Silver, Sword, and Stone
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how a country might heal its soul: He may have been referring to one of his indigenous informants, who had told him in all candor, “el país me hace sufrir”—the country makes me suffer. Albó, Television interview, La Paz, “No Mentiras PAT,” April 9, 2016.
CHAPTER 12: HOUSE OF GOD
Epigraph; “ ‘‘Politics is in crisis”: Pope Francis I, quoted in Caroline Stauffer and Philip Pullella, “Pope Ends Latin American Trip with Warning About Political Corruption,” Reuters, January 21, 2018.
the Old European allegory about Latin America was false: Cañizares-Esguerra, 71.
When the Latin American revolutions were over: Arana, Bolívar, 458.
Civilian populations had been reduced by a third: Christon Archer, ed. The Wars of Independence in Spanish America, Jaguar Books on Latin America, no. 20 (Wilmington, DE: SR Books, 2000), 35–37, 283–92.
Churches and convents that hadn’t been destroyed: Hanke, “A Modest Proposal,” 126.
No one paid much attention to how much control the Church had lost: Cleary, How Latin America, 115.
curb the old tradition of acting as the Vatican’s collection agency: John Frederick Schwaller, The History of the Catholic Church in Latin America: From Conquest to Revolution and Beyond, 132.
Mexico, for instance, seized and nationalized all church property: Arturo Elias, consul general of Mexico, in the New York Times, February 21, 1926. It’s worth adding here that Mexico is closer to a fuller separation of church and state than the United States is. In Mexico, the church is forbidden from certain rights and activities. Anthony T. C. Cowden, “The Role of Religion in the Mexican Drug War” (paper, Naval War College, Newport, RI, October 2011), www.researchgate.net/publication/277760802.
the Latin American Church was in grave crisis: Ibid., 114.
Caribbean blacks returned to the voodoo and trances: T. L. Smith, “Three Specimens of Religious Syncretism in Latin America,” International Review of Modern Sociology 4, no. 1 (Spring 1974): 1–18.
In the isolated Mexican sierra of Nayarit: Aldana Guillermo, “Mesa del Nayar’s Strange Holy Week,” National Geographic, June 1971, 780–95.
Maryknoll missionaries from the United States, having shifted: Cleary, How Latin America, 116.
the Catholic Church was in a deeply pitched battle: Ibid.
the concept of “inculturation”: Xavier Albó, in interviews with me, volunteered repeatedly that he had been evangelized in the course of his sixty-five years among the indigenous.
by recruiting Indian and mixed-race “catechists”: Cleary, How Latin America, 183.
“We affirm that both religions, Aymara and Christian, teach love”: Xavier Albó, “The Aymara Religious Experience,” in Marzal et al., 165.
“We cannot persuade ourselves to believe anything you preach”: Pedro de Quiroga, testimonial taken from a Peruvian Indian, “Coloquio de la verdad,” in El indio dividido: fractures de conciencia en el Perú colonial, ed. Ana Vian Herrero (Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2009), 505.
Epigraph; “I come from a continent in which more than sixty percent”: Gustavo Gutiérrez Merino, Teología de la liberación (Salamanca, Sp.: Ediciones Sígueme, 1971), 15. See also Gutiérrez, “Teología de la liberación y contexto literario” [Theology of liberation and literary context], www.ensayistas.org/critica/liberacion/TL/documentos/gutierrez.htm.
“If faith is a commitment to God and fellow man”: Gutiérrez, Teología, 15.
Poverty was not a fatal disease, it was a treatable condition: Gustavo Gutiérrez Merino, in Páginas, vols. 191–96 (Lima: Centro de estudios y publicaciones, 2005). See also the Jesuit website Pastoralsj, https://pastoralsj.org/creer/1298-gustavo-gutierrez.
The Vatican’s reaction was swift and damning: For a variety of perspectives on this, see Juan Luis Segundo, Theology and the Church: A Response to Cardinal Ratzinger and a Warning to the Whole Church (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987) and Christian Smith, The Emergence of Liberation Theology: Radical Religion and Social Movement Theory (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1991).
Pope John XXIII announced the Second Vatican Council: See “Second Vatican Council,” Encyclopædia Britannica online, www.britannica.com/event/Second-Vatican-Council.
