The Church, Society, and Hegemony: A Critical Sociology of Religion in Latin America

240 Pages·1992·6.176 MB·English

by  Carlos Alberto Torres, Richard A. Young

THE CHURCH, SOCIETY, AND
HEGEMONY

The Church, Society, and
Hegemony
A CRITICAL SOCIOLOGY OF
RELIGION IN
LATIN AMERICA
Carlos Alberto Torres
TRANSLATED BY
Richard A. Young
Westport, Connecticut
London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Torres, Carlos Alberto.
The Church, society, and hegemony : a critical sociology of
religion in Latin America / Carlos Alberto Torres ; translated by
Richard A. Young,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-275-93773-9 (alk. paper)
1. Sociology, Christian—Latin America. 2. Religion and
sociology—History. 3. Catholic Church—Argentina. 4. Church and
state—Argentina. 5. Argentina—Church history. I. Title.
BR600. T67 1992
306.6'098—dc20 92-9118
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright © 1992 by Carlos Alberto Torres
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 92-9118
ISBN: 0-275-93773-9
First published in 1992
Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent
Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards
Organization (Z39.48-1984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my father,
Domingo Roberto Torres,
in memoriam

Contents
Foreword by Enrique Dussel ix
Preface xiii
1 The Critique of Religion in Marx 1
2 Religion as a Primitive Phenomenon: Emile Durkheim 15
3 Religion, Economic Rationality, and Civilization:
Max Weber’s Theses 27
4 Religion as Historical Bloc: The Perspective of
Antonio Gramsci 39
5 Religion and Disciplinary Order: On Social Reproduction 59
6 The Popular Church and the Process of Conscientization:
Reflections on Possibilities and Contradictions 69
7 Internal Tendencies of the Catholic Church:
Typologies and Extrapolations 85
via / Contents
8 Hypothesis for a Theoretical Framework
for Religion and Churches in Latin America 105
9 The Catholic Church in Argentina 117
Bibliography 199
Index 219
Foreword
The Church, Society and Hegemony: A Critical Sociology of Religion in
Latin America, by the noted Latin American sociologist Carlos Alberto
Torres, is a welcome addition to the specialized literature. This book may
be seen as composed of three parts. The first section, from Chapter 1 to
Chapter 5—in which a number of classical writers are re-interpreted—
provides a sociological framework for the study of religion. In the
second section, Chapters 6 to 8, the author delves into the general
theme of his work: the question of the “Popular Church” in Latin
America. Finally, Chapter 9 is concerned with die Church in Argentina,
from the colonization until the generation of 1880, through the period
of military repression between 1976 and 1983, to the emergence of
Argentine democracy after 1983.
Marx’s view of the religious question is placed within the context of
Marx’s reception in Latin American theological and religious circles,
especially in relation to the position of Hugo Assmann. The review of
Durkheim and Weber highlights categories that Torres will later use in
his concrete interpretation of the Latin American and the Argentinean
Church. But it is especially in his study of Antonio Gramsci that Torres
establishes the horizons of his analysis. Gramsci’s concept of hegemony
in reference to the state and his concept of “intellectuals” with respect to
the church is not surprising given that, at the beginning of this century the
situation in Italy, like in no other European country, including Spain, had
x / Foreword
much in common with that of Latin America and particularly Argentina.
Gramsci is therefore a theorist whose ideas may be very usefully applied
to the study of religion and the Church in Latin America. In Chapter
5, focusing primarily on the contribution of the Chilean sociologist J.
Joaquin Brunner, but using other writers as well, Torres begins to de­
velop his hypothesis of the Church as a fundamental institution in the
reproduction of social life, as a “disciplinary order,” both in its internal
structure and its relation to society at large.
As is argued in the second part of the book, the Popular Church
(or church of the poor) implies a contradiction with respect to the
traditional functions assigned to religious institutions of social mediation.
Torres skillfully shows how Christian communities assume a critical
function, both from the perspective of theological interpretations and
from a praxis of contestation. The concept of the “popular” becomes
central, on account of its political implications, and there emerges the
figure of a “prophetic (even ‘revolutionary’) Christian.” Among religious
experiences of the twentieth century, it is one of the most interesting
sociological phenomena.
It is this concept that allows Torres, in Chapter 7, to offer a critique
of some of the typologies in vogue (such as Vallier’s) that seek to
describe the different tendencies (political as well as ideological) within
the Catholic Church, and to propose a comprehensive typology that
combines a technical-theological criterion, an “internal Church praxis”
criterion, a strictly ideological and political criterion, and a “social
praxis” criterion. In his typology Torres proposes the categories of
“neo-Christianity,” “social Christianity,” and “socialism.” In my own
work I have argued that “social-Christianity” could be designated under
the heading of “neo-Christendom” because it was inspired by Jacques
Maritain, and that “neo-Christianity” might also be read as “traditional
conservatism.” Torres is aware of these distinctions when he argues, in
Chapter 9, that “the Argentine church, as a church of Christendom and a
traditional intellectual, has subtly influenced the constitution of common
sense of both the popular and hegemonic classes” but concludes that
“although the Church was able to exert a certain cultural influence, this
was not sufficient to constitute political hegemony.” Highlighting some
of the most salient ideological features of the radical Christian movements
in the region, features which may have contributed to undermining of
the Catholic Church’s search for political hegemony in the 1960s and
1970s, Torres chooses the term “socialism” to classify them, emphasizing
their anti-capitalist character and orientation. Perhaps the term “anti-