Ivan Illich and Leo Mahon: and Catechesis in Todd Hartch

riest and social critic Ivan Illich played a major role in liberals who cannot make their point at home,” and “traveling Pdiscouraging Roman Catholic missions from the United escapists.” These missionaries had to accept that they were States to Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, as detailed in “useless and even harmful” because they were purveying not a previous issue of this journal.1 To make a long story short, true but a modern perversion of the religion. Illich during the early 1960s Illich first used his position as the direc- was vehement in his denunciation of the missionary initiative, tor of a training center for missionaries to persuade would-be risking his very priesthood, because he saw this form of mis- missionaries to go back to the United States; in 1967 he wrote a sions as a caricature of Christ’s call to bring the Gospel to all denunciation of American missionary activity called “The Seamy nations. The Peace Corps, American cultural imperialism, the Side of Charity,” which spread his ideas to almost every Catholic spread of American business models—these all were evils in his missionary in Latin America and also to the wider Catholic public mind. Much worse, however, was the corruption of the body of in the United States. Christ into “the Lord’s supermarket, with catechisms, liturgy, This article contrasts Illich with Chicago priest Leo Mahon, and other means of grace heavily in stock.”4 who led a mission project in Panama sponsored by the Arch- At the same time, Illich did not view popular Latin American diocese of Chicago. Between 1962 and 1980 Mahon and a team Catholicism as deficient. Whereas many Catholic social scientists of priests, nuns, and laypeople tried to establish an experi- and missionary intellectuals saw the Catholic practice of most mental parish that not only would reach the residents of the Latin Americans as clearly substandard, Illich had no such San Miguelito neighborhood outside of Panama City but also qualms, primarily because of his experiences in Puerto Rico. “For would serve as a model for other mission projects and for the anybody who has ever breathed the atmosphere of the Island,” rest of the in Latin America. For a time this he said of Puerto Rico, “there is no doubt that theirs is a Catholic experiment proved wildly successful, but eventually it, like folk-culture.” He went on to describe the ways in which people many North American missionary projects of the time, ended who had little contact with the institutional church nevertheless in almost complete defeat. “regularly ask their parents’ blessing before leaving the house,” “devotedly invoke the names of Our Lord or the Virgin,” “plaster Illich: Folk Religion vs. Consumer Catholicism their homes with holy pictures,” and “sign themselves with the Cross before leaving home.” Because most Puerto Ricans lived So what was all the fuss about in the first place? Why was “dispersed over the steep hills of the interior,” they could not Catholic priest Ivan Illich so upset about U.S. Catholic missions attend Mass regularly, baptize their children, or marry in the to Latin America? The story begins on August 17, 1961, when church. “‘Bad habits’ like these,” he believed, “are not a sign of lack Monsignor Agostino Casaroli, speaking on behalf of Pope John of Catholic spirit, but rather the effects of a peculiar ecclesiastical XXIII, challenged the Catholic Church in the United States to history.”5 In short, to Illich it would have been a to send 10 percent of its priests, nuns, and religious brothers to replace Latin American folk Catholicism—a valid, even glorious, Latin America, and American Catholics responded with a surge expression of Catholic faith—with the impersonal, consumerist of interest and hundreds of new missionaries.2 Illich, who had version purveyed by American missionaries. served as vice-rector of a Catholic university in Puerto Rico Illich’s denunciation caused quite a commotion, as he and had been commissioned by Fordham University to run a intended. He prevailed upon the editors of the Jesuit journal training center for future missionaries in Cuernavaca, Mexico, America to publish “The Seamy Side of Charity” right before eventually came to believe that the influx of missionaries was the commencement of the 1967 meeting of the Catholic Inter- part of a “multifaceted plan to keep Latin America within the American Cooperation Program, an annual conference designed ideologies of the West” and to turn the Latin American church to encourage American