liberation theology in peru- an analysis of the role of intellectuals in social movements ...

Liberation Theology in Peru: An Analysis of the Role of Intellectuals in Social MovementsAuthor(s): Milagros PeñaReviewed work(s):Source: Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Mar., 1994), pp. 34-45Published by: Wiley on behalf of Society for the Scientific Study of ReligionStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1386635 .

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Liberation Theology in Peru: An Analysis of the Role of Intellectuals in Social Movements*

MILAGROS PENAt

In moving the social movement literature forward, researchers are now examining political discourse and the framing of protest language and symbols as important variables in movement processes. This case study on liberation theology in Peru analyzes how theologians have helped to mobilize Church activists, priests, sisters, and organizational resources to meet the political challenges of the popular sector by advancing liberation theology. More specifically, this paper looks at how Church leaders who are identified with liberation theology helped bridge different protest populations. Using oral histories methodology, I gathered data on liberation theology through field resarch conducted in Peru from September 1987 to May 1988 and in the summer of 1991.

INTRODUCTION

Tilly (1978) and other resource mobilization theorists (Gamson 1975; McCarthy and Zald 1977; Oberschall 1973) have argued that the extent of protest depends upon the number of resources under a group's collective control. One cannot assume, however, that material resources are the only ingredient for successful mobilization - movement discourse and its articulators are also important. Building upon this insight is necessary if we are to understand a significant feature of liberation theology and its usefulness to social protest in Peru. Liberation theologians have, at least periodically, been able to use the material resources of the Catholic Church to broadcast their ideas and to support grass-roots protest, which fit into their model of social change. In this sense, their actions fit neatly into models of organized protest that stress the importance of communications networks, broad-based constituencies, and effective preexisting leadership (Freeman 1983; Zald and McCarthy 1979; McAdam 1982; Morris 1984).

The case of liberation theology in Peru adds an often neglected aspect to social movement research: a specific analysis of the intellectual's role in social movements. How do intellectuals resonate with movement goals and strategies? How do they use their intellectual skills to provide an ideological ethic that bridges more than one protest population? And, here, how did theologians and other leaders use theology to garner support for their programs? Because of its central and visible role in transforming a conservative

* This paper is part of a larger study, Theologies and Liberation, to be published by Temple University Press. I thank Lewis Coser, Michael Schwartz, Richard Williams, Michael Zweig, Linda Pertusati, and anonymous reuiewers for their critiques and insights. The Graduate School at SUNY Stony Brook provided a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, which helped finance this research from September 1987 to May 1988. A faculty Basic Research Grant from Bowling Green State University supported interviews conducted in the summer of 1991.

t Milagros Peisa is an assistant professor of ethnic studies and sociology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403.

e@Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 1994 33 (1):34-45 34



LIBERATION THEOLOGY IN PERU 35

church into polarities of resistance in Peru and throughout Latin America, liberation theology is an ideal locus for considering these issues. Liberation theology in itself is not the focus of study here; what is particularly important is how religious leaders in Peru converted preexisting inherited religious ideas from their routine formulations to ideologies that support popularl mobilization. Advancing some insights already made by Ferree and Miller (1985), Jenkins (1983), McAdam (1982), Smith (1991), Snow, Rochford, Worden, and Benford (1986), Snow and Benford (1988), and others, I examine the role of liberationists in Peru in promoting the goals and strategies of the popular sector.

In this analysis, the understanding of liberation theology's relevance to popular movements in Peru presupposes an awareness of the complex nature of the missionary's work. And whether missionaries become conservative or liberal proponents of change depends on the specific social forces at work. They represent a floating constituency of potential bearers of social activism. Priests, bishops, theologians, and other promoters of liberation theology, in concert with an already organized and active population, engaged in exchanges, protested, and disseminated information in support of popular movements. Much of the significance of liberation theology to social protest discussed here was not unique to Peru. Like other versions of Latin American liberation theology, it was shaped by political events specific both to Peru and to Latin America's position in the world economy. Particularly important were the economic crises that Latin America experienced in the 1960s, which nurtured revolutionary movements in Peru and elsewhere (Gotay 1981). This paper shows how the dynamic process of linking theology with a politically charged religious constituency in Peru depended upon the theologian - in this case, Father Gustavo Gutierrez (Peru's prominent liberation theologian). Of particular note was his role in advancing the goals and ideas of the popular sector.

