CHRISTIANITY & CRISIS Vol. 44, No. 18 (12 November 1984), 430-431 Religion and the Revolution Debate topic: the church’s nature and mission By Andrew Reding

Marianismo: Archbishop Miguel Obando y Bravo of and conservative clerics argue that liberationist clerics have lost sight of the importance of Mary in Catholic theology. The conservatives equate Jesus with the biblical message of justice and Mary with that of peace and reconciliation. These times, they insist, call for special attention to Mary in the interest of social peace. It is in connection with this theme that the “sweating virgin” [see section on the press, p. 425] made her appearance. Liberationist clerics respond by reminding the conservatives of the powerful social justice content of Mary’s Magnificat. (The use of a verse from it on a banner at the celebration I saw in Estelí was no coincidence.) Through frequent textual references and reflections, they suggest that the conservatives’ dichotomy between Jesus and Mary is less than faithful to the biblical witness. Church Unity: The hierarchy, led by Archbishop Obando and Bishop Pablo Vega of Juigalpa, insist that the unity of the church is founded on strict obedience to the leadership of, well yes, the hierarchy. The bishops are particularly nervous about the comunidades de base, and look anxiously to the Pope to rein in the decentralist, participatory, often revolutionary tendencies set in motion by “the preferential option for the poor.” The liberationists counter that, biblically speaking, unity emerges from adhering to Jesus’ evangelical call to solidarity with the poor and the weak. They look to a unity not of the church thought of as synonymous with its clergy but rather, in accord with the reconceptualizations of Vatican II, of the church as the broader community of the faithful. And they remind the bishops of the Christian model of leadership set up by Jesus himself, wherein those who would lead must humbly place themselves and their material interests last. In this vein they point to Oscar Romero, martyred archbishop of San Salvador, as model. The conservatives respond by accusing the liberationists of trying to split the church in two with conceptions of “hierarchical” and “popular” churches. They insinuate. sometimes explicitly, that the liberationists are really Marxists in clerical clothing, seeking to neutralize the church and pave the way for atheistic communism to infect Central America. Liberationists ridicule the charges, indicating they are born of the close connections some hierarchs have made with their counterparts in the upper and middle classes (witness Obando’s recent dealings with W.R. Grace), and calling attention to the long, sordid history of collaboration between Catholic hierarchs and Latin American tyrants. They insist they have no desire to found a separate church, but that on the contrary they hope to persuade more of the hierarchy to return to the fold of leadership through servanthood in conformity with the guidelines of St. Augustine and the dictates of Jesus Christ (“La Función del Obispo en la Comunidad Cristiana,” Amanecer, May-June 1984). Preferential Option for the Poor: Conservatives further accuse liberationists of fomenting “class hatred” by so militantly championing the cause of the poor. The church, they say, is church of all, not just the poor. That means there can be no talk of class struggle among Christians. Christian love must be extended to rich and poor alike, though the rich need to be persuaded to be more compassionate in their treatment of the poor. Yes indeed, reply the liberationists: but to love the rich is not the same as letting them persist in wrongdoing. Noting that Jesus was particularly severe in his treatment of the rich, they insist that to love the sinners one must attack their sins, not just through generally ineffectual appeals to stop worshiping Mammon, but also through political reforms that rescue them from the soul-killing institutional arrangements by which they abuse fellow human beings. The Amado Peña Affair: A major controversy erupted between Archbishop Obando and the government in June when a right-wing priest close to the archbishop was placed under what amounted to house arrest in a seminary (with the option of leaving the country), after the Ministry of the Interior claimed it had irrefutable evidence of his participation in a CIA conspiracy. Abscam-type videotapes of the priest conversing and drinking with men who later confessed to having been CIA operatives were repeatedly aired on television. In these tapes, Peña is observed to say, among other incriminating things, “We have to say, for the time being passive resistance, but when the hour comes we know that here there is nothing peaceful,” and “God wants that it not be bla bla bla. Here what’s needed is four bullets in one of those sons of bitches, believe me, there will be more deaths of certain of those jodidos (literally, “fucked-up ones”), and with two or three [of those deaths] I will set out to sow horror.” Peña claimed