interest in Latin America and the Latin into “a satellite to North American cultural phenomena and American church. Illich and others then passed out copies of policy,” as he wrote in “The Seamy Side of Charity.”3 Because the article to all three thousand people in attendance. Catholic of their cultural baggage, missionaries from the United States missionary activity quickly entered an era of confusion and had transformed the church in Latin America into “the Lord’s doubt. Missionaries themselves suffered crises of confidence, supermarket”; even the best missionaries were doing no more while their supporters and advocates at home faced growing than “maintaining a clerical and irrelevant church.” He had questions and criticisms about almost every aspect of missionary little but scorn for the vast majority of American missionar- activity.6 In combination with the general distrust of authority ies, calling them “a colonial power’s lackey chaplains,” “U.S. in the Vietnam era, revelations about the role of the CIA’s use of missionaries, and the general malaise of the 1970s, Illich’s Todd Hartch teaches Latin American history at Eastern article contributed to a tapering off of U.S. Catholic missionary Kentucky University, Richmond, Kentucky. He has activity in Latin America. written Missionaries of the State: The Summer Institute of Linguistics, State Formation, and The Mahon Plan Indigenous Mexico, 1935–1985 (Univ. of Alabama Press, 2006) and currently is writing a book on Ivan But not all missionaries agreed with Illich that American mis- Illich and another on the rebirth of Latin American sionaries were a destructive force. One of those who disagreed Christianity. —[email protected] with Illich’s basic premise (although not with some of his

October 2012 185 criticisms) was a priest from the Archdiocese of Chicago named not, as was usual, work in parochial schools or other Catholic Leo Mahon. In 1962 Mahon proposed to his archbishop, Albert institutions but instead would develop “mass-scale catechetical Cardinal Meyer, that Latin America was experiencing a crisis methods.”12 This departure from traditional missionary practice in which the church “may die or, at best, shrink to enclaves in highlights how serious Mahon believed the religious crisis of a largely pagan continent” because of its shortage of priests, Latin America was. The lack of priests and the constantly grow- its population growth, and its rapid urbanization. According ing megacities of Latin America were to him the perfect recipe to Mahon, Chicago could help Latin America by setting up an for the church to lose the lower classes completely. For example, experimental parish in a poor neighborhood of a major Latin he agreed with theologian Juan Luis Segundo that most of Latin American city. This experimental parish would develop “ideas, America was in a “pre-Christian stage.”13 On another occasion methods, and procedures” that would serve as models for the he stated to his bishop, “Panama is a Catholic country in name rest of Latin America. Because of the shortage of priests in Latin only,” because, among other factors, only about 5 percent of the America, an influx of too many priests from the north would population attended Mass. The logical response was to make an actually be counterproductive since it would not be reproduc- all-out effort to spread the faith: “Much of Panama would like to ible in other parts of the region. Consequently, the experimental be Christian but will first have to be instructed and converted, in parish would have to focus on “the training and direction of the usage of the day, evangelized.”14 Institution building, school laymen in functions formerly performed by priests—especially administration, and similar approaches were simply inefficient catechesis.”7 Meyer accepted Mahon’s proposal, and in 1963 ways of responding to a spiritual emergency. Mahon and two other Chicago priests began their experimental parish in San Miguelito, a shantytown on the outskirts of Panama San Miguelito in Practice City, Panama, with no paved roads, sewers, or electrical service. It then was home to 40,000 people and grew to several times that Leo Mahon and two other Chicago priests arrived in San Miguelito size by the time they left in 1980. in 1963 and immediately began taking stock of their surroundings. For a time, Mahon and Illich were quite close. In fact, in 1961 Their first observation was that Catholicism in their neighborhood Illich said, “I believe that Mahon’s catechetical approach is one of was the province of women and children and that very few