THE FRAMING OF LIBERATION THEOLOGY

Snow and his colleagues' (1986) use of Goffman's frame analysis was useful for understanding the role theology and theologians played in the mobilization process. They used the term "frame" to illuminate the social movement activities of individuals as they look "to locate, perceive, identify, and label occurrences within their life space and the world at large" (1986: 464). They suggested that the study of ideas allows social movement researchers to study "the linkage of individual and social movement organization interpretive interests, values and beliefs and social movement activities, goals, and ideology as congruent and complimentary" (1986: 464). In other words, Snow et al. suggested that:

By rendering events or occurrences meaningful, frames function to organize experience and guide action, whether individual or collective. So conceptualized, it follows that frame alignment is a necessary condition for movement participation, whatever its nature or intensity. (1986: 464)

In this study, I use three of the four types of frame alignment processes identified by Snow et al. (1986) for research observation to analyze the role intellectuals play in the mobiliza-

1. According to Levine (1986: 6) popular groups constitute the masses in social sectors oppressed or exploited by an economic social system. At a minimum, "popular" involves some notion of subordination and inequality, pointing to "popular" groups or classes. As used in Latin America today, "popular" also implies a sense of collective identity, and lately it carries a claim to group autonomy and self-governance. In all these ways, reference to "the popular" directs attention to the ideas, beliefs, practices, and conditions of poor people, however defined, and by extension to the kinds of ties that bind them to institutions of power, privilege, and meaning.



36 JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION

tion process. These processes include frame bridging, frame amplification, and frame transformation.

According to Snow et al., frame bridging "refers to the linkage of two or more ideologically congruent but structurally unconnected frames regarding a particular issue or problem" (1986: 467). In other words, seemingly distinct groups - in this case, adherents of liberation theology, union members, members of political parties, who may seemingly lack the organizational base for expressing their discontent as one organization - are bound by the protest activities that connect them on ideological grounds. For example, one activist closely linked to Father Gustavo Gutierrez remarked:

During the SUTEP (The Peruvian National Teachers' Union) strike we experienced weeks of struggle where I felt that it strengthened my faith and my commitment. We would often get together [with union organizers and organizers of other organizations that also supported the strike], and I often liked, no matter where I was, to make the connection between my pastoral commitment and my political activity. So, I'd say to my colleagues, let's pray, even though I understand that among some of you there are atheists. Once someone asked: what party are you in, you're an activist and you pray? All I said was that a Christian had to be very concrete. You can't say you're a Christian because you spend all your time doing parish work.... I feel that Gutierrez's and the Brazilian Boffs theology is based on a Christ that liberates, liberates from things that destroy, such as, selfishness, injustice, slavery, and marginality. (anonymous informant)

This activist found in liberation theology her rationale for aligning her religious convictions with her political activism. People like the above informant, during demonstrations, often found themselves linked to like-minded participants by making ideological alignments.

Snow and Benford (1988) suggested that this connection of movement followers to the social world around them shapes not only their perception of their status within a particular society, but also their life choices in relation to a belief system more closely related to their political ideology. Their choice of theological paradigm aligned liberationists with the goals and ideas of an already politically active popular sector. As the above informant and others asserted, it was during demonstrations and other political incidents that their shared concerns and ideological congruency became apparent.