“a pilgrim people of God”: Lumen Gentium, no. 48, Pope Paul VI, November 21, 1964, Vatican Council; Father Joshua Brommer, “The Church: A Pilgrim People of God,” Diocese of Harrisburg online, accessed February 2, 2019, www.hbgdiocese.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/042613-Vatican-II-article-the-Church.pdf.
assassinations of more than a dozen world figures: Among them, Humberto Delgado (Portugal), Ngo Dinh Diem (Vietnam), Medgar Evers (US), Che Guevara (Bolivia), John F. Kennedy (US), Robert F. Kennedy (US), Martin Luther King Jr. (US), Grigoris Lambrakis (Greece), Patrice Lumumba (Congo), Malcolm X (US), Sylvanus Olympio (Togo), Jason Sendwe (Congo), Rafael Trujillo (Dominican Republic), Hendrik Verwoerd (South Africa).
a vast army of the poor marched out under the banner: Diego Barros Arana, “La Acción del clero en la revolución de la independencia americana,” in Miguel Amunátegui and Barros Arana, La Iglesia frente a la emancipación americana, 111–21.
“evil ones” . . . “a plague from a sinister well”: Amunátegui and Barros Arana, La Iglesia, 18.
With that blistering encyclical in tow: Ibid.
“the preferential option for the poor”: Cleary, How Latin America, 53.
accused the Vatican of being a rigid, fundamentalist dynasty: “Nao existe guerra justa,” Comunità Italiana, last modified November 2001, www.comunitaitaliana.com.br/Entrevistas/boff.htm.
“rebellion, division, dissent, offense, and anarchy”: Pope Benedict XVI, in a December 7, 2009, address to Brazilian bishops, as quoted in Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Jonathan Watts, “Catholic Church Warms to Liberation,” Guardian (UK edition), May 11, 2015, www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/11/vatican-new-chapter-liberation-theology-founder-gustavo-gutierrez.
targeted for assassination by hit men: Juan Arias, “Casaldáliga reta a Roma,” El País (Madrid), January 16, 2005.
in Brazil that the military soon mounted a campaign: Schwaller, Catholic Church in Latin America, 234–35.
Pope John Paul II defrocked two more: “Father Fernando Cardenal’s Decision,” Envío, Información sobre Nicaragua y Centroamérica, no. 43, January 1985, www.envio.org.ni/articulo/3387.
“If Jesus were alive today, He would be a guerrilla”: Manlio Graziano, Holy Wars and Holy Alliances (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), 249.
disavowed, suspended a divinis: Ibid.
He was Luís Espinal—Lucho, as he was known: Espinal is well known to the Bolivian public, not only as a priest but also as a poet, playwright, journalist, and activist. His best-known published work is probably Oraciones a quemarropa, Prayers at point-blank range. Among his films are Chuquiago and El embrujo de mi tierra.
his naked corpse flung to one side of the road to Chacaltaya: “El cuerpo de Espinal tenía 17 orificios de bala,” El Deber (Bol.), January 1, 2017.
state of terror condoned by Henry Kissinger and funded: “Operation Condor: National Security Archive Presents Trove of Declassified Documentation in Historic Trial in Argentina,” George Washington University National Security Archive (legacy online site), last modified May 6, 2015, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB514; Ben Norton, “Documents Detail US Complicity in Operation Condor Terror Campaign,” Truthout online, last modified May 23, 2015, https://truthout.org/articles/documents-detail-us-complicity-in-operation-condor-terror-campaign; John Dinges, Condor Years.
suspected of being “dangerous subversives”: “El Papa rezará en silencio por el jesuita Luís Espinal,” Periodista Digital, May 15, 2015.
the first Aymara president of Bolivia: The first South American president of full-blooded indigenous descent was Alejandro Toledo of Peru, who was elected in 2001. Morales was elected in 2005.
Epigraph; “It is now obvious that these facile millenarianisms”: “Interview of His Holiness Benedict
XVI During the Flight to Brazil, Wednesday, 9 May 2007,” accessed on March 16, 2009, https://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2007/may/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20070509_interview-brazil.html.
When Pope Benedict XVI . . . flew to Brazil: Cleary, How Latin America, 1.
more than half of all practicing Catholics lived in Latin America: All statistics in this segment on Catholics and Pentecostalists are taken from the following reports by the Pew Research Center online, Washington, DC: “Religion in Latin America,” last modified November 13, 2014; “The Global Catholic Population,” last modified February 13, 2013; “Global Christianity—A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Christian Population,” last modified December 19, 2011; “Spirit and Power—A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals,” last modified October 5, 2006; “Overview: Pentecostalism in Latin America,” last modified October 5, 2006.
“global north”: Technically, this also includes Japan, although, for the purposes of this point, Japan is excluded, since it is not a Christian country.