to have been framed. Obando immediately endorsed him on his word, refusing even to investigate the government’s charges in spite of their seriousness. The videotape, he said, could have been doctored. Interior Minister Tomás Borge countered by offering to turn the tapes over to him for professional analysis, an offer that was rarely mentioned in international dispatches, and to which Obando did not reply. Church and State: The unresolved questions in the Peña affair in turn bear upon the case of the 10 foreign-born priests expelled from the country shortly thereafter. They were put on a plane for Costa Rica immediately after joining Obando in a solidarity march for Padre Peña. The government claimed that as foreign citizens they were meddling in domestic politics by demonstrating on behalf of someone accused of conspiring to overthrow the government. Obando pointed to this incident as conclusive evidence of persecution of the church by the Sandinistas. In response, El Nuevo Diario (July 13) cautioned him against hypocrisy, publishing an even longer list of priests and nuns banished from the country by Obando and his allies for their support of the Revolution. As if to further underscore the point, still another priest was shortly thereafter transferred to , because, in a funeral mass for militia killed by the , he condemned the CIA for supporting the war against . Again, little of this has been reported outside the country. Nor has the larger Central American context been conveyed. Why do Washington and Rome exhibit shock and horror when a handful of foreign-born priests are expelled from Nicaragua, but not physically harmed, and yet at the same time continue to support governments in and Guatemala that are known to have connived in the removal of priests and an archbishop by means of murder? Why was it all right for Catholic priests to serve as chaplains in Somoza’s National Guard but a scandal for them now to condemn the CIA for its semiclandestine war on Nicaragua? Liberationism and Marxism: Opponents of the Revolution and of liberation theology charge that the “popular church” is a mere tool of Marxist totalitarianism, misusing Christianity to try to legitimize what is at base an atheistic and repressive reality. Interestingly, the presidential candidate of the Nicaraguan Socialist party (the Moscow- line communist party) similarly denounces the Sandinistas for misusing Marxism while handing the country’s education over to devout Catholics. Just what is the relationship between the FSLN and radical Christians? To begin with, it should be noted that liberationist Christians have not been mere cheerleaders in the revolutionary process. Many have taken up arms, many have risen to important positions in the FSLN, others run key government ministries. In so doing they have played a major role in shaping the very character of this revolution. Historically, revolutions have not been dominated by mercy and moderation. What makes the so distinctive is that in spite of the mass horrors of the Somoza years, the lives of even the most sadistic torturers have been spared. There is no death penalty, and the maximum prison term is 30 years: Somoza himself, tried in absentia, was sentenced to only 26 years. Offers of amnesty with grants of land have been extended to all but the leadership of the contras. Even more remarkably, in view of more than a century of U.S. intervention in Nicaragua, the Revolution (unlike its Iranian counterpart) had welcomed thousands of U.S. citizens in a spirit of friendship and reconciliation. Interior Minister Tomás Borge attributes this “revolutionary generosity” to the leadership role played by revolutionary Christians. Naturally, there is less inclination to criticize when one is given a significant role in shaping policy. Yet liberationist Christians do engage in what they see as constructive public criticism of the government. Padre Uriel Molina, who heads the Centro Ecuménico Antonio Valdivieso deplored the government’s “dirty” handling of the Bismarck Carballo Affair (see “Are Nicaragua’s Churches Free?” Sept. 20, 1982 issue). Carballo, a priest closely associated with the archbishop, was photographed naked with a female parishioner in what the church charges was a set up. Though the truth is hard to come by, the government indecently turned over the pictures to Barricada and El Nuevo Diario after La Prensa accused it of a frame-up. More recently the Centro Valdivieso, the Ecumenical Axis, the Community of Christians in the Revolution, the weekly El Tayacán, the Christian base communities, and other groups of revolutionary Christians joined in denouncing the government’s expulsion of the ten foreign-born priests. In a letter published in El Nuevo Diario (July 17), they likewise deplored the confrontational attitude of the archbishop, and concluded; “We appeal to the Revolutionary Government that it pursue by all possible means the use of resources of persuasion. The path of dialogue is difficult, but we see it as indispensable to the good of our people.”