In an interview in April 1988, Father Gustavo Gutierrez commented on when he thought this process of ideological congruency began to evolve:

The first contact with the popular sector with the Church was through its faithful, but that was not enough, little by little there was greater contact with the more active political sector.... That was a slow process here [Peru], but began to happen around 1965, '66, '67. That was how there emerged a greater relationship . . . among Christian, clearly Christian, and militant people committed to the popular movement. This was all before the publication of liberation theology. (1988a)

Many of the people Father Gutierrez described became radicalized during Church takeovers and land-squatting incidents, which had become common by the early 1970s. The most publicized incident of this nature occurred in Pamplona (a sector of Lima), in 1971, and led to the arrest of Bishop Bambaren. He was then the bishop assigned to Pueblo Jovenes (squatter townships) in Lima. In a 1988 interview, Bishop Bambaren recalled the incident and his arrest.

As bishop assigned to Pueblo Jovenes, I worked with Pueblo Joven parishes and with other organizations, which the people had established.... Invasiones (as it was called, meant an illegal claim to unused land), which has shaped the character of migration to Lima in the last 50 years.... Families would usually select an area and in one night they would claim it, making that sector a new Pueblo Joven. After an invasion, I would try to make myself available to the squatters. In early May 1971, in Pamplona, a big invasion took place. Day by day families came. The Ministry of Housing, as was customary, was called to confront the situation. He provided some assistance, such as water. He assessed other needs, and the long-term extent of those needs... . The police, despite these initial gestures, were ordered, by the Ministry of the Interior, to expel the land squatters. In the early morning hours of May 5, when the clash occurred, it left one dead, and many wounded, which seriously heightened social tensions. I was able to get the body of the person




killed during the clash with police to his family, which was waked at the site of the invasion.... The following Sunday, I said mass and tried to communicate a positive reconciliatory tone. The Minister of the Interior misinterpreted what I was doing and had me detained the following day. Because I was a bishop, the incident was highly publicized. The publicity brought a quick solution to the situation.

Eventually the events at Pamplona led to the squatters' relocation and to the creation of the Pueblo Joven, Villa El Salvador.

One activist described another event in the following words:

I believe, it was in 1977, when the military government at the time, fired some 6,000 workers. The women organized themselves, and every day there were marches in the street near the Cathedral. I got involved and took beatings.... And, once these women took over the Recoleta Church, the priest, who was good, supported them and gave them haven. He let them stay for several days. (anonymous informant)

The Church takeover proved successful because it brought media attention to the protesters. Romero found that in the face of these moments of crises, secular and priest groups, similar to ONIS (Oficina Nacional de Informacion Social), often used resources at their disposal to protest the treatment of the striking workers (1984:25). Other organizations included the Bartolome de Las Casas Institute (Rimac), an organization co-founded by Gustavo Gutierrez, CEAS (the Comision Episcopal de Acci6n Social - the Church's Commission on Social Action), and Fe y Accion Solidaria (Faith and Actions of Solidarity, a lay organization).

The incidents in Pamplona and the Recoleta Church combined with institutional support from a radicalized Church constituency during a particularly tumultuous period of Peruvian history. By 1968, it was reported that the popular sector had staged 364 strikes, which increased to 788 in 1973 and 779 in 1975 before leveling to 440 in 1976 (Tovar 1982:24). The events enlightened liberation theologians in Peru and elsewhere in understanding that sometimes social change required unconventional measures. As Father Gutierrez observed, "it was becoming more evident that the Latin American people would not emerge from their present status except by means of a profound transformation, a social revolution, which would radically and qualitatively change the conditions in which they lived" (1973:88). This change also explains why the Peruvian hierarchy publicly supported General Velasco's Agrarian Reforms during his dictatorship in the late 1960s. The Church saw his programs as advancing the interests of the poor. Liberationists had come to interpret their Christianity as advancing poor people's causes. What was important was that the transformation many of these Peruvians were experiencing had depended on the political changes occurring in the country at the time and the emergence of liberation theology as a salient theological model more congruent with those political changes. Integral to this transformation were individuals like Father Gutierrez, who could provide a theological frame that bridged the religious and political spheres; these linkages depended on what Snow et al. (1986) described as "frame amplification."

