Church and Politics in Latin America

442 Pages·1990·42.355 MB·English

by  Dermot Keogh (eds.)

CHURCH AND POLITICS IN LATIN AMERICA
Church and Politics in
Latin America
Edited by
Dermot Keogh
Department of Modern History
University College, Cork
Foreword by Graham Greene
Palgrave Macmillan UK
ISBN 978-1-349-09663-3 ISBN 978-1-349-09661-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-09661-9
© Dermot Keogh 1990
Foreword © Graham Greene 1990
'God and Man in Nicaragua' © Conor Cruise O'Brien 1986
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1990 978-0-333-44534-1
All rights reserved. For information, write:
Scholarly and Reference Division,
StMartin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, N.Y. 10010
FlfSt published in the United States of America in 1990
ISBN 978-0-312-02815-2
Ubrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Church and politics in Latin America I edited by Dermot Keogh ;
foreword by Graham Greene.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-312-02815-2
I. Catholic Church-Latin America-History-20th century.
2. Christianity and politics--History-20th century. 3. Latin
America-Church history-20th century. 4. Latin America-Politics
and govemment-1980-
BX1426.2.C46 1990
261.7'098-dc20 89-37269
CIP
Contents
Notes on the Contributors vii
Preface
XI
Foreword by Graham Greene XV
PART ONE The Vatican and the Latin American
Catholic Church 1
1. The Path of Latin American Catholicism
Emile Poulat 3
2. The Catholic Church and Politics in Latin America:
Basic Trends and Likely Futures
Daniel Levine 25
3. The Vatican's Latin American Policy
Peter Hebblethwaite 49
4. CELAM - The Forgetting of Origins
Franr;ois Houtart 65
5. Latin America and the Special Rome Synod
Jon Sobrino 82
PART TWO Theological Perspectives on the Latin
American Reality 95
6. Central America: The Political Challenge of the
Faith
Jon Sobrino 97
7. Liberation and New Creation: A Theological
Conversation
Enda McDonagh 118
PART THREE Politics and the Gospel in Central
America 129
8. God and Man in Nicaragua
Co nor Cruise 0' Brien 131
9. The Rise and Fall of Social Catholicism in Costa
Rica
Rodolfo Cardenal 176
10. The Catholic Church and the Politics of
Accommodation in Honduras
Rodolfo Cardenal 187
v
VI Contents
11. Radical Conservatism and the Challenge of the
Gospel in Guatemala
Rodolfo Cardenal 205
12. The Martyrdom of the Salvadorean Church
Rodolfo Cardenal 225
13. Elegy for the Murdered Bishop
/tala Lopez Vallecillos 247
PART FOUR The Catholic Church, Revolution and
Counter-Revolution in Latin America 251
14. Fidel Castro, the Catholic Church and Revolution
in Cuba
Margaret E. Crahan 253
15. Continuity and Change in the Mexican Catholic
Church
Soledad Loaeza-Lajous 272
16. The Call to do Justice: Conflict in the Brazilian
Catholic Church, 1968-79
Leonard Martin 299
17. The Catholic Church and Politics in Chile
Brian Smith 321
18. The Catholic Church and State Tension in
Paraguay
Andrea 0'B rien 344
19. The Catholic Church, Human Rights and the 'Dirty
War' in Argentina
Emilio Mignone 352
20. The Disappeared: A New Challenge to Christian
Faith in Latin America
Patrick Rice 372
21. Catholicism in Latin America: Conclusions and
Perspectives
Dermot Keogh 398
Bibliography 404
Index 417
Notes on the Contributors
Rodolfo Cardenal is a member of the Jesuit community in San
Salvador. He is professor of history at the University of Jose Simeon
Canas, San Salvador. He is the author of El poder eclesiastico en El
Salvador and Historia de una esperanza. Vida de Rutilio Grande.
Margaret E. Crahan is Luce Professor of religion, power and political
process, Occidental College, Los Angeles, California. She is the
author of a number of studies on religion and politics in Cuba and
Nicaragua.
Conor Cruise O'Brien is a diplomat, historian, political scientist,
literary critic and politician. Seconded from the Irish foreign service
to the United Nations, he was UN representative in the Congo when
Katanga tried to secede. He was an academic in Ghana and New
York and later a member of the Dail and an Irish government minister
from 1973 until 1977. He was editor-in-chief of The Observer in
London from 1978 until 1981. Among the many books which Dr
Cruise O'Brien has written are: Maria Cross-Imaginative Patterns in
a group of Catholic Writers and To Katanga and Back.
Graham Greene, the distinguished novelist, has had a long associa
tion with Latin America. His novel, The Power and the Glory,
explored the theme of Church and politics in Mexico. More recently,
Graham Greene has written Getting to know the General - the Story
of the Involvement. This is based on his five-year friendship with
Omar Torrijos, who ruled Panama from 1968 until 1981. The book
also contains an essay on Nicaragua where he has been a frequent
visitor in recent years.
Peter Hebblethwaite is Vatican affairs writer for the National Catholic
Reporter. He joined the Jesuits at seventeen, studied philosophy in
France and took a first in French and German at Oxford. He read
theology at Heythrop College. In 1965 he went to Rome to report the
final session of Vatican II. He was made editor of The Month in 1967.
He left the Jesuits in 1974. His books include In the Vatican, The
Runaway Church, Christian-Marxist Dialogue and Beyond, The Year
