marxism and christianity in latin america.pdf

Marxism and Christianity in Latin AmericaAuthor(s): Michael Lowy and Claudia PompanSource: Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 20, No. 4, The Struggle for Popular Participation(Autumn, 1993), pp. 28-42Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2633912 .Accessed: 27/09/2011 17:23

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Marxism and Christianity in Latin America by Michael L6wy

Translated by Claudia Pompan

For half a century, Marxism has been proscribed-under the caricatural epithet of "atheist communism"-as the most formidable and insidious enemy of the Christian faith. The excommunication decreed by the pope in the postwar years was merely the canonical sanction of the implacable and obsessive struggle that has built a wall of hostility in Latin America and throughout the world between the faithful of the church and Marxist-oriented political movements. The breaches opened in this wall by the surprising convergence of Christianity and Marxism in Latin America during the past 30 years-particularly through liberation theology-have been among the most important factors of social transformation in the modern history of the hemisphere. Indeed, some of the key social and political events of recent decades-such as the Nicaraguan revolution, the popular uprising in El Salvador, and the new grass-roots workers' movement in Brazil-can be neither understood nor explained without bearing in mind the profound change that has occurred in Latin American Catholic culture as a result of broad sectors' having embraced and incorporated some of the basic tenets of Marxism. Regardless of the outcome of Rome's current authoritarian offensive-and the possibility that this offensive will meet with some success should not be ruled out-these events already constitute an irreversible historical fact.

These developments have been a cause of concern not only for conservative bishops and theologians, defenders of Rome's orthodoxy, and doctri- naires of the faith in the highest spheres of the Vatican and the Conferencia Episcopal Latino-Americana (Latin American Bishops' Conference- CELAM) but also for the Latin American generals who met in 1987 in Mar del Plata, Argentina, and the Republican advisors to the president of the United States who met in Santa Fe in 1980 and 1988. In an attempt to head

Michael Lowy is a participating editor of Latin American Perspectives. He resides in Paris and is associated with the Groupe de Sociologie des Religions, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. This article was originally published in Lua Nova (Vol. 19) in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Claudia Pompan, a native of Brazil, received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Riverside. She currently resides in Redlands, California.

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 79, Vol. 20 No. 4, Fall 1993 28-42 ? 1993 Latin American Perspectives

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off this unexpected phenomenon, Ronald Reagan's advisors resorted to classic police terminology ("infiltration") in the May 1980 Santa Fe document:

U.S. foreign policy should begin to confront liberation theology (and not just react to it a posteriori) .... In Latin America, the role of the Church is vital to the concept of political freedom. Unfortunately, the Marxist-Leninist forces have used the Church as a political weapon against private ownership and the capitalist system of production, infiltrating the religious community with ideas that are more communist than Christian.

It would serve no purpose to dwell on the gross inadequacy of such an "analysis"; suffice it to say that it is entirely incapable of explaining the internal dynamics of these sectors of the church that led them to take positions against the capitalist system of production that were often much more radical than those taken by the traditional Marxist-Leninist forces (i.e., the Latin American communist parties).

The same team of experts (now working for President Bush) has published a second report (Santa Fe II) with basically the same general thrust as the first, albeit in slightly more sophisticated terms. The discussion has not turned to the Gramscian tactics used by the Marxists, who have discovered that the most effective way to come to power is by "dominating the nation's culture, which means securing a position of strong influence over religion, schools, the mass media, and the universities": "It is in this context that liberation theology should be viewed, as a political doctrine in the guise of a religious belief that is antipapal and anti-free-enterprise, aimed at weakening the independence of society in the face of state control." The complex and unique relationship between religious and political considerations in liberation theology is thus reduced to a mere "disguise," a result of the Marxists' Machiavellian strategy.

A similar thrust is found in the document on liberation theology presented at the Inter-American Conference of Armed Forces in December 1987. Despite its significantly higher level of detail and "expertise"-it was prob- ably composed by a conservative theologian acting as advisor to the armed forces-this document also interprets the phenomenon within the general framework of a "strategy of the international communist movement in Latin America, implemented through various modi operandi."

