When some 600 bishops gathered in Puebla, Mexico, in 1979 for the Third General Conference of the Latin American Episcopate, they sensed that the Latin American Church, with 35 percent of the world’s Catholics, was at a crossroads. In the 1960s reformist and even revolutionary currents had emerged among the clergy. This was in part a response to the liberal atmosphere in the broader church after the Second Vatican Council of 1962 and in part an expression of the conviction that the Church’s indifference to social injustice distorted Christ’s teachings and threatened to lose the masses to Marxism or religious apathy. During the 1960s bishops spoke out in favor of land reform; young priests went into urban slums to establish clinics, schools, and self-help organizations; and Catholic intellectuals developed a new “theology of liberation,” which centered the Church’s mission on ministering to the poor. Their efforts culminated in decisions made at the second conference of Latin American bishops in Medellin, Colombia, in 1968, by which bishops committed the Church to the task of liberating Latin America’s poor from economic and social injustice.This leftward shift generated a counter-reaction in the 1970s. Conservative bishops denounced reformers as more Marxist than Christian, and many Catholics expressed reservations about the clergy’s political activism. Conservatives hoped to regain control of the Church at the third Catholic bishops’ conference in Puebla in 1979. Well-known liberation theologians were excluded, and conservative bishops drafted a policy statement that, if accepted, would have endorsed capitalism and reflected the clergy’s involvement in politics. Remarks by Pope John Paul II, who addressed the opening of the conference, seemed to support the progressives, however, and after two weeks of discussion, the delegates approved a generally progressive statement from which the excerpts that I would like you to read are drawn (you can read them by clicking here).
After Puebla, the Latin American Church remained divided. Churchmen in Chile and Brazil continued to speak out against military regimes, and clergy in Central America were still in the forefront of the struggle for social change. Overall, however, conservatives made gains, especially in Argentina and Colombia. This trend was supported by an increasingly cautious Pope John Paul II, who named conservatives as bishops and approved the disciplining of Leonardo Boff, the Brazilian liberation theologian, in the mid 1980s. While the Catholic Church struggled to clarify its mission, more Latin Americans abandoned religion or joined one of the many Pentecostal Protestant sects spreading through the region.
After reading the excerpts, I would like you to think about and discuss the following: What is the document’s overall assessment of the economic and political state of Latin America? What can be gleaned from the document about the bishop’s views of the underlying causes of Latin American poverty? Why, according to the Puebla statement, should Latin American Catholics find widespread poverty intolerable? What statements in the document seem to confirm the view that it was a compromise between progressives and conservatives? Critics of the Puebla statement contend that it was essentially worthless because it lacked concrete proposals to deal with Latin America’s problems. Do you agree with such criticisms? Your thoughts…
6 comments:
The document really asses the growing problem in Latin America of the growing gap between the rich and the poor. It lists out examples f people suffering and says that their Marxist government will help these people. Also it uses Christianity to legitimize and back the idea and to get more people to support it. I agree though that it doesn't have enough concrete ideas to be plausible, because all it really says is that this is the plan god wants so you should too.
I can see that people are now getting desperate, and will even turn to marxism. It is terrible that we didnt let them see if it worked for them. If used right, it could of worked in Latin America, who knows?
i think its pretty bad that we dont really give marxism a chance for them.. you never know, it could have gone good for them and thats really all they had left to do for themselves is to turn to marxism. we shouldnt think so highly of ourselves as bein able to control other countries and tell them whats right and whats wrong
this article gives you a set of lists of people who suffer. its about the gap between the rich & poor. They say that marxism is a really bad and try to stay away from it. they are using the church to make a difference and raise a voice.
In the beginning he talks about how the rich and poor are beginning to separate to a even greater extent. He says that this is not what God wanted. God did not want the young to be hopeless because they are born into poverty and do not fit in and that peasants that are basically in exile and the laborers who suffer from minimum wage. He says that they should be respected just like everyone else because we are all made from God. He seems to be saying people are scared of Marxism? But he says that the people will look to it because it promises social justice and that the capital free marketing makes the gap between the rich and the poor even bigger.
The document wants reform for the poor and exploited population of Latin America, but wants to go about doing it in a way that is neither capitilist nor Marxist. Capitilism invites exploitation of the laboroer, but Marxism cause atheism and violence by guerrila groups. The Church wants reform but in a way that is not based on economics with the focus still remaining on God.
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