FRAME AMPLIFICATION AND FATHER GUSTAVO GUTIERREZ

In their description of frame amplification, Snow et al. suggested that "support for and participation in movement activities is frequently contingent on the clarification and reinvigoration of an interpretive frame" (1986: 469). Here it is assumed that "beliefs frequently function as unambiguous coordinating symbols that galvanize and focus sentiment" (Snow et al. 1986: 470). This suggests that liberation theologians, other intellectuals, priests, and bishops, together with an already politically organized and active population, called into question traditional biblical interpretations in order to focus sentkiment on poor people's grievances. Thus, they began to criticize the traditional meaning of Christian living. Here, the theologian emerged as the intellectual who engendered what




Lewis Coser (1971: x) has described as the "contemplative, creative and critical" side of theology by infusing it with a political agenda. In his writings on liberation theology, Guti6rrez noted:

Everything seemed to indicate that religious communities were beginning to find new approaches to social action. These went beyond any particular specialization and were oriented toward a specific social milieu; the "cement" holding them together was their particular posture within the Church and within the Latin American political process. What evolved was a clear option in favor of the oppressed and their liberation. (Guti6rrez 1973: 102)

Guti6rrez added that for some this change also meant a reassessment of the lifestyles of the clergy, while for others it meant a reevaluation of the meaning of the priesthood itself.

Noting this transformation process was important, because, as Snow et al. explained,

Individuals exist in a climate of cultural beliefs about their obligations to those groups with which they identify. But since there is considerable variability in the salience of these beliefs both individually and culturally, it is often necessary to amplify them so as to increase the prospect that some potential participants will see their involvement as a moral obligation. (1986: 471)

In grass-roots movements, like those inspired by the popular sector in Peru, frame amplification is particularly appropriate where individuals are free to be what Gramsci (1987) identified as traditional and organic intellectuals.

In Gramsci's view, "every social group, coming into existence on the original terrain of an essential function in the world of economic production, creates together with itself, organically, one or more strata of intellectuals which give it homogeneity and an awareness of its own function not only in the economic but also in the social and political fields" (Gramsci 1987: 5). Here organic intellectuals, represented by Church activists, and others not formally trained in theology or the social sciences engaged Father Gustavo Gutierrez and his circle of supporters in exchanges about the meaning of Christian living. Several examples of these exchanges are discussed below. In Peru, theologians and social scientists, as traditional intellectuals, and Church activists and pastoral agents, as organic intellectuals, played an integral role both in advancing popular movement goals and in creating dramatic changes in the Church. Nowhere was this more evident than in grass- roots church organizations and in such organizations as the CEBs (Comunidades Eclesiales de Base or Base Christian Communities). Bruneau observed that CEBs "implied substantial change for the Church itself as the laity assumed broader roles and responsibilities, in many cases coming to define the church in a decentralized and participatory format that bears little resemblance to the hierarchical and highly structured institution it is commonly considered to be" (1986: 107). And when liberation theology came along, it galvanized and focused the sentiments already emerging among these politically empowered lay movements.

In a talk delivered to participants of the 1988 winter theology course sponsored by the Catholic University of Lima, "Path to Medellin," Gutierrez described the changes that led to liberation theology by saying:

In these last decades . . . the Latin American people ... had begun to assume their destiny . . . taking conscience of their situation, of the causes of their situation, organizing to defend their rights, by organizing themselves. Latin America has moved socially and politically in these last decades ... like never before. (1988b)

Liberation theology took its place in this process by crystallizing the symbolic message of this new generation of Christian activists. More accurately put by Gutierrez, "I think that liberation theology has brought a conscience to Christians today concerning the problems of the poor, and it has shown how it is not possible to speak about God, without taLking about




the poor" (1988a). Yet one must ask, Did liberation theology in Peru emerge out of some ideological vacuum? Were there historical factors that predisposed individuals to the liberationist perspective? And were there preexisting institutional conditions favorable to the dissemination of liberation theology? As discussed in the next section, liberation theology owed part of its success to the Catholic Action movement.