Now, a minimum of good sense would suffice for any observer to recognize that liberation theology-and the convergence of Christianity and Marxism in certain sectors of the church-was not the result of any conspir- acy, strategy, tactic, infiltration, or maneuver by communists, Marxists, Gramscians, or Leninists but rather an internal development of the church itself, stemming from its own tradition and culture. What needs to be

30 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

explained is why it occurred-why, at a given point in history (i.e., the early 1960s) and in a given area (i.e., Latin America), a sector of the clergy and the Christian (mainly Catholic) laity felt the need to adopt the Marxist method of interpretation and transformation of reality.

In this light, the analysis of Rome's main opponent of liberation theology, Cardinal Ratzinger (1985: 122-130, my translation), is much more interesting and insightful. According to the eminent prefect of the Holy Office of the Doctrine of Faith, in the 1960s "a perceptible vacuum of meaning had arisen in the Western world. In this situation, the various forms of neo-Marxism became both a moral force and a promise 'of meaning that seemed practically irresistible to academic youth." Moreover, "the moral challenge of poverty and oppression presented itself in an ineluctable form at the very time when Europe and North America had attained a hitherto unknown affluence. This challenge evidently called for new responses that were not to be found in the existing tradition. The changed theological and philosophical situation was a formal invitation to seek the answer in a Christianity that allowed itself to be guided by the models of hope, scientifically grounded, put forward by Marxist philosophies." The outcome was the emergence of liberation theologians "who fully embraced the basic Marxist approach." If the graveness of the danger presented by this new doctrine was underestimated, it was "because it did not fit into any of the accepted categories of heresy; its fundamental concern cannot be detected by the existing range of standard questions." There is no denying, the cardinal concedes, that this theology, which combines biblical exegesis with Marxist analysis, is "appealing" and has an "almost flawless logic." It seems to respond to "the requirements of science and the moral challenges of our time." This, however, does not make it any less a threat: "Indeed, an error is all the more dangerous, the greater the grain of truth it contains."

The question remains why it was Marxist-oriented "models of hope" in particular that were able to seduce such large sectors of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church in Latin America-more specifically, what aspects or elements of the church's own doctrine and of Marxism might have favored, facilitated, or encouraged their convergence. A concept that might prove useful in this type of analysis is the one that Max Weber (1971) used to study the reciprocal relationship between a religious form (the Protestant ethic) and an economic ethos (the spirit of capitalism): selective affinity (Wahlverwandtschaft). On the basis of certain analogies, certain affinities, certain correspondences, two cultural structures may-in the right historical circumstances-enter into a relationship of attraction, of choice, of mutual selection. This is not a unilateral process of influence but rather a dynamic dialectic interaction that may lead in some cases to symbiosis or even fusion.

LUwy / MARXISM AND CHRISTIANITY 31

The following are some examples of possible areas of affinity or correspon- dence between Christianity and socialism:

The liberation of slaves and the oppressed, as a moral imperative and a historical process. This idea has its roots in the Old Testament; it is not mere coincidence that grass-roots communities and liberation theology attribute so much importance to the book of Exodus.

The view that the poor are innocent victims of injustice, immune to the reigning corruption, and the idea of a moral imperative to act to save the poor. Obviously, there is considerable distance between the poor of Catholic doctrine and the proletariat of Marxist theory, but there is no denying a certain socio-ethical "kinship" (Verwandtschaft) between the two.

Universalism, internationalism ("catholicism" in its etymological sense)-doctrine and transnational institutions that view mankind as a whole; humanism, affirmation of the substantial unity of humankind above races, ethnic groups, and nations.

Criticism of individualism. As the Marxist sociologist Lucien Goldmann (1955) observed in his book on Pascal, both Marxism and Christianity reject pure individualism (liberal/rationalist, hedonistic, or empiricist). For both theories, the supreme values are transindividual: God (for religion) and the human community (for socialism).

Assignment of greater value to the community, to community life, to the communal sharing of goods; criticism of anonymity, impersonality, alienation, selfish competition in modern societal life.

