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The
liberation movements throughout Latin America evoked a
unique and generous response in Ireland during the latter
half of the last century. No other European country
experienced the same enthusiastic response to the Latin
American phenomenon. This was
due in part to the special affinity which exists between the
two peoples, separated by geography, but united by a shared
colonial experience and centuries of struggle to liberate
themselves from their colonial and neo-colonial
conquistadors. Indeed, the
Irish struggle to put an end to British colonial rule in
Northern Ireland during the latter half of the last century
evoked the sympathy and solidarity of political activists
throughout Latin America.
This
special affinity is also highlighted by the fact that the
Catholic Hierarchy have played an important role in the
political and socioeconomic lives of both peoples, and have
not always responded as adequately as they should to the
needs and aspirations of the poor and oppressed members of
their flocks. However, it must be noted that in Ireland and
Latin America there were always some members of the Catholic
clergy who did take a stand on the side of the oppressed and
suffered the consequences of their commitment.
We shall see in the following
observations concerning the
impact of the Theology of Liberation on those who challenged
the unjust status quo, and who
struggled to establish a more just and equitable social
order.
The 1960s
ushered in a new era of social unrest and political turmoil
in the sub-continent due to the spread of revolutionary
ideas and guerrilla warfare aimed at
putting an end to the
military dictatorships, and to establishing a more just and
egalitarian society. Fidel Castro and Che Guevara and their
guerrillas had ousted the Batista
dictatorship in Cuba in
1959, and were establishing a Marxist-oriented regime in
that country. Several other Latin American countries were
experiencing similar conflicts, and the
leadership of the Catholic
Church sought the appropriate response
to this new reality. The Latin American bishops,
meeting in Rio de Janeiro in 1956,
organized the Latin American Bishops Council (CELAM) which
would provide new leadership and new approaches to the
church´s mission in the region. The basic challenge to the
institutional church was to abandon its collaboration with
the status quo, and become identified as a catalyst for
change by applying Catholic Social Teaching, as defined by
several Papal Encyclicals, to the socioeconomic problems
which beset the Latin American people, especially the poor.
Due to the impact of the Second Vatican Council, popes and
other church leaders began to make pronouncements on the
controversial issues of peace, justice, poverty and human
development.
Following
the lead of the Council, Pope Paul VI
issued his Encyclical ‘On The
Development of Peoples’ (Populorum
Progressio)
in 1967 in which he called for ‘the
building of a new society where all individuals, regardless
of their race, religion or nationality, could live a fully
human life, freed from the servitude imposed on them by
others.’ He denounced the
‘international imperialism of
money’, and the growing gap
between rich and poor nations,
and demanded that the less-developed nations be given the
opportunity to become the protagonists of their own
development.
As a result
of such pronouncements, theological reflection on social
issues became more widespread, and many theologians began to
abandon the purely spiritual approach in favor of a new
theological reflection which addressed itself to the
controversial issues of peace, justice, poverty and integral
human development. The Theology of Liberation was formulated
by a Peruvian priest, Fr. Gustavo Gutiérrez, of indigenous
extraction, in the late 1960s. This innovative and
revolutionary theological reflection has had a significant
impact on the Catholic Church´s
mission in Latin America and elsewhere. It has also posed a
challenge for foreign missionaries working in the region.
Gutiérrez understood the need
for a theological reflection based on a sociological
analysis of the human situation, rather than the traditional
European spiritualistic approach. He spoke about the new
awareness of those who were traditionally excluded from the
historical process this way: ‘Our
times bear the imprint of the new presence of those who used
to be absent from church and society. By
“absent”
I mean of little or no importance in church and society’
(Gutiérrez 1988: page xx).
He has in mind ethnic minorities, and the poor in general,
who had no role in society other than that of serving the
needs of the ruling elite. It was a new type of theological
reflection, based on personal experience by a man who lived
and worked among the poor and indigenous people of his
native land, and realized the need to provide a theological
framework that would help them liberate themselves from
their condition of servitude.
In 1968, A
CELAM Conference was held in Medellín, Colombia, and issued
what came to be known as ‘The
Medellín Documents’ which were
intended to signal a radical change in the traditional
Church alliance with the status
quo. The Documents denounced ‘institutionalized
violence’ in the region, and
challenged church leaders to identify themselves with the
struggles of the poor. The bishops spoke about a
‘new epoch’
in Latin American history, and ‘the
struggle for liberation from servitude’
which was interpreted as official CELAM approval for the
Theology of Liberation. CELAM also emphasized the
‘Preferential Option for the Poor’,
and the promotion of the Ecclesial Base Communities (CEBs)
as a means to unite, educate and evangelize the local people.
