restructuring of the Catholic Church in Latin America...
...In half an hour we sell more than a thousand newspapers...
...Within this current, Garcia locates movements "all of whose effort is unfolded in seeking the wellbeing of the Church without rooting their interest in men, as if the Church were an end in itself...
...4 7 Golconda proposes that the liturgical rites of the Church cease to focus on a dream world...
...Rene' Garcfa Lizarralde, "Habla Golconda: Toda la Iglesia en la Revolucion...
...9 The civil and ecclesiastical ruling classes, still pervaded by a "deep sense of guilt regarding the death of Camilo Torres," were shocked by the reappearance of the menace they thought they had laid to rest...
...TRADITIONAL ROLE OF THE CHURCH From the era of the Spanish colony to the present, the Catholic Church has been a pillar of the establishment in Colombia...
...But the panic which Golconda causes in the Colombian oligarchy has brought a variety of repressive actions against the movement...
...47...
...The real question that remains is whether an onslaught of repression will destroy Golconda before it fully tests its strategy...
...10027...
...As the matter has stood since the document was signed in 1877, the Vatican has made the appointments but only after giving the state an opportunity to voice objections to any candidate under consideration...
...This gives us an enormous communication and a real form of contact with certain sectors...
...Silently an immense group of men accompanied the body of Carvalho, student revolutionary, and the only sound was the words of the gospel: 'No one loves so much as he who gives his life for his brothers.' / When a priest like Father Vicente Mejia dedicates his life to the poor and exploited people, and before six months have passed is expelled from his parish by the hierarchy, in common accord with the government, this shows that there is corruption in the system...
...Olivier Maillard and others, La Violencia de los Pobres (Barcelona: Editorial Nova Terra, 1968...
...Borrat, "Rutas...
...from a theology which separates soul and body to a theology of an integrated man...
...This group, called "Golconda" after the farm where it first met, called for the overthrow of Colombia's capitalist oligarchic system of government, the abolition of political and economic dependency on the United States, and the replacement of such structures by a form of social organization of the "socialist type...
...A Look at Golconda...
...The solidarity of the people with Golconda has been demonstrated in every locale where the movement has worked, and each time the repressive apparatus of FRENOL and the hierarchy has moved against it...
...In the first encounter, at the National University in Bogota on September 24, Father Vicente Mejfa declared the rationale: "Students, everything which brings you closer to the people is revolutionary...
...In This Issue...
Vol. 3 • February 1970 • No. 10