Anticapitalism. Max Weber correctly identified a profound opposition between the ethical rationality of the Catholic church and the economic rationality of capitalism. The church rejects a totally impersonal, reified (Versachlicht) economic system that lies beyond its moral and religious imperatives (Weber, 1971: 591-592). Criticism of liberal capitalism has been one of the basic tenets of the church's magisterium ever since the 19th century.

The hope for a future kingdom of justice and freedom, peace, and brotherhood among all mankind. The identification of this affinity between Christian and socialist utopias does not necessarily mean accepting the thesis of Nikolai Berdiaev, Karl L6with, and many others that Marxism is merely a secularized avatar of Judeo-Christian messianism.

It is obvious that these elements have entirely different meanings in the two cultural systems and that formal analogies in and of themselves do not constitute a cause for convergence. For example, there is nothing farther from the poor as construed in the church's traditional doctrine-as the object of charity and paternal protection-than the role of the proletariat in Marxist thinking, as the agents of revolutionary action. The correspondences outlined


above do not prevent the church from reconciling itself with capitalist order and from regarding socialism, communism, and Marxism as the intrinsically perverse enemies of Christian faith-although there have been individuals, groups, and currents of thought within Catholicism (and the various branches of Protestantism) that have been attracted to modern revolutionary doctrines.

What transforms these formal analogies into a dynamic relationship of selective affinity is a given historical conjuncture, specifically the one that began in the late 1950s. This was, on the one hand, a global conjuncture: the crisis and theological renewal of European Catholicism after the war and the election of John XXIII in 1958 and his convening of a new council with a view to the aggiornamento of church doctrine and practices. On the other hand, institutional Marxism was thrown into a crisis by the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the denunciation of Stalinism. These events created favorable conditions for a more open relationship between Christianity and Marxism, although Europe (with a few exceptions, e.g., France) would never see anything more than a dialog between the two politically and culturally opposed blocs.

It was in Latin America that circumstances made possible a much more radical convergence. The Latin American conjuncture beginning at that point in history was characterized by (1) an accelerated development of capitalism, urbanization, and industrialization (under the aegis of North American capital) that deepened social contradictions and (2) the Cuban revolution (1959-1960), the first grass-roots victory against imperialism in Latin Amer- ica and the first socialist revolution in the hemisphere, led by Marxist forces of a new kind independent of traditional (i.e., Stalinist-oriented) communism. The coming together of these two processes-one structural and socioeco- nomic, the other political and ideological-marked the beginning of a new chapter in Latin American history, a period of social struggle, grass-roots movements, and insurrections that took a quantum leap with the Sandinista revolution and continues to this day. This new stage was marked by a renewal and an increase in influence of Latin American Marxist thought, in particular (but not exclusively) in academia. It was in this conjuncture that a relationship of selective affinity between Christianity and Marxism would develop among certain sectors of the church and its social base in Latin America. This relationship, founded on existing analogies, was to lead to a convergence or articulation of these two traditionally opposed cultures; in some cases it would even lead to their fusion in a Marxist-Christian current of thought. Indeed, the concept of selective affinity, which for Weber merely describes the relationship between mutual selection and reciprocal reinforcement of distinct sociocultural phenomena, stems from an alchemic doctrine that

L6wy / MARXISM AND CHRISTIANITY 33

sought to explain the fusion of bodies in terms of the affinity of elements in their chemical makeup.

The past 30 years have seen numerous manifestations of this process of convergence by selective affinity. The three of most decisive historical importance have been (in chronological order) the Brazilian Christian Left of the early 1960s, liberation theology, and the Sandinista revolution. Other important models and forms-for example Camilism (based on the ideas of Camilo Torres), the Christians for Socialism movement, and the various Christian sympathies in Brazil's Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers' party-PT)-are beyond the scope of this article.