Whereas one hundred years ago a full 90 percent: “Global Christianity,” Pew Research Center online.
the bloodiest religious wars in recorded human history: Europe’s Thirty Years War at the verge of the Reformation (1618–48), which took eight million lives and triggered a famine as well as a flurry of diseases.
London’s churches, emptied of worshipers, are reemerging: Lindsey Olander, “13 Grandiose Churches Reincarnated as Restaurants,” Travel + Leisure, May 12, 2015.
decommissioned and shuttered in the Netherlands: Naftali Bendavid, “Europe’s Empty Churches,” Wall Street Journal, January 2, 2015; “Netherlands: Abandoned Church Converted into Skatepark,” video uploaded January 31, 2015, by RT, 1:18, www.youtube.com/watch?v=fV3k5UntyL4.
In Germany, from Berlin to Mönchengladbach: Soeren Kern, “German Church Becomes Mosque: The New Normal,” Gatestone Institute online, last modified February 13, 2013, www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3585/german-church-becomes-mosque.
In Spain and Portugal: Alice Newell-Hanson, “19 Hotels That Used to Be Churches,” Condé Nast Traveler, March 29, 2018.
not far from the White House, houses of worship: Helen Wieffering, “DC’s Old School and Church Buildings Are Getting New Life,” Greater Greater Washington, February 1, 2018.
venerable old churches reopen as breweries: Dake Kang, Associated Press, “Holy Spirits: Closed Churches Find Second Life as Breweries,” October 6, 2017.
So much so that the great majority of Christians: 61 percent, according to “Global Christianity,” Pew Research Center online; Joey Marshall, “The World’s Most Committed Christians,” FactTank, Pew Research Center online, last modified August 22, 2018.
Even as the Church is struggling financially: In my own neighborhood in Lima, Peru, the well-known Iglesia de la Virgen Fátima is currently contemplating selling its adjoining monastery to a five-star hotel chain. The neighborhood was told it was because all the Church’s money had been rerouted from Latin America to Asia or Africa, and the management needed desperately to raise funds. According to Fortune, February 17, 2013: “For all its splendor, the Vatican is nearly broke. . . . With investments of some $500 million, the Vatican commands fewer financial resources than many U.S. universities. . . . Curiously, the Vatican finds itself in financial straits when the Church is showing new vitality around the world. . . . Energetic missionary work and the Pope’s frequent, triumphal visits have swelled the ranks of Catholics in Africa and Asia, particularly in Nigeria and India.”
at the rate of ten thousand souls a day?: Brian Smith, Religious Politics in Latin America: Pentecostal Vs. Catholic, 2.
a man who insisted he wanted a church of and for the poor: “Pope Francis Reveals Why He Chose His Name,” Catholic Herald, March 16, 2013.
as Pope Benedict pointed out: “Interview of His Holiness Benedict XVI.”
the violence that had rattled through the latter half: Brian Smith, 6–7.
“The Catholic Church opted for the poor”: John Berryman, quoted in Kenneth Serbin, “The Catholic Church, Religious Pluralism” (working paper 3263, Kellogg Institute for International Studies, Notre Dame, IN, February 1999).
most beloved pontiffs . . . the “preferential option for the poor”: Cleary, How Latin America, 90.
“The wrongs done to indigenous peoples need to be”: Pope John Paul II, “Ecclesia in Oceania,” given in Rome, Saint Peter’s, November 22, 2001, Apostolic Exhortation, Catholic News Agency online, www.catholicnewsagency.com/document/ecclesia-in-oceania-675.
When Bishop Óscar Romero of El Salvador pleaded with him: Gina Pianigiani, “Pope Paves Way for Sainthood for Archbishop Óscar Romero,” New York Times, March 7, 2018.
John Paul simply cautioned him: Holly Sklar, Washington’s War on Nicaragua (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1988), 51.
“But Holy Father,” Romero protested: Ibid.
it was prepared to kill as many as three hundred thousand: The head of the National Guard, Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, is quoted as saying, “Today the armed forces are prepared to kill two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand, if that’s what it takes to stop a Communist takeover.” Ibid., 50.
“We want peace!” “Power to the people!”: Christopher Dickey, “Pope Heckled During Mass in Nicaragua,” Washington Post, March 5, 1983.
“straighten out your position with the Church!”: Pope John Paul II, quoted in Alan Riding, “Pope Says Taking Sides in Nicaragua Is Peril to Church,” New York Times, March 5, 1983.
“Christ led me to Marx!”: Michael Novak, “The Case Against Liberation Theology,” New York Times online, October 21, 1984.
