Anniversary Essay: Church and Revolution

...March 1972, Vol...

...While his role became less important after the 1987 Central America Peace Plan, Rivera y Damas had played a critical part in making negotiations acceptable, against the opposition of the army and the Reagan administration...

...Boff resigned from the priesthood in 1992...

...The initial impulse time it wa per-class was pastoral rather than directly nities woi received a political...

...6, No...

...With political parties, unions and other organizations outlawed, and the press muzzled or acquiescent, the church was the only force that could in some way resist the military...

...A very important development today is the rise to prominence of Protestants, and especially Pentecostals, now estimated to be around 15%-with considerable variation from country to country -of the Latin American population...

...By the 1990s, the utopian dreams nursed in the climate of military dictatorship had been dashed by the seeming universal triumph of capitalism, the crisis of Marxism and the scaling back of the left's agenda to reformist social democracy...

...As early as 1972, conservative Latin American bishops began to organize systematically against liberation theology...

...He presented liberation theology as a theological rationale for doing pastoral work among the poor, and as a way of telling the poor that God loves them...

...They began by taking control of the Latin American Bishops Conference (CELAM...

...These ideals were emerging in a period which was simultaneously a time of relative intellectual openness and, in many countries, a time of severe political repression...

...nation itself was reconSgroup reflection on life es rather than as imparting To the extent...

...In rural areas, these discussions would often move from immediate problems toward matters such as land tenure and from there to class structure...

...The Church led mass protests against the military following the murder of investigative journalist lerzog in 1975...

...14 NM2IA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS NCIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 14ANNIVERSARY ESSAY/ RELIGION Today, civilian governments are the rule, and democratic institutions operate routinely, even if the poor have relatively little access...

...The compilation became a best seller when published in the form of Brasil, Nunca Mais...

...although, as Bishop Pedro d Casaldaliga of Brazil remarked, it s had "proved helpful in the critique s of capitalism and in nourishing certain utopian horizons...

...February 1972, Vol...

...Their efforts accelerated with the papacy of Pope John Paul II, whose own experience in Poland led him to adamantly oppose any hint of sympathy with Marxism within the church...

...Priests and sisters working at the village and barrio level sometimes resented the work of organizers who skimmed off leaders that they had spent years training, and who were then lost to the local organization-or who remained, but introduced another agenda...

...Even more decisive, however, has been the scaling back of possibilities and expectations in the broader society...

...Hounded out of political life by authorities of both church and state, he joined the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas, and fell in combat in February, 1966...

...Like other Latin American intellectuals, these theed Herzog...

...The ls themselves were seekire authentic way to live :ious vocation...

...The legacy of the progressive church may yet be picked up by a younger generation that has come of age in the world of globalization, and shares a passion for justice...

...If we are in fact moving into a significantly different period, that progressive presence faces a major challenge-a challenge that requires a forthright examination of the role religion has played in the region's recent past...

...For years Camilo Torres was an icon of what came to be called the cially tl depended individua ing a mo their relig In thei paternalis tional api (consciou by the I Freire ti Evangeli ceived as experienc doctrine...

...19, No...

...Many of the roles that church people played in a situation of emergency are no longer necessary, although certainly Bishop Samuel Ruiz in Chiapas continues to play the roles of both prophet and mediator...

...The generals could hardly put themselves in the position of impounding scripture quotes, even though the document was clearly aimed at delegitimizing their own practices of torture, imprisonment and the general muzzling of society...

...8 The Protestant coming-of-age marks the end of Catholic religious hegemony...

...Some church analysts now speak of "social apartheid," referring to the ever-sharper divide between the wealthy protected by security guards, and most people facing job losses, insecurity and crime...

...Phillip Berryman's latest book is Religion in the Megacity: Catholic and Protestant Portraits from Latin America (Orbis, 1996...

...In addition, church organizations documented the thousands of deaths and disappearances under the Pinochet dictatorship, and church documents became prime sources for human rights groups as well as for journalists...

...His remark, I believe, reflects the mood of many who recalled the heady days of struggle against dictatorship, or perhaps the hopes for the Workers Party, when it arose out of strikes in which church people had been involved in 1980...

...19, No...

...Di 1966-68 period, radicaliz formed national groups a manifestos criticizing church and society in a n countries...

...There are two reasons: There are more of them, both in Latin America, and in all the Third World...

...In country after country, sisters and priests played key roles in human rights work...

...The same was true shortly afterwards in Bolivia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and elsewhere...

...and they are ever-poorer...

...Vol X)(X, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1997 11 11 Vol XXX, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1997ANNIVERSARY ESSAY/ RELIGION Such sisters and priests were in a privileged position...

...The cover of the Septemberl October 1985 issue of NACLA Report on the Americas...

...For over 30 years, progressive church activists have had a significant presence in Latin American society...