Brazil's Christian left, as it appeared in the 1960s in the form of Juventude Universitaria Crista (Christian Academic Youth-JUC), Juventude Es- tudantil Crista (Christian Student Youth-JEC), and Acao Popular (Popular Action-AP), was the first manifestation in Latin America of the articulation between Christian faith and Marxist politics as a movement with a broad social base, in academia and even among the clergy. This process was not the result of Vatican Council II or of the comunidades eclesias de base (ecclesi- astic base communities-CEBs) or of liberation theology or of the 1964 military coup; it began long before all these events. That students were the first group within the church to come to know the "Marxist temptation" is not surprising, since this was the social group on which Marx and his disciples had had the strongest influence; similar processes occurred later in Chile and elsewhere. Much has been written on JUC's history, in particular the noteworthy works of Luiz Alberto Gomez de Souza, Oscar Beozzo, Emmanuel de Kadt, and Thomas Bruneau. What is of interest to our analysis is to situate it in the historical process of the transformation of Catholic culture in Latin America. Two aspects merit special mention here:

The JUC of 1960 and 1962 represented the first attempt anywhere in the hemisphere to develop a Christian current of thought using elements of Marxism. As such, it was a pioneering movement and was marked by a surprising level of intellectual and political creativity that, despite its initial failure, set the stage for what was to come later in Brazil and throughout Latin America. Pablo Richard was right when he termed JUC's 10th-anniversary congress in 1960 "the beginning of a new stage in the history of Christianity in Brazil and Latin America" (1984:154). It is also noteworthy that this was not just new rhetoric but a new practice both within the student movement and in the area of grass-roots education (the Movimento de Educac,ao de Base/Grass-roots Educational Movement-MEB) and, later, political action (AP). Furthermore, while JUC's doctrine was not theological in nature, it did represent an effort by the laity to play a role in the historical reality of the


country. It was not a discussion of religious topics (Christology, Bible exegesis, ecclesiology) but rather an analysis from a religious (i.e., Catholic) viewpoint of Brazil's economic, social, and political problems.

During this first stage, the Marxist elements embraced by JUC were few but significant: certain basic concepts (alienation, the proletariat), a general analysis of exploitation (defining the working class as "the group forced to sell its work on the market in exchange for wages that do not correspond to the value of its contribution to the production process and that does not participate in the management of said production process" [Regional Centro- Oeste da JUC, 1979 (1960)]), and a general anticapitalist stance that favored socialism (in the words of Herbert de Souza [1979 (1962), my translation], "We are witnessing the end of capitalism and the beginning of world socialist construction"). JUC's ideologs did not invoke Marx, although they did reject the anti-Marx taboo; according to de Souza, "We do not view Marx as our master, because we already had one, a different one, before. However, we do read Marx." The main references of the documents are strictly Catholic: Saint Thomas, Leo XIII, Pius XII, John XXIII. It is also worth noting that JUC did not follow any model of Marxism current in Brazil, such as that of the Partido Comunista Brasileiro (Brazilian Communist party-PCB) or of any of its dissidents, but attempted its own interpretation of Marx's thought and of Brazilian reality (reaching conclusions much more radical than the PCB's, which were more in line with state populism).

Why was Brazil the first country in which this dynamic of selective affinity between Christianity and Marxism was able to evolve, achieving during the past 30 years a greater impact than in any other church in Latin America? The answer, of course, lies in a series of historical and structural factors. Particularly relevant to the radicalization of JUC, however, is the traditional influence of French Catholic culture and the French church in Brazil in contrast to the Spanish and Italian models of Christianity that prevailed in the rest of the hemisphere. Postwar French theology (Yves Congar, Christian Duquoc, Dominique Chenu, Yves Calvez, Henri de Lubac) represented an advanced stage of the renewal of Catholicism, raising topics that would later be adopted by Vatican II. Furthermore, French Catholic culture was the only one that had an uninterrupted flow of socialist figures and currents of thought throughout the 20th century: from Charles Peguy to Esprit, from the revolutionary Christians of the Popular Front (1936-1938) to the Temoignage Chretien of the Resistance (1940-1945), and from the working fathers of the Mission de France to the socialist Confederation Frangaise des Travailleurs Chretiens (French Confederation of Christian Workers-CFTC) of the early 1960s.