FROM CATHOLIC ACTION TO LIBERATION: THE FRAME TRANSFORMATION PROCESS

One of the least-discussed aspects of the emergence of liberation theology is the fact that many of the individuals supportive of liberation theology were once active in Catholic Action. By the turn of the twentieth century, Catholic Action had become an international movement concerned with the plight of workers and the living conditions prodluced by capitalism. The Catholic Action movement spread more rapidly during the Great Depression, when proponents of Catholic Action pressed to be more actively involved in poor people's movements. In Latin America, for example, many Catholic Action groups initiated activities around university reform, rural unionizing, agrarian reform, and literacy programs. According to Samuel Silva Gotay, once Catholic Action began flourishing in Latin America, other splinter groups formed: Juventud Obrera Catolica (JOC, the Youth Movement of Catholic Workers), Juventud Estudiantil Catolica (JEC, the Youth Movement of Young Catholic Students), Juventud Universitaria Catolica (JUC, the Youth Movement of Catholic University Students), popularly based education movements and other popular culture movements (1981: 50).

In Peru, the Catholic Action movement flourished with Holguin of Arequipa and Farfan of Cusco, the two central figures in the actual creation of Catholic Action (Klaiber 1983: 162-163). Holguin and Farfan were the principal architects of a reform in the Church that had a twofold objective. First, they established some distance between the Church and the state after the Leguia years (Leguia was dictator of Peru from 1919 to 1929). In distancing the movement from the government, they helped the Church reaffirm its independence from the government. Second, they created a new militant Catholicism in Peru by giving full support to the formation of permanent lay organizations. And, as in Italy, Belgium, Canada, France, the United States, and elsewhere, Catholic Action promoted a defense against rising anticlerical liberalism, which in Peru was associated with Haya de la Torre and Mariategui - the party founders of APRA (the Alliance for Latin American Revolution) and I U (the United Left), respectively.

The changes in the Church during the Catholic Action period were important because they helped stage the transformation that characterized the Church in the 1950s and 1960s. During the Catholic Action years in Peru, many university students began searching for ways to align their religious beliefs with political activism. The theology of liberation in the 1960s and 1970s paralleled Catholic Action of the 1940s and 1950s. In fact, Father Gustavo Gutierrez was himself once active in Catholic Action. More important was the fact that many of the organizations and networks that Catholic Action created in the 1940s and 1950s, particularly the worker and student organizations, became useful in the 1lc60s and 1970s. Through their contacts in Catholic Action, activists nurtured friendships and working relationships. Several of the interviews, quoted later in the article, bear this out.

Snow et al. have noted that "the programs, causes, and values that some social movement organizations promote, may not resonate with, and on occasion may even appear antithetical to, conventional lifestyles or rituals and extant interpretive frames" (1986: 473). They further argued that when such is the case, the beliefs or values of the group may have to be reframIed. As they noted: "domain-specific experiences, both past and present, that were formerly bracketed and interpreted in one or more ways are given new meaning and




rearranged" (Snow et al. 1986:475). For example, Father Jorge Calder6n, a comerstone of the Catholic worker's movement in Peru, clarified how the rearrangement of meaning from a Catholic Action stance toward liberation began to occur by the late 1950s. He observed that:

After the war (World War II) several important people transformed by their experiences [in Europe] began to arrive in Peru. I recall a Peruvian priest who had been trained in France.... There was Father Alarco and Bishop Dammert, who at the time was still a lay person. Dammert had studied law in Italy where he had been active in Catholic Action. These people were very influential in the universities [in Peru]. In other words, I would say, they were precursors to the changes, because they were so influential. (1991)

Father Calder6n reflected on why so many priests in the fifties and sixties became advocates of a more dramatic change in the Church in the 1970s:

When Catholic Action first started here, I was part of what was Catholic Action at the parish level. It was made up of young people. So, concretely for me it was my first experience of church, which included an emphasis on what it meant to be a Christian in the world. It was all about making a difference. Over those 12 years, I discovered what then was a specialized Catholic Action. I was one of the founders of the Juventud Estudiantil Catolica (JEC).... For the most part, JEC reflected what was my world. There, I learned what it meant to be a Christian in the world. I have a sense that my desire to be a priest was very linked to that experience. I wanted to be a priest to promote the development of the laity. In other words, I opted for something early on that has shaped every aspect of my life. (1991)

Father Calderon's assessment of Catholic Action helps one understand what Klaiber described as an important reason why the Church as a whole could make a major and decisive shift away from the rich and powerful in the 1950s and 1960s to become a more pluralistic church, with a pronounced pastoral stance in favor of the marginal poor (1983:159).