...Leadership development in poor Latin American communities during these decades owes much to the daily work of those church people-mainly sisters -who simply knocked on doors, visited people, made themselves available, provided lifts in their vans, and spent long hours in conversation...

...5 A Vatican policy of appointing conservative bishops for over a decade, along with repeated pressure against liberation theology, has taken its toll...

...While most of them never discussed Marxism in any detail-in part because to do so would make them vulnerable-they assumed that a broad process of liberation was underway, and sought to probe the implications for believers and the church...

...Gutidrrez perhaps wisely refrains from defining in detail the new era that is arriving...

...The new theology not only explored the topics that have always preoccupied Catholic theologians-God, Christ, salvation, the church and so forth-but critiqued the existence of massive poverty, and denounced unjust social structures as "sinful...

...The former found in the Medellin documents, as in certain documents of the Second Vatican Council and the social encyclicals of Popes Paul VI and John XXIII, the legiti- mation of their struggles for justice and their condemnation of exploitation and structures of dominance...

...Perhaps more importantly, the Pope systematically appointed new bishops on the basis of their loyalty to Rome...

...Hopes now rode on a longer-range process that would be the result of a broad variety of social movemen including traditional labor ai peasant struggles, as well women's, ecological, indigeno and Afro-Latino movements...

...versity...

...Indeed, the very violence repress the left seemed t not only that the struggle tion was just and necessar the prospects of victor bright...

...The post-Council period opened the door to further questioning...

...At the same time, "Who Kill they could interpret the Brazilian world of the poor for Wladimir k those outside it, and Report on their presence might Project (W offer at least a degree of protection from repression...

...U Under John Paul 11, the Latin American Church has become a symbol for the overall conflict between traditional and modern forces within Catholicism...

...4, No...

...In Brazil, for exampie, a significant propor- tion of the leftist Workers Party has been Protestant...

...Defying military threats, several thousand people attended the service in downtown SAo Paulo, in the first massive show of resistance to the military government since the late 1960s...

...In Latin America that meant asking NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 10ANNIVERSARY ESSAY/ RELIGION what the role of the chur be in a society of ext wealth and poverty...

...May/June 1994, Vol...

...In Nicaragua under Somoza there were significant contacts between the small struggling Sandinista movement and church people...

...5 The Church faces a multitude of problems, but the basic problem to which all others are related is a split between a sector, generally sympathetic to socialism, that seeks to identify the Church with the poor and dispossessed, and another group, fearful of socialism, revolution and communism, that tries to keep the Church firmly on the sides of the established order and free enterprise capitalism...

...At a time when the very word "dialogue" was tantamount to treason, the Salvadoran bishops-and Pope John Paul II-helped make it acceptable, and Rivera y Damas frequently delivered proposals from the Farabundo Marti Liberation Front (FMLN) to the government...

...February If, as Jean Franco wrote in NACILA Report on the Americas a few years ago, it is not only the left but the "print-oriented intelligentsia" that feels displaced in a Latin America that is simultaneously pre-literate and post-literate, it is not surprising that the progressive church should also feel perplexed...

...The term "liberation theology" emerged in the 1960s as a number of Latin American theologians-spurred on by the priests and sisters working with the poor-started asking whether the peculiar circumstances of their continent might demand their own theology as opposed to the one-size-fits-all assumption of Catholic theology around the world...

...In some sense the highest calling of Christian life is martyrdom -in the likeness of Jesus...

...6, No...

...A Brazilian sister doing research in the mid-1980s found that only 4 to 5% of sisters had gone to live with the people...

...For a s hoped that base commuuld become the predomiel of the Church in Latin so that, for example, the uld be primarily a network )mmunities...

...December 1970, Vol...

...Most immediately this meant sheltering those being persecuted, and helping them leave the country...

...19, No...

...In 1965, he and others formed the Broad Front, a political coalition seeking to appeal to a majority of Colombians...

...Benedita da Silva, a black woman from a poor family in the northeast who became a social worker and then a federal senator, is both an outstanding representative of the poor and a practicing member of the Assemblies of God...

...This does not mean that the evangelical churches are ripe for the left, but simply that organizers and activists should dispel their own stereotypes and seek to learn from, and Bishop: " dialogue with, this new God...

...Insertions into Ideological Circuits: Bank Note ho Killed Herzog...

...They felt called to prophetic witness, analogous to activities of prophets in Hebrew scriptures and to Jesus himself...

...It was partly a recognition nant mod gium and that the church's resources had America, here he been disproportionately devoted to parish wo local uni- the middle and upper classes, espe- of such c( through schools which on tuition payments...

...As in Rome, the conflict has been between those that believhethat the Church stands above history, and those who see it as a perpetually evolving institution...