In addition to this diffuse influence and the role of French missionaries present at that time in Brazil (Jean Cardonnel and others), two figures of progressive French Catholicism had a direct impact on JUC in the 1960s: Father Lebret and, above all, Emmanuel Mounier. Although Lebret was hostile toward Marxism, he did not hesitate to use categories from Marxist economics in his studies, and he recognized in socialism "a pro-human reaction against capitalism as an inhuman system" (1963 [1959]: 53, my translation). Mounier was more radical: categorically rejecting the capitalist system, he felt that Christians could learn a lot from Marxism. Describing his social philosophy in 1947, he wrote: "Personalism views the structures of capitalism as an obstacle in the path of man's liberation that needs to be destroyed and replaced by a socialist organization of production and con- sumption" (1963 [1947]: 244, my translation). In JUC's documents (such as its guidelines for a historical ideal of 1960) not only is Mounier quoted frequently but themes from his writings (e.g., criticism of capitalist anonymity and impersonality, of the tyranny of money) appear at every turn. There is no doubt that for an entire generation of Brazilian Catholics, Emmanuel Mounier was the bridge between Christian anticapitalism and Marxist anticapitalism. In such an explosive context as Brazilian society in that period of crisis of the populist model (1960-1964), Mounier and Lebret were reinterpreted and even surpassed in a process of growing political and social radicalization.

Liberation theology is not the origin of radical Christianity; rather-as the theologians themselves stress-it is the product of a practice that began with Brazil's JUC between 1960 and 1962. In the words of Clodovis Boff (Boff and Boff, 1985: 16, my translation),

before liberation theology emerged in the late 1960s, the church in Latin America already had a praxis of liberation. Before the advent of liberation theologians, we had prophetic bishops, an involved laity, and liberation communities. That was mostly in the early 1960s. The theology arose during a second moment, and it came as the expression of the church's praxis of liberation. Hence, liberation theology is the theology of a church of liberation, a church that opts preferentially and with solidarity for the poor.

Indeed, throughout the 1960s all of Latin America witnessed the development (as a result of the global and regional conjunction described above) of a Christian current of thought that was marked by solidarity with the poor, a consciousness-raising and emancipationist praxis, participation in grass- roots cultural movements, literacy programs, neighborhood organization, rural unionization, and even, in some countries, Marxist-oriented political movements. The basic idea, which had begun to germinate deep within this


praxis as a result of experience with the poor, landless peasants, slum- dwellers, workers, women, blacks, and indigenous people, was that only a radical change in social structures-led by the poor themselves-could bring an end to poverty.

Liberation theology-the body of works published since 1971 by such figures as Gustavo Gutierrez, Hugo Assmann, Pablo Richard, Leonardo and Clodovis Boff, Enrique Dussel, and Frei Betto-embodies this idea and places it at the center of its reinterpretation of the Gospel, its new hermeneu- tics of the Old Testament and the message of Christ, and its reformulation of the church's magisterium. This reformulation embraces key aspects of Marx- ism integrated into religious rhetoric in a much more coherent and organic manner than in the documents of the Christian left of the 1960s. Liberation theologians saw Marxism as the only theory capable of offering a precise, systematic analysis of the causes of poverty as well as a specific and radical proposal for abolishing it. Thus the old anticapitalist tradition of the church entered into a relationship of selective affinity with the Marxist analysis of capitalist exploitation and with the criticism launched by Latin American Marxists (dependency theory) that dependent capitalism was the structural foundation of underdevelopment, poverty, and military authoritarianism.

Solidarity with the poor was the point of departure for this new theology. The major difference-the decisive new element, the qualitative leap from the traditional Catholic view-was that now the poor were considered not passive victims, the object of charity and aid, but rather the agents of their own liberation. It was because of this change-the result of the practical experience of involved Christians during the 1960s and 1970s-that the problematic of liberation theology came to converge with the basic political tenet of Marxism: that the emancipation of the workers will be achieved by the workers themselves.