In general, the Catholic Action period underscores a significant feature of the role of ideology in social movements - that ideas and strategies are couched in very specific historical milieus. Whereas Catholic Action had been important to worker movements during the Great Depression until about the 1950s, liberation theology became important and relevant as popular movements grappled with other issues in the 1960s and 1970s. Penny Lernoux (1982) has argued that the eventual shift away from Catholic Action reflected people's dissatisfaction with its anticommunist tendencies. While many of the youth movements spawned by Catholic Action sponsored innovative Church programs, these reforms were badly timed, coming as they did at the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the conflict in Vietnam (Lernoux 1982:25). "Everybody was so busy devising strategies to defeat communism that all completely overlooked the real cause of the people's misery: nearly five centuries of social and economic oppression" (1982:25).

Rolando Ames, who served as a representative of the United Left in the Peruvian Senate (1985-1990) and a close friend of Gustavo Gutierrez, related a similar observation about Catholic Action.

I joined UNEC [the National Union of Catholic Students, a Catholic Action organization, of which Gustavo Gutidrrez was national director] because I found in Gustavo Gutidrrez, who at that time had only been back in the country for two years, a deeper application of the call to the Catholic Action movement. If I was a bit interested in it, I later became critical of a Catholic Action movement that I found too rooted in the Church and too routine, full of very valiant people, but with little interest in other projects. At that moment, I was already deeply feeling the problems the country was facing. It seemed to me that the Christian faith had some place in all of that, and that is how I joined UNEC. For me the importance of UNEC lay in its experience of Christian community. (1991)

Both Ames's recollections of Catholic Action and Lernoux's earlier observation underscore that the need for socialist critiques of capitalism made it increasingly difficult to continue with Catholic Action theology. Nevertheless, no one can deny that the ideological currents




established in the Catholic Action years, particularly the mobilization of a certain type of membership, marked a new beginning for the synthesis of religious beliefs with political action.

This is important because, as Klandermans suggested, "long before actual mobilization campaigns take place, indigenous structures and subcultural networks develop and generate more or less elaborated collective identities that are the seed beds in which future collective action can come to flower" (1988:174). Calderon described how an informal network in those early years yielded support for a liberation theology constituency in later years:

The thing is that my brother then [around 1960, after they had all returned from their studies abroad] shared with Gustavo and me the tasks he had as Diocesan Director of Juventud Obrera Catolica [JOC]. At my brother's office we held gatherings with different young priests who were working then in the still emerging popular pastorate. That was an opportunity for us to explore, to exchange ideas, and to meet, etc. (1991)

In assessing the importance of those early years, Gutierrez noted:

It [his growing perspective on liberation theology] was something that had accumulated in my life . . . that included ... a certain experience of Peruvian politics ... a Christian experience of community, where in understanding the church as a layperson [referring to his activism in Catholic Action prior to his entering the priesthood)] was very important to liberation theology. (Guti6rrez 1988a)

These experiences and Gutierrez's networking in Catholic Action organizations proved important to Gutierrez's emergence as a prominent theologian, particularly as he assumed a leadership role in mobilizing organizational support for the popular sector.

