Peron Fights the Church:
ALBA, VICTOR
PERON FIGHTS THE CHURCH Anti-clerical campaign aims to strengthen Argentine dictator's weakening position By Victor Alba LAST NOVEMBER 9, Argentine dic?tator Juan Peron called a meet?ing of...
...Only the Church has thus far escaped these purges, which have often been conducted with extreme violence (as in April 1953, when a speech by the dictator set Peronist mobs burning and pillaging the fashionable Jockey Club and the Socialist House of the People...
...What are Peron's motives in sud?denly unleashing an anti-religious campaign when the Church has al?ways pledged loyalty to his regime...
...It should be no surprise, therefore, that her dic?tatorship is of the streamlined, twentieth-century variety...
...There is no doubt, however, that the opposition to Peron, particularly the Socialists and the real trade-unionists, will profit from it...
...Religion is taught in the schools by priests, but, if the parents wish, a child can attend a class in ethics instead...
...Peron's latest move has been to initiate a campaign for a divorce law (there is none in Argentina) and for elimination of religious instruc?tion in the schools...
...Unfor?tunately, the situation is such, in Argentina and in Latin America as a whole, that this will probably be some time in coming...
...At the same time, he is using the fight with the Church as pretext for a new purge in his own ranks...
...Argentina's illiteracy rate (esti?mated at 7-10 per cent) is the low?est in Latin America...
...At the same time, he declared that the Church was not responsible for the bishops' alliance with the enemies of peronismo...
...What is the significance of this struggle between Peron and the Church, hitherto close allies...
...3. Sensing that the opposition to Peron, hitherto confined to the Radi?cals, the Socialists and some old-line conservatives, was acquiring more and more of a popular base, the Church has permitted some of its priests...
...Only under Peron did the Church re-emerge as an important political force...
...5. Peron, an apt pupil of his friends the Communists, makes wide use of the tactic of the amalgam...
...The Minister of Edu?cation then announced that, starting in January, "spiritual leaders" would be appointed for ethics classes in all Argentine schools...
...He is anxious to check the activities of several priests who are more or less inspired by the example of the French worker-priests (though with?out the latter's pro-Communist tend?encies) and to block any avenue of retreat for the Church, so that he can bind it the more closely to his regime when popular support is low...
...Thus, this struggle??not of the Church against Peron but of Peron against a possible partial estrange?ment of the Church from his regime ??has played the role in Argentina that the Moscow Trials played in the Soviet Union: that of justifying a purge and diverting popular discon?tent by offering the masses a scape?goat for the drop in the standard of living, the freezing of wages and the rise in prices...
...This right was won as the result of a campaign conducted by the Socialist party two decades ago...
...For several days, La Prensa, the great newspaper seized by the regime three years ago and converted into an organ of the General Confedera?tion of Labor, had been publishing reports about the French worker-priests and denouncing Church infil?tration of the Argentine labor unions...
...In the face of this mounting pres?sure, the Church has retreated...
...Victor Alba has been THE NEW LEADER'S chief correspon?dent in Latin America for years...
...When an Argentine priest held public masses for Hitler and Mussolini in 1950, several of his closest aides attended...
...2. A similar movement has ap?peared among the workers...
...4. Since the death of his wife Eva, Peron has launched one purge after another in his party, in the Govern?ment and, above all, in the unions...
...The reasons seem to be: 1. For the past several months, student unrest has been increasing, with strikes and demonstrations in universities which were supposedly "purged" as long ago as 1948...
...Since then, Catholic Action clubs and other Church organizations have been placed under guard "to protect them against the hatred of the people...
...He has seemed more and more dis?trustful not only of the opposition but of his own political supporters...
...Car?dinal Copello has forbidden Catho?lics to take part in demonstrations not authorized by the ecclesiastical authorities, and the latter never au?thorize gestures against the Peron regime...
...social Christians" with sincere anti-Peronist feelings??to work among the proletariat...
...PERON FIGHTS THE CHURCH Anti-clerical campaign aims to strengthen Argentine dictator's weakening position By Victor Alba LAST NOVEMBER 9, Argentine dic?tator Juan Peron called a meet?ing of Government ministers, pro?vincial governors, peronista party chiefs and leaders of the state-con?trolled labor unions...
...Hence, he resorts to the absurd charge that the Church is allied with the Socialists and Radicals, both tra?ditionally anti-clerical parties...
...Peron established religious instruction in the public schools, had the Virgin Mary proclaimed a general in the Argentine Army, was married by a bishop, and declared that only a good Catholic could be a good peronista...
...Despite the fact that the unions are almost entirely in the hands of loyal peronistas, strikes have erupted and have been kept going for some days...
...Juan Peron owes a lot both to Mussolini and to Stalin...
...The Church has not enjoyed this role...
...The following day, there were Catholic demonstrations in the streets of Buenos Aires, Cordoba and other cities...
...Following Peron's speech, three priests were arrested, a professor of religion was dismissed, and Peron had a long conversation with the Papal Nuncio...
...In the course of a speech, he charged three Catholic bishops, Msgrs...
...Now Peron himself charged that the three bishops were planning to set up a Christian Democratic party on the European model...
...Argen?tina is a Catholic country, but reli?gious manifestations are less spec?tacular there than in other Latin American countries...
...Nicolas Fasolino, Fermin Lafitte and Froilan Ferreira, with activities directed against pub?lic order and the regime...
...In this way, it has secured its position against some future time when close identification with Peron might be a handicap...
...At the end of November, the newsprint allotment to the two leading Catholic news?papers, El Pueblo and Los Principios, was drastically reduced...
Vol. 37 • December 1954 • No. 52