The prioritization of the poor approved by the CELAM in Puebla in 1979 is in reality a formula for commitment, interpreted in the traditional sense (i.e., the provision of assistance) by the church's more moderate and conservative ranks but in a radical sense by the liberation theologians and the more progressive sectors of the clergy, for whom it is a commitment to the organization and struggle of the poor for their own liberation. The class struggle-not just as a method of analyzing reality but also as a guide for action-thus becomes, implicitly or explicitly, a key element in the new theology. In the words of Gustavo Gutierrez (1974: 276-277, my translation), "To deny the existence of class struggle is, in essence, to take the side of the dominating sectors. Neutrality on this point is impossible."

Some liberation theologians present their relationship with Marxism in utilitarian terms, describing it as a scientific instrument or an analytical tool.

Ldwy / MARXISM AND CHRISTIANITY 37

This type of approach often distinguishes the philosophy (or ideology) of Marxism, which is rejected as incompatible with the Christian faith, from the social science of Marxism, which can and should be used in theology as a means of socioanalytical mediation. This distinction arises from two different but convergent motivations: the influence of Althusser's theory of an "epistemological break" between science and ideology and his claim that Marx should be regarded as a "man of science like any other" (e.g., Lavoisier, Galileo) and the greater defensibility, in the face of anti-Marxist pressure from Rome and conservative bishops, of a merely instrumental relationship with Marxist social science. Without underestimating the importance of Marxist social science, it is difficult to overlook the fact that the relationship between Christianity and Marxism in liberation theology is broader and deeper than the heuristic borrowing of a series of analytic concepts. As a process of convergence through selective affinity, this relationship refers also to certain values (community), ethical and political options (solidarity with the poor), and future utopias (a society free of exploitation and oppression). And, inasmuch as liberation theology is the expression of a social praxis, a social movement, an active experience at society's base, its encounter with Marxism also-and mainly-occurs at the level of a practical commitment to popular struggles for liberation. Marxism is not merely a method of interpretation but also, and above all (as Marx stressed in his "Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach" [1975 (1845)]), a method of transformation of reality. As Ignacio Ellacuria has noted, Marxism's contribution to liberation theology is at once ethical, epistemological (i.e., scientific), and philosophical-to which should be added social and political.

This does not mean that liberation theology embraces all of Marxist thinking. It obviously rejects those aspects that it considers incompatible with Christianity-for example, atheism, cosmological materialism, and criticism of religious alienation. It selectively incorporates those aspects that are congruent with its effort to reinterpret the Gospel, the Old Testament, and the church's magisterium. However, this reinterpretation takes into account the situation of Latin America's poor and the experience of their struggle for social liberation (analyzed with the aid of Marxism). It is in this complex dialectic that the alchemic process of selective affinity takes place.

The Sandinista revolution was the first one since 1789 in which Christians, lay people and clergy, played a key role at the grass-roots level as well as in the leadership of the movement. It was the first in which Christians were not just tactical or strategic allies but an organic component of the revolutionary vanguard, the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional (Sandinista National Liberation Front-FSLN). It was also the first in which Christianity was one


of the key ingredients, along with Marxism and the Sandino tradition, of the ideology that inspired the revolutionary struggle.

In the course of the 1970s, a growing number of Christian youth and students discovered "Sandinista Marxism." With the support of such priests and clerics as the Franciscan Uriel Molina and the Jesuit Fernando Cardenal, various movements were formed, among them the Christian university movement and the Christian revolutionary movement, most of whose members would later join the FSLN. The first Christian cell of the Sandinista Front was made up of Luis Carrion, Joaquin Cuadra, Alvaro Baltodano, and Roberto Gutierrez, who went on to become key leaders of the organization. At the same time, Father Ernesto Cardenal, founder of the Solentiname community, did not hesitate to proclaim himself a Marxist who believed in God and in life after death. Apoet and a mystic, Cardenal (1973) was adamant that what made him a Marxist was not reading Marx but reading the Gospel. As part of a movement of spiritual synthesis that is more intuitive than theological, he argued that Marx's communism, a society free of selfishness and injustice, is what Christians understand as the kingdom of God on Earth. Justifying his decision to join an FSLN guerrilla group in 1977, Father Gaspar Garcia Laviana wrote in a letter in 1978, shortly before his death in combat:

My faith and the fact that I belong to the Catholic church force me to take an active part in the revolutionary process with the FSLN, since the liberation of an oppressed people is an integral part of the full redemption of Christ. My active contribution in this process is a sign of Christian solidarity with the oppressed and with those who are fighting to free them (n.d.: 21, my translation).