In Brazil, the sociologist and educator Paulo Freire
wrote The Pedagogy of the
Oppressed (1970) and
invented a new term for promoting self-awareness called `conscientization’
as a liberating educational activity, linking theory
with praxis, that would help the poor and oppressed find
solutions to their problems. It reminds one of the famous
dictum of the Irish poet and patriot, Thomas Davis:
‘Educate that you may be free’.
Irish
missionaries, conscious of their own history as a colonized
and oppressed people, had little difficulty resonating with
the liberationist movements in Latin America. And the Latin
American people, for their part, had little difficulty in
accepting and welcoming Irish missionaries due to this
shared colonial experience. They tend to resent foreigners
who try to impose their own solutions without understanding
or taking into account the aspirations of the local people.
They welcome foreigners who come to accompany them in their
struggles and strive to adjust to their cultural ambience.
This involves first learning from the people before one can
begin to help the people. It also involves a good deal of
humility and perseverance. It is said that St. Patrick was
the greatest missionary of all time, because he already
understood the language and the religious beliefs of the
Irish people. He did not set out to reject or condemn their
beliefs, but rather to enrich and Christianize those pagan
beliefs and practices.
Patrick recognized that the
´Seed of the Word´ is present in all ancient cultures, as
the Vatican II document Ad Gentes also recognized.
The 1970s
saw the beginning of a neo-conservative `backlash´ against
the liberationist movements in Latin America. President
Salvador Allende was implementing a people-oriented,
socialist regime in Chile which provoked the anger of the
local oligarchy, and led to the US-backed coup d´état
which resulted in the death of
Allende, and the installation of a military dictatorship led
by General Pinochet. Thousands were arrested, tortured and
‘disappeared’
under Pinochet´s neo-fascist regime, and some Columbian
missionaries were arrested and deported because they took a
stand on the side of justice in solidarity with the victims.
Notwithstanding the atrocities committed by his regime, the
dictator enjoyed the support of some prominent Vatican
officials, including the Papal Nuncio (Ambassador) to Chile,
Cardinal Angelo Sodano. While
the Archbishop of Santiago was criticizing the regime for
its gross violation of human rights, the Nuncio was giving Pinochet his tacit
approval. The General was able to curry favor with the
Vatican presenting himself as the Defender of the Faith and
the sworn enemy of Communism. When Pinochet was arrested in
London in October, 1998 for
crimes against humanity, his old friend Sodano, now
Secretary of State in the Vatican, used his diplomatic
influence to plead with the British government on the
general´s behalf for ‘humanitarian
reasons’.
This neo-conservative
backlash against the liberation movements in Latin America
was supported by some ultraconservative Catholic religious
organizations like Opus Dei, Legionaries of Christ,
et al. Due to their wealth and political influence,
they could unduly influence Vatican policies, and give aid
and comfort to fascist-oriented Catholic dictators in Latin
America.
In 1976, a
military dictatorship was installed in Argentina and all
those who opposed the regime were branded as communists and
subversives. The generals unleashed their infamous
‘dirty war’
and thousands were kidnapped, tortured and
`disappeared`. One of the victims was Patricio Rice,
a Divine Word missionary from Cork who was arrested,
tortured and accused of subversive activities. He was later
released due to the intervention of the Irish government,
and went on to become one of the most outstanding defenders
of the victims of the dictatorship as co-founder of FEDEFAM,
a NGO Federation dedicated to the protection of victims of
illegal arrest, torture and forced `disappearance´. He
received a doctorate Honoris Causa from University
College Cork
shortly before his untimely death in 2010.
Not
unlike the situation in Chile,
the Papal Nuncio and the local hierarchy cooperated with the
repressive regime, and the only bishop to speak out against
the reign of terror was killed in what was made to look like
a road accident, according to human rights activists. In
1976, a military death squad gunned down three priests and
two seminarians of the Pallottine Order at St. Patrick´s
Church rectory, and the tragic event is remembered in
Argentina as ‘La Masacre de
San Patricio’ (The Massacre
at St. Patrick´s). The victims were accused of being against
the military dictatorship. Irish Pallottines have a long
history of service to the Irish community in Argentina. The
Mothers of the Disappeared (Las Madres de la Plaza de
Mayo) later appealed to the Italian judicial system to
bring the former Nuncio, Cardinal Pio Laghi to justice for
complicity in the crimes of the dictatorship,
but the cardinal enjoys diplomatic immunity as an official
of the Vatican State (The Holy
See). The Spanish theologian and author, Fr.