men the most valuable things the United States will ultimately have seemed to feel comfortable at Mass. They also learned that Pana- exported to Latin America.” In 1962 Illich’s journal CIF Reports manian priests had supported themselves through “stole fees,” praised the lessons in Mahon’s catechism, The Family of God, as which were in effect charges for services, so that, for example, a “warm, simple, and clear [and] seriously theological,” and a Mass, a funeral, and baptism each had a specific price.15 As for year later he called himself an “exponent of the Mahon Gospel.”8 popular religion, the American priests were dismayed to learn that Mahon had a similarly rosy view of Illich and used Illich’s center residents of San Miguelito considered themselves good Catho- for language and cultural training for his team of missionaries lics if they were baptized, were devoted to a specific , and before they came to Panama; Mahon once told the director of had holy pictures in their houses—even if they were adulterers another Catholic mission, “I would by all means advise your who never attended Mass and had demonstrated no evidence of sending your men to Cuernavaca.”9 He also worked closely with love for their neighbors.16 “Being Catholic,” concluded Mahon, Illich, for example, lecturing for four days to a training class at “was devoid of the messages of Christ and meant being totally Illich’s center in 1965.10 dependent on external religious practices.” The religion of the But while Illich was becoming more and more skeptical masses of Latin America, in his view, was based on “deviated about the prospects for any kind of positive missionary impact doctrines,” and its celebrations were “pagan festivals covered by in Latin America, developing the views that he expressed in his a layer of Christianity so thin as to be transparent.”17 scathing 1967 article, Mahon did not waver in his conviction Mahon was thus deeply convinced that folk Catholicism that beneficial missionary work was possible in San Miguelito was not enough, that it was, in fact, not very Catholic. He put and, by extension, throughout Latin America. As early as 1964 a strong emphasis on catechetical efforts because he believed he was expressing doubts about the direction of Illich’s center, that most people in San Miguelito simply did not understand which was not surprising, since by that time Illich was indeed basic Catholicism. For instance, he reported, “Few, if any, of attempting to discourage many potential missionaries.11 those who attend have a clue as to what the Eucharist truly Many missionaries built Catholic schools and seminaries means”; for them, it was just “a near superstitious continuation and saw staffing and running them as a major part of their of an ancient tradition.” He did not accept local traditions as ministry, but Mahon, because he believed that most poor Latin set in stone; instead, he critiqued them and tried to improve Americans did not know even the rudiments of Catholic theol- them, for example, adding more doctrinal content to the pro- ogy, proposed the primacy of “catechesis,” or in more common cessions that the community carried out during Holy Week. language, religious teaching; he was not talking about formal In the past these processions had failed to provide “a sense of education that takes place in schools, but about the kind of living mystery and of the necessity of inner conversion,” but teaching that could take place in the actual Mass and in informal he reformed them by adding more teaching and explanations groups that might meet in homes and neighborhood centers. of each liturgical action.18 He was not against Catholic schools; he simply believed that Mahon’s approach could be quite confrontational, as when they were too expensive and used too much labor to educate a he tried to instruct a group that was planning a feast in honor of small, often wealthy, minority, when other methods could reach Saint Rose, a Peruvian who had made herself ugly to preserve many times more people. her chastity, but that knew almost nothing about who she really Mahon’s solution, as mentioned earlier, was to use a small was. “To be devoted to St. Rose,” he said, “means to have respect number of priests to form a team with nuns and religious broth- for one’s own body, but above all for the integrity of women.” He ers. The priests would “train and direct a large group of laymen went on to explain that it was wrong and irrational to celebrate who would work with the best, most advanced ideas in popular her while rejecting everything that she stood for. “To honor her catechesis and liturgy.” Religious brothers and sisters would as the patroness of the community without resolving to stop