“rapacious wolves . . . pseudospiritual movements”: Brian Smith, 4; Edward L. Cleary, “John Paul Cries ‘Wolf’: Misreading the Pentecostals,” Commonweal, November 20, 1992.
blessed by and paid for by the CIA: Brian Smith, 4.
“From the very beginning, the Catholic Church”: John Paul II, in a speech in Mexico in 1993. “Discurso del Santo Padre Juan Pablo II,” Viaje Apostólico a Jamaica, México y Denver, Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Izamal, August 11, 1993, Libreria Editrice Vaticana.
“The great masses are without adequate”: John Paul II, discourse in Santo Domingo, 1992, quoted in Brian Smith, 7.
“We have all heard the old song”: Samuel Rodríguez, “America: It’s Time for a New Song,” sermon, 2016, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (the largest Evangelical/Pentecostal organization in the world).
a convert was expected to attend religious services regularly: All expectations and promises here are taken from the Pew Research report “Religion in Latin America.”
evangelical church is being credited with the creation of a new middle class: Anderson Antunes, “The Richest Pastors of Brazil,” Forbes, January 17, 2013.
credited with the transformation of a number of conservative parties: Javier Corrales, “A Perfect Marriage: Evangelicals and Conservatives in Latin America,” New York Times, January 17, 2018.
in Brazil, where a quarter of the population live in abject poverty: Jay Forte, “More Than 50 Million Brazilians Living Below Poverty Line,” Rio Times, December 16, 2017.
a private jet worth $45 million: This is Edir Macedo of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, in Rio de Janeiro. Anderson Antunes, “Richest Pastors.”
On one sunlit morning in Natal: Marie Arana, “Preparing for the Pope,” New York Times, June 19, 2013.
Epigraph; “There are blows in life, so hard”: César Vallejo, “Los heraldos negros,” Cesar Vallejo: Antología Poética (Madrid: EDAF, 1999), 67. (My translation.)
exterminated almost half a million: J. Rodrigo, Cautivos: Campos de concentración en la España franquista, 1936–1947 (Madrid: Editorial Crítica, 2005).
Vicente Cañas, a Jesuit friend who had immersed himself so thoroughly in the indigenous: Tamara Fariñas, “El Jesuita español que se volvió indio,” El Confidencial, November 8, 2017.
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�that silly little priest”: Ibid.
pistol-whipped and shot point-blank in the neck: C. Machado, “Secretaria de Direitos Humanos reconhece que religioso morreu vítima do regime militar,” Agência Brasil, April 19, 2010. Also “João Bosco Penio Burnier, S.J.,” 1976, Ignatian Solidarity Nework online, https://ignatiansolidarity.net/blog/portfolio-item/joao-bosco-penido-burnier-1976-brazil.
Epigraph; “It is their natural right to be recognized”: “Bishop Samuel Ruíz Garcia,” Emily Fund online, accessed February 3, 2019, www.doonething.org/heroes/pages-r/ruiz-quotes.htm.
It began when the Church sent catechists: Enrique Krauze, Redeemers, 414–16.
the lay deacons, eight thousand strong: Ginger Thompson, “Vatican Curbing Deacons in Mexico,” New York Times, March 12, 2002.
a centuries-old aspiration among the Indians: Krauze, Redeemers, 419.
Ruíz, who had become prophet, priest, and king: Ibid., 420.
radicalized by the government’s bloody 1968 Tlatelolco massacre: James McKinley, “Bodies Found in Mexico City May Be Victims of 1968 Massacre,” New York Times, July 11, 2007.
Trained by Cuban guerrillas: Krauze, Redeemers, 437–38.
a return to roots: This is a direct quote from Octavio Paz, In Search of the Present: Nobel Lecture 1990 (San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1990), 22.
resurgence of the most ancient of all pasts, Indian Mexico: Quote from Krauze, Redeemers, 433.
damning the depravities Indians were too often prey to: Ibid., 446.
Zapatistas quickly adopted biblical names: Ibid., 424.
“God and his Word aren’t worth a damn”: Ibid.
“Here there will be no Word of God”: Ibid., 425.
Root (slo¯p in Tzeltal Mayan), a clandestine group: John Womack Jr. et al., in Rebellion in Chiapas: An Historical Reader, ed. Womack (New York: New Press, 1999). Also quoted in Enrique Krauze, “Chiapas: The Indians’ Prophet,” New York Review of Books 45, December 16, 1999.
“These people [the Zapatistas] have arrived to mount a saddled horse”: Krauze, Redeemers, 425.