Through these links in the city (in the base communities) and in rural areas (through the Comit6 Evangelico de Promocion Agraria [Evangelical Com- mittee for Agrarian Advancement-CEPA]), a kind of organic unity was created between Christian and atheist revolutionaries within the Sandinista movement that had never before been seen. When the final insurrection occurred in 1978-1979, the areas where the struggle was the most intense and the best organized were mainly those in which CEBs, Delegates of the Word, and revolutionary Christians had been working previously: Monimbo, Masaya, Chinandega, Leon, Matagalpa, Esteli, and the poor neighborhoods of Managua.

Something happened in Nicaragua that had never happened anywhere else: Radical Christians, lay people as well as clergy, not only took an active part in the revolt against Somoza but also assumed key responsibilities in the new revolutionary government under the auspices of the FSLN. As testimony to the novelty of this situation, the Sandinista Front noted in its "Declaration on Religion" of October 7, 1980: "Christians have been an integral part of


our revolutionary history at a level unprecedented in any revolutionary movement in Latin America, and perhaps in the world.... Our experience has proven that it is possible to be a believer and at the same time a dedicated revolutionary and that there is no contradiction between the two."

This active Christian participation-criticized with growing hostility by the official Nicaraguan church hierarchy (Cardinal Obando and most of the bishops) and by the Vatican but supported by the religious orders in the country (particularly the Jesuits)-was an essential element of Sandinismo, an original ideology stemming from the fusion of Sandino's radical agrarian nationalism, revolutionary Christianity, and the Guevara-inspired interpretation of Latin American Marxism. The terminology, symbols, and images of Sandinista culture are often based on Christian themes. This can be seen at the grass roots of the movement as well as in the rhetoric of some of the FSLN's key figures, such as Luis Carrion and Tomas Borge. Commenting on this phenomenon, the Italian theologian Giulio Girardi (1983: 63, my translation) notes:

The clearest sign of this influence lies in the very strong ethical content that permeates the revolution, to the point that many European theoreticians of the revolution, paladins of the "scientificity" of revolutionary rhetoric, would not hesitate to classify it as "moralist" and "ideological." Obviously, there is no reason to grant Christians a monopoly on ethical concerns; however, the frequency with which they occur, the language in which they are presented, and the explicit reference to Christ, the Gospel, and the Bible by leaders who are publicly lay people allow us to see in this sensibility a reflection of the Christian presence as well.

The very practice of the Sandinista Front was also influenced by Christian ideals, for example, with regard to the principle proclaimed by Toma's Borge: "Our vengeance will be forgiveness." The Nicaraguan revolution abolished the death penalty and became the first modern revolutionary movement since 1789 not to use the guillotine or perform executions after its victory.

It is obvious that this convergence was not free of contradiction, resistance, and mistrust on both sides. According to Girardi (1983: 69), there were two distinct positions in the Sandinista cadre: (1) the old orthodox view, based on Soviet Marxism-Leninism manuals, that Christians are allies but unreli- able ones because of their faith and links with the church. At best, convergence with them can occur only at the level of practice; at the theoretical level the contradiction between materialism and idealism is total. This attitude was often found among the average cadres without experience prior to 1979. (2) The new "Nicaraguan" view, inspired by the concrete experience of common struggle, that revolutionary Christians are part of the vanguard.