186 International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 36, No. 4 whoring, to put away your concubines, to offer your hand in have been necessary if folk Catholicism was a fruitful approach marriage to the woman with whom you are living not only to Catholic life. The corollary of this idea of the insufficiency of does not make sense, but rather is the same as dishonoring the folk Catholicism was that missionary activity in Latin America saint,” he argued.19 For Mahon, in short, popular religion was was both necessary and possible. If Mahon was right, the mul- neither beautiful nor pristine; it was a conglomeration of poorly titudes of Latin America were in great need of instruction in understood traditions that needed to be reformed or, in some Catholic faith and practice, and missionaries like his team from cases, jettisoned entirely. Chicago could be extremely beneficial to them. Mahon thus Much of the Chicago team’s early efforts focused on lay provided both the rationale for American Catholic missions in leadership development. The three priests spent much of their Latin America and a practical model for them to follow. time during the first six months on house-to-house visitations, but For a season, Mahon and San Miguelito were regarded as on because they were convinced that priests could no longer do all the cutting edge not just of Catholic missionary work but of the the pastoral work in Latin America, they invited Jesús Rodríguez, Catholic Church in Latin America more generally. For instance, a married Chicago layman with eight children, to give all-day in 1968 when René Laurentin wrote a book on “the Catholic conferences, or “missions,” on three successive Sundays.20 Rodrí- Church’s position on the continent today,” he focused on three guez spoke in simple but radical language, for instance, calling influential leaders: Ivan Illich, Brazilian bishop Helder Camara, not “king” or “lord” but “great revolutionary leader.” As and Leo Mahon.25 In 1972 Enrique Dussell, the distinguished the priests had hoped, many parishioners who were impressed by historian of the church in Latin America, called San Miguelito the commitment and “unique in Latin America” and called for its use as a model for passion of a fellow the region.26 According to one author, by 1973 the San Miguelito layman asked how experiment had influenced the creation of thirteen similar com- they could become munities “in at least ten other countries,” including Mexico, like him.21 , Nicaragua, El Salvador, and the United States.27 Mahon then Unfortunately for Mahon, however, by 1975 he was back in began devising an Chicago, and in 1980 Chicago’s last remaining priest was called ever-expanding home from San Miguelito.28 Tensions with Panamanian priests, series of programs conflict with the government of Panama due to Mahon’s vocal designed to evange- criticisms of its policies, and a new Chicago archbishop who did lize, build commu- not share the vision for San Miguelito, along with the general nity, and create lay antimissionary spirit fostered by Illich and similar critics of leaders who would missions, led to the ending of the archdiocese’s support for the in turn evangelize, project. It seemed that Mahon’s efforts had been wasted and that build new communi- Illich had won another victory. ties, and create new lay leaders. He first Who Won? focused on a group of thirty men, using Illich and similar critics really did pop the balloon of Catholic a catechism he had enthusiasm for missionary work in Latin America. The gradual written for work buildup of American missionaries responding to the pope’s call Courtesy of Orbis Books. Used by permission. among Latino immi- for 10 percent to go to Latin America resulted in the 1968 peak grants in Chicago Leo Mahon of 3,391 who answered the call to work in the region. Respond- called The Family of ing in large part to the doubts awakened by Illich’s article, more God.22 Then Mahon sent these men out to visit their neighbors than 500 missionaries had left the field by 1970, and numbers and to lead their discussions of The Family of God, after which continued to drop through the 1970s, so that by 1979 there were they invited their students to a weekend retreat called a cursillo, only about 2,300 American Catholic missionaries left in Latin or “little course,” designed to bring them to the point of commit- America.29 Illich and his allies rejoiced. ment, not just to God and to