...The ramifications of this debate have touched the lives of all Latin American Catholics, and have helped shape their aspirations about life and the possibility of influencing social political relations in the future...

...The killing of priests, sisters, lay people and even bishops brought home the 12NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 12ANNIVERSARY ESSAY/ RELIGION understanding that genuine martyrdom was a real possibility at least in some circumstances...

...From the November/December 1993 NACLA the America...

...For example, Archbishop Helder Camara of Recife, Brazil, who had rankled the military in the 1970s and was known worldwide as a champion of the poor, was replaced by a conservative bishop who quickly dismantled as much as he could of Helder's work...

...Many progressive church people and secular leftists have criticized Pentecostalism for diverting people from their real earthly problems, but the actual behavior of Pentecostals is not very different from that of their neighbors...

...The Guatemalan bishops, especially bishop Rodolfo Quezada Toruiio of Zacapa, played a similar role in the 1988-92 period, to the chagrin of the military...

...12 No...

...by Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles...

...Not surprisingly perhaps, women in the church tend to be less nostalgic for their socialist hopes, and are developing their critique of patriarchy, most often on the margins of the official churches, both Catholic and Protestant...

...Hundreds of human rights groups and other non-governmental organizations, many of which arose under Church sponsorship, now operate on their own...

...Shortly after the outbreak of guerrilla war in 1981, Salvadoran Archbishop Arturo Rivera y Damas made numerous efforts to urge a negotiated end to the conflict...

...A generation of countless it might church people, primarily Catholic, ciations, g to build but also including some from the tives and historic Protestant denominations, bring ab before the sought to live by that insight and ments an( theology conviction...

...Priests and sisters generally avoidleaders or spokespersons ople, but rather sought to people to form and run organizations...

...Out of that meeting came dramatic changes, including the switch from worship in Latin to the vernacular languages, and a moving away from suspicion toward "the world"-not unlike that of Christian fundamentalists today-to an embrace of modernity...

...The main theme progressives drew from the 1992 meeting of the bishops in Santo Domingo--analogous to earlier meetings at Medellin and Puebla-was "inculturation," meaning the Catholic Church's recognition that it must allow people, especially indigenous groups, to find their own cultural forms of expression...

...Progressives beli their work, as modest as be, was ultimately helping a different kind of society In the mid-1960s-b advent of liberation itself-the Colombian Camilo Torres, noted insight: that Christianit love of neighbor, and that could not be expressed s individuals, but dema whole change of political, ic, and social structurestion...

...Through his research on Colombian cities and land issues, Torres became personally familiar with the plight of the poor, especially in the countryside, and he became radicalized...

...Even by the mid-1980s many on the left, including church people, were concluding that necessary social change would not come quickly...

...Who, me...

...Thus far in the 1990s, however, there seem to be no new paradigms analogous to Liberation Theology...

...Although over 80% of the population may still be baptized Catholic, only a small proportion can be described as practicing, and hence in some ways Protestantism is on a par with Catholicism...

...Another political role played by church people was that of mediation...

...This was due to a "series of economic, political and ecclesial events, as much worldwide as Latin American or national...

...a central effort to come closer to the people This w y means they served, thousands of Catholic "Christian such love sisters and priests moved out of tra- lay-led gr imply by ditional convents and religious read and nded "a houses, and into poor neighbor- together, econom- hoods to share the living conditions engaged i a revolu- of the people...

...leading North American control of Protestant missions has brought about the cultural isolation of the Protestant community in Latin America...

...The somewhat surprising emergence of Catholicism as a progressive political force was a Latin American response to the decisions made by Catholic bishops at Vatican Council II (196265...

...Consciousness-raising leads naturally to organization...

...From 1970 NACLA Newsletter...

...September/October 1986, Vol...

...Although it was several years before the Chilean bishops directly criticized the repression, Catholic and Protestant churches helped people survive economically and documented human rights abuses, and tried to help people locate family members, almost always in vain...

...In 1975 in Sdo Paulo, Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns joined pastor Wright and Rabbi Henry Sobel to celebrate the funeral of Wladimir Herzog, an investigative journalist who had been murdered...

...Several years later, Arns, Wright and others secretly worked at gathering and photocopying literally millions of pages of army records documenting human rights violations...

...i "Whoever resisits authority son, resists ilitary Officer: "God...

...Today we have many questions and few answers...

...This base is necessary for the evolution of the market structures that mark the capitalist development of underdevelopment...

...3 Vol XXX, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1997 13 Vol XXX, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1997 13ANNIVERSARY ESSAY/ RELIGION much of the anti-Pinochet opposition and giving it legitimacy, even while excluding the more hardline opposition, especially the Communist Party...

...They were freer than virtually any other outsiders to live in poor communities and still retain ties to other sectors of society...

