The divided Church
Peter Hebblethwaite
Pope John Paul II completed the first hundred days of his pontificate this week. His public appearances in Rome have been spectacular and rowdy. He has had buttons torn off his soutane and found lipstick stains on his white sleeves. But otherwise he doesn't seem to have done very much. However, this impression of masterly inactivity is misleading. He has already seized the initiative with a new and more aggressive Ostpolitik which brought Mr Gromyko, the durable Soviet Foreign Minister, scuttling to Rome for an audience. But it is clear that the most important and ineluctable test of the Polish Pope will come this weekend when he goes to Puebla in Mexico for the third meeting of the Latin American Bishops' Conference (SELAM).
Pope John Paul took a few days off last week at Castelgandolfo to brood over his message to Puebla. He knows the background to the story and the risks he will have to undergo. Just before Christmas, he quoted with approval the remark that `the future of the Church will be decided in Latin America'. This makes sense if one recalls that almost half of the world's Roman Catholics live in Latin America. Can they contribute to the peaceful transformation of societies where there is great injustice and where military dictatorships are the ordinary form of government? Or are they to choose revolutionary options? The Latin American bishops last met in conference at Medellin in 1968. They launched their churches on a new and exciting path: the path of 'liberation'. This slogan was an attempt to translate into contemporary terms the Christian doctrine of salvation; it should not be seen as an abstract spiritual event, but rather as something which latches on to people's social and political aspirations. And as 'salvation' changed its meaning, so too did 'sin'. The Latin Americans became less concerned with individual lapses and private misdemeanours. They preferred to de nouncesocial sins':the injustices which are built into the very structures of society, the violence that has become a part of everyday routine, the inequitable terms of international trade and so on. Liberation was to change all that. The Church was deliberately politicised.
More than ten years later, many Latin American bishops have become alarmed at the consequences of Medellin. Theologians took them at their word and transformed what had been an attempt to make religion relevant into a revolutionary political movement. Many of the 'theologians of liberation' are frankly Marxist, they advocate the class war, and they produce the usual apologia for violence — that it is a. necessary riposte to the violence of an oppressive society. The Puebla meeting,. therefore, was seen by some as an oppor, tunity to halt this drift into Marxism, and to correct the 'mistakes' of Medellin.
There was a fierce battle over the preparatory document for Puebla. The text was masterminded by the conservative Bishop Lopez Trugillo, of Bogota, Colombia, with the support of Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio in the Vatican. They produced a bland document which condemned equally both 'liberalism' (Vaticanese for unrestrained capitalism) and 'Marxism'. If it did not exactly confer a blessing on military regimes, it showed some understanding of their difficulties: 'these military regimes came into existence as a response to social and political chaos. . . no society can admit a power vacuum'.
The theologians of liberation were furious. They said the document was an insult to the 700 martyrs — the priests, nuns and laymen who had been murdered or unaccountably disappeared in the last ten years. They claimed that it was superficial because it suggested that the principal obstacle to preaching the Gospel in Latin America was urbanisation. Then the death of two Popes delayed the Puebla meeting, and enabled Cardinal Aloisio Lorscheider of Brazil to produce a revised version of the preparatory document which went some way towards meeting these criticisms from the left.
This is the tense and confused situation Pope John Paul will find at Puebla. Almost anything he says will put him in the wrong with someone. It will require all the resources of his diplomatic skill and his intellectual subtlety to pick his way through the minefield. But these qualities alone will not be enough. In the end, everything will turn on his massive integrity and personal charisma. I suspect that he will make three main points in his speech.
He will first explain why he has come at the start of the meeting rather than at the end. It is their conference, and the future of Latin America lies in their hands. There is a legitimate autonomy within the Church. If he came at the end of the conference, it would be to deliver a message from on high and from the outside. By going at the start he leaves them their freedom and responsibility.
But none of this means that he has abdicated his role as 'universal pastor'. His presence at Puebla bears witness to the concern of the whole Church for what happens in Latin America. Legitimate autonomy cannot be allowed to become the enemy of unity within the Church. He will therefore offer some advice, based on his own experience, and he will offer it with that mixture of diffidence and firmness which characterises him.
He will state, very clearly, that for him Christianity is first of all a spiritual message addressed to individuals which summons them to a life modelled on Christ. To that extent he will agree with Dr Edward Norman, Reith Lecturer. But, unlike Dr Norman, he will immediately add that this spiritual message has social and political consequences. The message does not hover above intractable human situations. It has to be realised in practice. This means, for example, that the Church has to denounce tyranny wherever it appears"and to defend human rights when they are trampled on. He may well point out that it is inconsistent to speak out for human rights in Communist countries unless one also denounces their infringement in military regimes. There will certainly be no joy for Generals Pinochet and Videla.
But, finally, and speaking from his own Polish experience, he will say a word about Marxism. It will be unfriendly. I suspect that he will denounce as unworkable the distinction on which the theology of liberation is based: liberation theologians claim that they accept Marxist analysis of the ills of society while rejecting Marxist philosophy (which includes atheism and dialectical materialism). If it is not too late for inclusion in his speech, I might offer the Pope a thought from Max Weber. He once said that some people think becoming a Marxist is like taking a cab. You can get out anywhere you choose. But this is not so. Once aboard, you are driven to the end of the dialectical-materialist road.
Then he will go home.
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