Juan José Tamayo Acosta in an article published in
the Spanish newspaper, El País,
(2. 3.99) denounced this type of cohabitation between the
Institutional church and military dictators in Latin America
as ‘anti-democratic, anti-evangelical,
anti-human and anti-divine’. (Translated
by ‘Remember Chile’.
http://www.remember-chile.org.uk/comment/vatican.htm)
Central
America took center stage during the 1980s, and Irish
missionaries and lay volunteers began working in El
Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala. The region was convulsed
by social unrest due to guerrilla activity, and the
struggles to put an end to the unjust political and
socioeconomic status quo in the region. In 1979, the
Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua ousted the dictator Somoza,
and began to install a socialist regime which was supported
by several Catholic priests who occupied ministerial posts
in the new government. Guerrillas in Guatemala and El
Salvador were also attempting to bring about a similar
transformation in their own countries.
The Reagan
administration decided to make war on the liberation
movements by organizing and financing the
‘Contra’
war against the Sandinista regime, and by shipping military
hardware to the repressive government in El Salvador. The
red herring of Marxist infiltration served as a pretext to
justify this policy, and all those in any way associated
with the liberation movements became soft targets of
government-sponsored paramilitaries and death squads. In
1980, Archbishop Romero of San Salvador was gunned down by a
hired assassin in broad daylight as he celebrated Mass. At
his funeral service, the military opened fire on the crowds
of worshippers, killing forty-four innocent people and
wounding hundreds. The archbishop had become a target of the
military establishment when he denounced their gross
violations of basic human rights. He did not get any support
from the Papal Nuncio in El Salvador, so he became a `soft
target´ for the military dictatorship. Both the Vatican and
the local hierarchy have been accused of abandoning the
Archbishop to his tragic fate.
One year
later in El Salvador, three American nuns and their lay
volunteer were arrested, kidnapped, raped and brutally
murdered by National Guards in broad daylight on an open
highway. These horrific murders of innocent people provoked
shock and outrage in Ireland, and Irish missionaries and lay
volunteers returning from Central America launched a
vigorous campaign against US military intervention in the
region. Solidarity groups were organized around the country,
and pressure was brought to bear on government officials to
take a stand at the UN and in the European Parliament
against US military intervention in Central America in favor
of a peaceful political resolution of the conflicts. Michael
D. Higgins,T.D. and Niall Andrews, MEP, conducted a fact-finding
tour of the region, and were instrumental in getting the
Irish government actively involved. The Irish government did
sponsor the Franco-Mexican resolution at the UN which
eventually brought about a peaceful political resolution of
the conflict in El Salvador.
When
President Reagan visited Ireland in 1984 he was met with
huge crowds of protesters, headed by priests and nuns,
denouncing his war-mongering policies in Central America.
Some protesters carried banners and coffins reminiscent of
Archbishop Romero and the US nuns and their lay volunteer.
The lay volunteer was Irish-American Jean Donovan who had
studied at University College Cork,
and her brutal murder had provoked much outrage in Cork City
and beyond. Several priests and religious kept a Fast and
prayer vigil at the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin for the
duration of Reagan´s visit. This extraordinary outpouring of
sympathy and solidarity with the Central American people was
a unique and historic event, and served to remind the world
at large of the injustice and wrongheadedness of President
Reagan´s bellicose policies in Central America.
Historians
are still puzzled as to why the Vatican and Pope John Paul
II decided to counteract the
liberation movements in Latin America during the 1980s. Some
Latin American analysts claimed that the Vatican had entered
into a secret alliance, which they called the
‘Holy Alliance’
with the Reagan White House to counteract the
liberation movements in exchange for US support for the
Solidarity movement in Poland, with which the Polish Pope
was closely associated. US government officials believed
that the liberationist movements were a serious threat to US
hegemony in the region. Vatican officials used the same
pretext as US officials about the Marxist influence behind
those movements, despite the fact that the Latin American
bishops had repeatedly rejected that theory. They pointed
out that the social unrest in the region was due to poverty
and injustice, and not to communist infiltration.
Whatever
the real motivation, the Vatican launched an aggressive
campaign against all clergy and theologians associated with
liberationist ideologies in the early 1980s. The priests
serving in the Sandinista government were ordered to resign
their posts, some theologians were `silenced´ (forbidden to
write or teach) and progressive bishops were replaced by
more conservative successors. This Vatican procedure created
a polarized situation as well as confrontation between the
conservative and the more progressive elements in the church.