Catholicism, but also to their local One could clearly look at San Miguelito as another instance parish. Other programs included courses for young people and of North American missionary failure in Latin America. Leo married couples, parish councils that exercised real leadership Mahon managed to stay for only twelve years, and the whole over parish affairs, monthly days of reflection, and a training project lasted less than two decades. In most of the parishes school for lay cursillo teachers. The extent of these programs’ and churches that the Chicago team had set up, by the 2000s success can be measured by the fact that in 1971 they had trained there was far less activity and excitement. Reflecting on the San more than 7,000 cursillo teachers in San Miguelito.23 The team Miguelito experiment, one Panamanian scholar reported that by rapidly expanded from its initial location into other neighbor- the 2000s, the Catholic youth of San Miguelito demonstrated far hoods, building simple church buildings as they went. Priests less commitment than their predecessors had in the 1960s and and lay leaders from other Latin American nations were starting 1970s, and even those who had participated in the experiment to visit San Miguelito, fulfilling Mahon’s early hope to serve as during those decades felt a sense of disillusionment. The church an example and a model.24 in San Miguelito had not been able to sustain the catechesis, It should be emphasized that all this activity was premised social involvement, and basic enthusiasm of the Chicago years. on the insufficiency of folk Catholicism. For Mahon and his But the same scholar also reported that the church had changed allies, the primacy of the catechetical approach to building lay substantially: “Now there are more possibilities for self expres- leaders rested on the failure of folk Catholicism to create truly sion and action in the Church. Bishops . . . in many ways allow Catholic individuals and on its inability to foster true Catholic their priests and their faithful to develop their own initiatives.” community. None of the new programs in San Miguelito would In fact, he believed that the Panamanian bishops had adopted

October 2012 187 the same goals that Leo Mahon and his team were championing the complexity of the Latin-American reality.”32 Meanwhile, the during their time in Panama.30 rise of base ecclesial communities, lay catechists, and the new The missionaries who did stay in Latin America changed, ecclesial movements (such as Focolare and the Neocatechumenal in many ways in a direction of which Leo Mahon would have Way) meant that, even apart from missionaries, lay Catholics approved. They focused much more on the creation of lay lead- were studying the Bible and teaching and learning Catholic ers, having learned from Mahon and many others that this was doctrine to a degree never before seen in Latin America. the only feasible way to provide pastoral care to a region still In short, despite the termination of the Archdiocese of Chi- experiencing a desperate shortage of priests. In cases of grave cago’s experiment in San Miguelito, mission to Latin America injustice, many were willing to join Latin American priests in continued along the lines pioneered by Leo Mahon in Panama, criticizing the governments of both the United States and the even as catechesis and lay leadership took off throughout the country in which they were working.31 region. Who was more influential? In 1980 most observers would “For the most part,” argues one scholar, “U.S. missioners in have said Ivan Illich, but looking back thirty years later, it is clear Latin America in the 1960s more than overcame the ideological that Leo Mahon’s priorities carried the day. It is also clear that commitments Illich forecast.” Far from being pawns of the State Mahon’s fundamental conviction that folk Catholicism was not Department or of the McDonald’s Corporation, missionaries forming moral, committed Catholics and therefore needed to be had an “intense experience of face-to-face encounter” with the reformed had been adopted by the Latin American hierarchy poor, a “mysterious and transforming” encounter that often and laity. The active and growing segments of the Latin Ameri- made them deeply critical of the United States and its influence. can Catholic Church, with their base ecclesial communities, the When these missionaries returned to the United States, they charismatic renewal, and movements like Focolare, all agreed performed a sort of reverse mission, “sensitizing Christians to that folk Catholicism was not enough.