of Three Popes, and John XXIII, Pope of the Council, for which he
vii
Notes on the Contributors
Vlll
was given a major award in the USA. He is working on a biography
of Paul VI. He is a journalist.
Fran~ois Houtart is professor of sociology at Louvain-la-Neuve,
Belgium and director of the Centre Tircontinental. He was an adviser
to the Latin American bishops at the Second Vatican Council. Fr
Houtart is the author of over twenty books on religion in the third
world, many of which were written in collaboration with Professor
G. Lemercinier. He has worked as a consultant on socio-religious
problems in South America, Africa and Asia.
De!_Jilot Keogh is a lecturer in the Department of Modem History,
University College, Cork. He is the author of The Vatican, the
Bishops and Irish Politics, 1919-1939; The Rise of the Irish Working
Class; Romero: El Salvador's Martyr; Ireland and Europe: a study in
diplomacy, 1919-1948, and editor of Central America: Human Rights
and US Foreign Policy.
Daniel H. Levine is professor of political science at the University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is the author of many publications,
including Religion and Politics in Latin America: the Catholic Church
in Venezuela and Colombia, and Conflict and Political Change in
Venezuela. He is the editor of two volumes of essays: Churches and
Politics in Latin America, and Religion and Political Conflict in Latin
America.
Soledad Loaeza-Lajous is a professor at the Colegio de Mexico where
she teaches European and Latin American political history. She has
written extensively on Church-State relations in Mexico.
Enda McDonagh is professor of moral theology, Pontifical Univer
sity, Maynooth. He was a visiting fellow at the University of
Cambridge in 1978, and Husking Professor of Theology, University
of Notre Dame, Indiana, in 1979-81. He is a consultant editor to
Concilium, The Furrow and Irish Theological Quarterly. He is the
author of, among others, Between Chaos and New Creation, The
Making of Disciples, The Demands of Simple Justice, Social Ethics
and the Christian, and edited Irish Challenges to Theology.
Fr Leonard Martin is professor of systematic and pastoral theology in
the Institute de Teologia e Pastoral, Fortaleza-Ce., Brazil. He has
Notes on the Contributors IX
worked in Latin America since 1974 as a missionary and as an
academic. His ministerial experience includes assistance to the
emerging base Christian communities in Goias and in Cear, and
youth ministry in Rio de Janeiro. In July 1983, he was one of the
invited assesores at the Fifth National Congress of Base Christian
Communities in Caninde, Ceara. More recently, Fr Martin, who is a
member of the Redemptorist order, has worked as a visiting pro
fessor in Kimmage Manor Faculty of Missionary Theology, Dublin.
His current research interests include Brazilian ecclesiology and the
pastoral challenges posed by the variety of popular religions.
Emilio Mignone was born in 1922 in Argentina. He is a lawyer and a
specialist in political science and human rights. He is President of the
Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS) in Buenos Aires. He
played a central role as a lawyer in opposition to the military during
the 1970s in his country. Dr Mignone is the author of Iglesia y
Dictadura - El papel de la Iglesia a la luz de sus relaciones con el
regimen militar which has been translated into English as Witness to
the Truth- The Complicity of Church and Dictatorship in Argentina.
Emile Poulat is a sociologist and historian. He is a director of research
at the Centre Nationale de Ia Recherche Scientifique in Paris, and
director of studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences
Sociales. He was a former director of Groupe de Sociologie des
Religions and founder of the journal, Archives de Sociologie des
religions. He is the author of over twenty books and has been a
visiting professor at universities in Canada and Mexico.
Patrick Rice has worked in Latin America for the past twenty-five
years as a priest and human rights organiser. He 'disappeared' in
Argentina in 1976, was discovered in jail after vigorous inquiries by
Irish diplomats and was expelled from the country by the military.
He was a founder member of Federaci6n Latina-Americana de
Asociaciones de Familiares de Detenidos-Desaparecidos. He was
director of FEDEFAM in Caracas until 1987 when he returned to
Buenos Aires to work with human rights organisations.
Brian H. Smith is the author of The Church and Politics in Chile:
Challenges to Modern Catholicism.
Jon Sobrino is a member of the Jesuit community in San Salvador. He
X Notes on the Contributors
is professor of philosophy and theology at the Centre for Theological
Reflection, University of Jose Simeon Canas, San Salvador. He is the
author of Christology at the Crossroads and The True Church and the
Poor.
Italo Lopez Vallecillos is one of El Salvador's most distinguished
poets and writers. He was director general of Editorial Universitaria
Centroamericana (EDUCA) and professor at the Universidad de El
Salvador and at the Universidad de Costa Rica. He is the author of
Biografia del Hombre Triste, Puro Asombro, El Periodismo en El
Salvador, and Gerardo Barrios y su Tiempo. His poetry has been
translated into Italian, French and English. He died in exile in 1985.