This confrontation came to a head at the CELAM Conference in
Santo Domingo in 1992, when the conservative Roman delegates
tried to dictate the agenda, and were challenged by the more
progressive Latin American delegates. It was a clash between
those who wished to impose a Eurocentric model of
Church, and those who claimed
that the European, neo-colonial model was too authoritarian
and patriarchal, and out of touch with the modern Latin
American reality. After much heated debate, a compromise was
reached, whereby the Latin American model, inspired by the
Theology of Liberation, the CEBs and the Option for the Poor,
was maintained and approved. Irish journalist and author of
several books on Latin America, Gary MacEoin, reporting on
the Conference to The National Catholic Reporter
(NCR) stated that Rome is afraid of the South, the
world of the poor, the marginalized, people of `color´ and
non-European cultures. It would also endanger the coveted
relationship is it had
built up with Washington as an ally in the Cold War, as well
as its economic power base in the North. He believed that
the Vatican prefers to concentrate on the upper and middle
classes, e.g. Opus Dei et al., thereby harboring the
notion that those classes would, in turn, evangelize the
poor vía a spiritual version of the economic `trickle-down´
theory, long since discredited (MacEoin, NCR, 1992).
MacEoin’s sentiments are echoed by
Dr. Michael Hogan, an
Irish-American educator and author who has lived and worked
in Latin America for many years. In his recent book,
Savage Capitalism and the Myth of Democracy
(2009), he upbraids
the Institutional Church for its failure to meet the needs
and aspirations of the poor and marginalized in Latin
America. He criticizes the present Pope´s
call for a New Evangelization program which seems to avoid
any real commitment to work for social justice, and
concentrates on a purely spiritualistic approach to
evangelization. He states: ‘the
genuine irony, is, of course, that liberation theology and
the option for the poor, which Cardinal Ratzinger denigrated
as Marxist, was a clear and powerful alternative to Marxism,
and … continues to be the best hope for empowering people to
change their lives, to create grass roots democratic
movements, and to form safe, self-sufficient prosperous
communities.’
Irish
missionaries, and lay volunteers supported by Irish NGOs,
continue their good work throughout the region. They
continue to bring a message of Hope and Irish solidarity
with the poor and disenfranchised, who struggle to liberate
themselves from the neo-colonial servitude imposed on them
by others.
Conclusion:
The Search
For Utopia
In the
ongoing search for a more just and qualitatively different
society in Latin America, the Theology
of Liberation still has a vital
role to play as it strives to challenge and transform the
religious, cultural, economic and social models which have
failed to meet Christian standards for the development of a
just society. It also provides an invaluable analytical tool
for a more in-depth understanding of the Latin American
sociological reality.
Liberation
Theologians point out that the
term ‘Utopia’
needs to be rescued from the illusory misconceptions of the
past. They claim that when Thomas More wrote Utopia
he was criticizing the status quo in which he lived, and
dreaming of a new society in which the common good would
take precedence over power and privilege. In this context,
Utopian thought and the
Theology of
Liberation tend to be
subversive and revolutionary. Indeed,
Gustavo Gutiérrez
claims that ‘Utopia must
necessarily lead to a commitment to support the emergence of
a new social consciousness, and new relationships among
persons’ (Gutiérrez,
1988: 136).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
-Freire,
Paulo, Pedagogy of the
Oppressed (New York:
Continuum Publishing Company, 1990).
-Fogarty, James,
Liberation and Development: A Latin American
Perspective (London:
Minerva Press 1998).
-Gutiérrez, Gustavo, A Theology of Liberation, (New York:
Maryknoll Orbis Books, 1988).
-Hogan, Michael,
Savage Capitalism and the Myth of Democracy
(Booklocker.com 2009).
-Kirby, Peadar, Ireland and
Latin America: Links and
Lessons (Trócaire
and Gill and Macmillan, I992).
-MacEoin,
Gary Unlikely Allies: The Christian-Socialist
Convergence (New York:
The Crossroads Publishing
Company, 1990).
-MacEoin, Gary,
National Catholic Reporter (NCR), 1993.
O´Brien,
Leonard, Children of the Sun: The Cork Mission to South
America (Veritas
Publications, 2009).
-Pope Paul V1,
‘On the Development of Peoples’,
US Catholic Conference, Washington,
D. C. 1967.
Populorum Progressio http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_26031967_populorum_en.html
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