As the next section shows, Gutierrez was able to mobilize support for the popular sector mainly because of his social location as a liberation theologian, priest, and activist in Catholic Action organizations, and his eventual creation of the Bartolome de Las Casas Institute and the Center for Research and Publication. These activities enabled him to create coalition partnerships among supporters of poor people's movements. I argue that Gutierrez's influence on groups like ONIS, UNEC, the Catholic University of Lima, the Bartolome de Las Casas in Rimac, Lima, and the Center for Research and Publication, and his international status as a theologian allowed him to bridge what Snow et al. have called "aggregates of individuals who share common grievances and attributional orientations, but who have lacked the organizational base for expressing their discontents and for acting in pursuit of their interests" (1986: 467). Gutierrez brought those various individuals together by creating organizational space for them to exchange ideas, disseminate information, and share resources in their common concern for the poor. Much of this bridging was effected, as Snow et al. have found in their research, "primarily through organizational outreach and information diffusion through interpersonal or intergroup networks" (1986: 468).

THE ROLE OF FATHER GUTIERREZ IN THE MOBILIZATION OF ORGANIZATIONAL NETWORKS

Sociologist and theologian Raul Vidales, who lived with Gutierrez for five years (1970- 1975), observed that the priest group ONIS, for example, was particularly important in this bridging process:

The priest group ONIS carried much weight. They were listened to by the left and certainly by the right, the government, other priest groups, particularly those of other countries including, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Colombia.... We [Guti6rrez, Vidales, and other members of ONIS] traveled to interact with these groups. They often invited us to help them direct some of their activities.... They looked to us for guidance. (1993)




It was after the 1968 Latin American Bishop's Conference that many groups, inspired by liberation theology, began to express the need for centers around the liberation theology paradigm. Vidales (1993) suggested that this occurred because bishops, like L6pez Trujillo of Colombia, had started mounting opposition to liberation theology because of its leftist leanings. Thus, in 1971, in Peru, the Bartolom6 de Las Casas (Rimac, Lima) was founded. Father Gustavo Guti6rrez was one of the co-founders.

Former members of the student group, UNEC, which Guti6rrez had been named to advise and direct, came to staff the Institute. Among them were Rolando Ames, a former Senator of Peru; Manuel Piqueiras, a former member of the Peruvian House of Representatives; Tokihiro Kud6, Cecilia Tovar, Catalina Romero, Javier Iguiniiz, who along with Ames and Piqueiras, became prominent figures in the social sciences; Ernesto Alyza, who served in the Peruvian Episcopal Commission on Social Action (CEAS); Adelaida Alyza, who became professor of theology at the Catholic University of Lima; and others. Gutierrez's leadership in UNEC had allowed him to influence the theological focus of these intellectual and political figures. In doing so, Guti6rrez sparked their interest in joining him in his projects at El Instituto Bartolom6 de Las Casas (in Rimac, Lima) and at El Centro de Estudios y Publicaciones (the Center for Research and Publication).

According to Vidales (1993), initially he, Gutierrez, Tokihiro Kud6, and Cecilia Tovar began the Bartolome de Las Casas Institute by improvising with three bookshelves.

Gustavo's library was turned into community property. We began with one research area, the sociology of religion, which I initially coordinated. Cecilia [Tovar] started by organizing Guti6rrez's writings, which at the time were in long hand. She would type them and then he would edit them.... With the addition of other lay people, particularly the UNEC graduates, the institute was reinforced.... Quickly, demand for our services grew, and when later the institute was attached to the famous summer courses [sponsored by the Theology Department of the Catholic University of Lima] we grew into a "Bartolote" (big Bartolome de Las Casas).

The summer courses, which began in 1971, came to be called the Jornadas de Reflexi6n Teologica (Theological Reflection Workshops).

These workshops, designed around discussion of liberation theology, produced more opportunities for exchanges between Church activists, pastoral agents, theologians, social scientists, and others curious about liberation theology. In 1971, only two hundred participants attended the workshops. However, by the end of the 1970s, attendance had increased to six times that figure, and by 1987 those numbers had grown to 2,496. Most participants came from Latin America, but some came from North America and Europe. These data are particularly important not only because they show dramatic increases in attendance, but because they underscore the point that the key to establishing and bridging these social networks depended upon individuals like Gustavo Gutierrez. His liberation theology provided the basis for interest in the workshops, thus bringing together populations of like-minded individuals who might otherwise not have had opportunities to network. Gutierrez was in the ideal position. As a parish priest and theologian who worked in a poor sector of Lima, he had legitimacy in the Church, the popular sector, the academy, and in political circles. These social networks proved to be important. Just as liberation theology was important to mobilizing a certain type of Christian political activism, the exchanging of ideas and experiences in those networks also served to sharpen Gutierrez's articulation of liberation theology.