...6 e used to "progressive church," not because ed being o confirm he chose to fight with the guerrillas, for the pe for libera- but because he was willing to fol- stimulate y, but that low his insight into the political their own iry were nature of Christian love to its ulti- past three eved that mate consequences...

...M social force...

...September/October 1986, Vol...

...A few years ago, we had many answers and few questions," a Brazilian priest working with the poor in Sdo Paulo's crowded downtown tenements told me in 1993...

...Bishop - Casaldaliga expressed the view of - many: "Today the option for the poor is more timely than ever...

...Noting "the end of certain political projects" (presumably socialism), he observed that "everything would seem to indicate that a different period is beginning...

...6 -he cover of the February 1972 issue of IACLA's Latin America and Empire Report...

...In 1994, the Peruvian theologian Gustavo Guti6rrez, whose writings have made liberation theology known worldwide, observed that the period which had given birth to that theology was apparently "coming to an end...

...Peru's Guti6rrez presented the first explicit sketch of liberation theology at a meeting of priests in the Peruvian seaport town of Chimbote in 1968...

...Those working at the village or barrio level interpreted their own work as solidarity or as "accompaniment"-standing by the people, especially in times of repression...

...This was happening j Latin American intellect becoming disenchanted w ing models of "developm calling for more radical m could address the nati international structures thi the root of inequality anc Many sensed that their countries faced similar problems, and that their destinies were linked, perhaps in a future Patria Grande...

...2 Since the Latin American Catholic Bishops met in Medellin, Colombia in August and September, 1968 to call for basic changes in the region, the Catholic Church has been increasingly polarized between those who heard their words from the point of view of the suffering majorities and those who heard them from the point of view of the vested interests...

...Born into an up BogotA family, Torres re degree in sociology in Bel returned to Colombia then began working at a ch should remes of during the ed priests nd issued both the umber of ust when uals were 'ith existent," and odels that onal and at were at Poverty...

...It should be kept in mind, of course, that these initiatives never represented a majority trend in the Catholic Church...

...ernment priest, Beginning in the late 1960s, in an vices...

...r concern to avoid any m, they found the educa)roach of concientizacidn sness-raising) developed razilian educator Paulo o be made to order...

...Guti6rrez's work was devoted to defending the legitimacy of that work in the light of official Catholic teaching itself, as well as the scriptures...

...Economic elites and the military saw such church work as dangerously meddlesome, and many church people-most notably in El Salvador-paid with their lives...

...A Sandinista leader later candidly admitted that his organization had considered church organizations as "quarries" from which to mine grassroots leaders...

...In a somewhat different context the Chilean bishops, and particularly Cardinal Juan Francisco Fresno in Santiago, played a crucial role in encouraging The easy alliance of right-wing dictatorship and evangelical missions has its basis in the historic role of missionary movements as organizers of a new cultural base...

...In recent years, liberation theol gians have insisted that their theol gy did not come from socialis N ts n a: u o o :n It is in Latin America that the controversies of Vatican II have proved to have the sharpest repercussions...

...MaylJune 1994, VoL 27, No...

...The crisis is deeper, however, and has to do with the clash between hopes invested in the "liberationist project" and the current projects for Latin American society...

...In the late 1970s, journalist Penny Lernoux documented hundreds of incidents of violence against church people throughout Latin America in her book, Cry of the People...

...Similarly, despite talk from theologians and others about a "church being born among the people," base communities have never become a mass movement and have remained dependent on the work of sisters and priests servicing them...

...Pressures from the Vatican and from increasingly conservative bishops have had their impact on progressive church forces...

...27, No...

...Operating in secret until the brochures were ready, they then distributed them with no announcement, to the chagrin of the military...

...T he churches were most effective precisely under the most extreme circumstances, such as the period following the 1973 military coup in Chile...

...Over the decades there have been initiatives-barrio assopeasant leagues, cooperasoup kitchens-both to out immediate improved to put pressure on govofficials for needed serork often took the form of base communities," small oups meeting in homes to discuss the scriptures, pray and sometimes to become n community issues...

...September/October 1986, Vol...

...In Brazil in the early 1970s, at a time of repression and extreme press censorship, the Brazilian Catholic bishops and Presbyterian pastor Jaime Wright conceived the idea of publishing a brochure containing the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights," adding to each right a relevant quote from the scriptures and from church tradition...

...5 The widespread portrayal of this as a duel between the Vatican and Marxism misses the point, It is in fact a campaign with profound theological, ecclesial and social origins, aimed at restoring pre-Vatican II lines of authority which demand unity around a traditional vision of the Church...

...September 1978, Vol...

...that those these group reflections urged people to look for "root causes," they had a radicalizing effect...

...In 1984, the Vatican issued a letter strongly critical of liberation theology, at about the same time that it silenced the influential Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff...

...ologians were influenced by Marxism and in dialogue with it...