The traditional Marxist theory of religion must be reformulated so as to recognize its revolutionary potential. Convergence with revolutionary Chris- tians is at once practical and theoretical as far as the liberation of the oppressed is concerned. This latter attitude is shared by the majority of the historical leaders of the FSLN. An example of this original and innovative position can be seen in Carrion's (1985: 16, my translation) description of convergence and organic fusion within the revolutionary process that led to the triumph of July 1979:

I see no obstacle that would prevent Christians, without renouncing their faith, from embracing all the conceptual Marxist instruments that are necessary for the scientific understanding of social processes and for the revolutionary orientation of their political practice. In other words, a Christian can be a Christian and a Marxist at the same time without there being any contradiction.... In this sense, our experience is rich in lessons. Many Christians have fought and are fighting in the Sandinista Front; there are even some priests. And I do not mean only those fighting at the base: some of them are members of the Sandinista Assembly and have great political responsibilities.... I think that some of the Marxist vanguard tended to perceive the progressive revolutionary Christian sectors as a rival force that would take potential political clientele from them. I think they were mistaken, and having avoided that error was one of the FSLN's greatest successes. We have linked ourselves with grass-roots structures of the church not to draw people away but to integrate them into the Sandinista Front as a stage of political development without this implying any opposition to their participation in Christian organizations. On the contrary, we left them in those structures so that this higher commitment might take the form of political action in this area. Their integration into the FSLN was never presented to them as a dilemma between their Christian faith and their militancy in the Front. Had we cast the debate in these terms, we would have been reduced to a very small number of militants.

The philosophical enigma-or theoretical challenge-that Marxist Christi- anity presents from the point of view of historical or dialectic materialism can be discussed at length among ourselves (Marxists and atheists). If we define Marxism above all as materialism (abstract and metaphysical), then it is an unacceptable heresy. If, however, it is conceived apriori as a philosophy of praxis (Gramsci), a theory of the revolutionary practice of global transformation, its integration by selective affinity into revolutionary Christianity is perfectly comprehensible. Nevertheless, what is essential for Marxist analysis is what happens in reality. The existence of Marxist Christians-in Nicaragua, Brazil, and other countries-is an undeniable social and political fact, and they bring to the revolutionary movement a moral sensibility, experience in grass-roots work, and a utopian urgency that cannot but enrich it.


The Vatican has been very much worried by developments in Latin America and has been trying in the past few years to limit the influence of liberation theology. The "Instruction on Some Aspects of Liberation Theol- ogy" published in 1984 by the Holy Office for the Doctrine of Faith criticized what is called the "Marxist option" of the new Latin American theology, but since this document did not produce the expected results-instead of giving in, the radical theologians responded with arguments and defended their social choices-Rome changed its strategy. Instead of theological debate, it has acted at the level of the structures of power in the Latin American church by systematically nominating conservative bishops known for their hostility to liberation theology and to the radical base communities. The best-known example is the nomination of Mgr. Jose Cardoso to replace the aging D. Helder Camara as archbishop of Recife. A conservative and a specialist in canon law who lived in Rome from 1957 to 1979, the new bishop quickly dismissed the leaders of the Land Pastoral and removed the priests known for their commitment to the poor. Several theological seminaries in the Brazilian Northeast considered to be influenced by the progressive tendency were summarily closed.

The aim of the Vatican was to prepare the 1992 CELAM in Santo Domingo to put an end to the prioritization of the poor adopted by previous conferences in Medellin in 1968 and Puebla in 1979. The preparatory document, written by the conservative CELAM leadership ("Elements for Pastoral Reflection in Preparation for the IVth General Conference of the Latin American Bishops," 1990), proposed not only a triumphalist celebra- tion of the Fifth Centennial of the Hispanic Conquest and Evangelization of America but also a return to the traditional social doctrine of the church. This document-which went so far as to present Leo XlI's 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum as "the Christian countermessage to the war cry of Marxism"-has met with considerable criticism from progressive theologians, and general adoption of its point of view would be a serious setback not only for liberation theology but for all of the social movements in Latin America that have enjoyed the material and spiritual support of the progressive church.

However, the work of consciousness raising implemented by pastoral agents, leftist Christians, radical theologians, and base community leaders during the past 30 years has already produced results that are irreversible. The hundreds of thousands of Christians throughout the continent (and particularly in Brazil and Central America) who are part and parcel of the movement for self-liberation of the poor will not give in, and the theologians and Christian lay activists who have discovered in Marxism a precious tool for interpreting and changing the world are not likely to change their minds.


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