This dynamic of exchange was never more evident than in Gutierrez's publication of his book, We Drink From Our Own Wells. As Gutierrez attests in the introduction to the book, the testimonies of the poor made it possible for him to make his theological writing a concrete expression of their reality: "It was from the experience of this following that I sought to write the pages of this book" (1984:4). We Drink From Our Own Wells emerged




originally from shared experiences that came out of the Jornadas workshops. After the workshops had ended, 20 to 30 people were invited to continue their discussions at the Bartolom6 de Las Casas Institute. Romero (1988) recalled that "those who partook in those theology workshops, where the theme of We Drink From Our Own Wells came from, were people who lived the experiences." This type of exchange challenged Guti6rrez to reflect on their life stories and ultimately to echo their protest. Without this kind of interaction, Guti6rrez's work would have been baseless. We Drink From Our Own Wells was important for another reason: It enabled Gutierrez to act as a bridge between popular communities in struggle and groups sympathetic to their causes. According to Vidales (1993), in Peru this was how "Father Gustavo Guti6rrez became the heart and soul of many of these groups."

CONCLUSIONS

A key part of the relationship between the popular sectors of Peru and proponents of liberation theology depended upon the liberationists' ability to espouse an ideological position compatible with other like-minded groups. How they did so is crucial to our understanding of the processes by which intellectuals become useful to social movements. In this case, liberation theologians were transformed by a set of historical circumstances that characterized the political life of Peru from the late 1950s to 1970s, and by the fact that the Catholic Church had become antithetical in beliefs and lifestyle to a growing mass of discontent. When the liberation theologians came along, they filled that void, because the protest language in liberation theology echoed that of an already mobilized popular sector. The liberation theologians were successful in their role as intellectuals, mainly because they provided "the kind of ideological package that successfully resonated with larger cultural themes" (Gamson 1988:227). This resonance with poor people's movements gave liberation theologians an important role because they were able to galvanize and focus sentiment on the status and living conditions of the poor. This theological call for solidarity with the poor provided new mobilizing possibilities for the popular sector, as they turned to the Catholic Church for support.

This study shows that intellectuals can become dynamic forces of social change, particularly when they use their skills in helping to focus the type of sentiment that can mobilize organizational resources for any given social movement. Father Gutierrez and others exercised extensive influence over members of the Church hierarchy, universities, local parishes, and over a network of international supporters. Guti6rrez's influence helped recruit powerful Church leaders, who sometimes provided unexpected support for the popular sector in labor and land disputes. What proved to be most important was Guti6rrez's brand of liberation theology: It mobilized the type of sentiment that brought together an otherwise dissimilar group of protesters. Thus, it is important to note that ideas and intellectuals do not necessarily create social movements. They do, however, play an integral role in social movements by articulating and elaborating broader sentiments that others may find appealing. In this case, the success of the liberation theologians in bridging distinct protest groups depended upon their ability to frame a theological model that brought together social activists motivated by religious moral outrage and others who defined themselves strictly in political terms, but who welcomed the support of others who shared their political views.

Finally, the purpose of this article is not to illustrate the specific validity of religiously motivated actions, but to focus on the role of intellectuals as useful resources in the mobilization of social movements. For their part, liberation theologians, as intellectuals, produced an ideological bridge that served several protest populations, by providing Church activists with a rationale for supporting the popular sector. As Snow and Benford (1988) have argued, providing this type of belief system can shape the direction of people's




movement choices. Belief systems also create potential for coalition formations among distinct protest populations. The intellectual here becomes the bridge among the varying protest populations. When intellectuals are in positions where they can use their social location within the larger society to their advantage, they further enhance their movement's mobilizing potential.

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