Notes 1. Todd Hartch, “Ivan Illich and the American Catholic Missionary 17. Leo Mahon, Fire Under My Feet: A Memoir of God’s Power in Panama Initiative in Latin America,” International Bulletin of Missionary (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2007), pp. 55, 82–83. Research 33, no. 4 (2009): 185–88. The picture of Leo Mahon on 18. Ibid., pp. 44–45, 74–76. p. 187 of this article is from Leo Mahon, with Nancy Davis, Fire Under 19. Ibid., p. 85. My Feet: A Memoir of God’s Power in Panama (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis 20. Robert J. Delaney, “Pastoral Renewal in a Local Church” (Ph.D. diss., Books, 2007), following p. 99; used by permission. Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Münster, 1973), pp. 14–15. 2. Agostino Casoroli, “Appeal of the Pontifical Commission to North 21. Mahon, Greeley, and McGlinn to Meyer, October 9, 1963, in Bravo, American Superiors,” in Mission to Latin America: The Success and The Parish, p. 366. Failures of a Twentieth-Century Crusade, by Gerald Costello (Mary- 22. Although not exactly the text they used in 1963, a similar version of knoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1979), pp. 273–82; see also pp. 44–51. this catechism appears in two Maryknoll publications (Maryknoll, 3. Ivan Illich, “The Seamy Side of Charity,” CIF Reports 6, no. 3 (Febru- N.Y.): Leo Mahon and Sister Mary Xavier, The Family of God (1964); ary 1, 1967): 2, 3; originally published in America 116, no. 3 (January and Leo Mahon and Madre Mary Xavier, Catecismo de la Familia de 21, 1967): 88–91. Dios (1965). 4. Ibid., pp. 5, 7, 8, 9. 23. Delaney, “Pastoral Renewal,” pp. 18–19, 26–27. 5. Ivan Illich, “Not Foreigners, Yet Foreign,” in Celebration of Awareness: 24. Priests of San Miguelito to Cletus O’Donnell, April 19, 1965; and A Call for Institutional Revolution (New York: Doubleday, 1970), p. 39; Mahon to John Cody and Thomas Clavel, October 25, 1966, both in originally published in 1956 in Commonweal. Bravo, Parish of San Miguelito, pp. 426, 454–55. 6. Costello, Mission to Latin America, pp. 122–29, 163–86. 25. Harold Blakemore, review of L’Amérique latine à l’heure de l’enfante- 7. Leo Mahon to Albert Meyer, February 15, 1962, Box 1, File 1 (1:1), ment, by René Laurentin, International Affairs 47, no. 1 (January San Miguelito Mission Records, University of Notre Dame Archives, 1971): 249–51. Notre Dame, Ind. (Except where noted below, all correspondence is 26. Enrique Dussell, quoted in Francisco Blanco, “San Miguelito, una located in these records.) rica experiencia eclesial,” in ADITAL: Noticias de América Latina 8. Ivan Illich to John Considine, October 21, 1961, Papers of the Latin y Caribe, February 20, 2004, www.adital.com.br/site/noticia America Bureau, National Catholic Welfare Conference, Catholic .asp?lang=ES&cod=11066. University of America, 186:52; Illich to Mahon, May 4, 1963, 1:3; 27. Delaney, “Pastoral Renewal,” pp. xi, xv, 114–124, 154–55. David Efroymson, “A Review: A New Catechism,” CIF Reports 1, 28. Robert McClory, “Chicago Cuts Panama Parish Aid,” National no. 5 (October 1962): 43. Catholic Reporter, August 29, 1980, p. 2. 9. Mahon to Illich, December 3, 1963, 1:3; Mahon to Roger Bartlett, 29. Costello, Mission to Latin America, pp. 163, 209. June 4, 1964, 1:4. 30. Francisco Blanco, “San Miguelito.” 10. Mahon to Philip Berryman, April 9, 1965, 1:9. 31. Costello, Mission to Latin America, pp. 200, 209, 219, 223; Penny 11. Illich mentions Mahon’s “concerns about my behavior, my direction Lernoux, Cry of the People: The Struggle for Human Rights in Latin of CIF,” in Illich to Mahon, June 9, 1964, 1:4. America—the Catholic Church in Conflict with U.S. Policy (New York: 12. Mahon to Albert Meyer, February 15, 1962, 1:1. Doubleday, 1980), pp. 370–408. 13. Mahon to John Hotchkin, June 2, 1964, 1:4. 32. Stephen Judd, “The Seamy Side of Charity Revisited: American 14. Mahon to John Cody, February 7, 1973, 3:13. Catholic Contributions to Renewal in the Latin-American Church,” 15. Mahon, John Greeley, and Robert McGlinn to Albert Meyer, Missiology: An International Review 15, no. 2 (April 1987): 4–5, 8–9, March 7, 1963, in Francisco Bravo, The Parish of San Miguelito 12. If one includes U.S. Protestants, the impact of missionaries is in Panama: History and Pastoral-Theological Evaluation (Cuer- even more clear, for the success of Protestant missionaries spurred navaca, Mexico: Centro Intercultural de Documentación, 1966), Latin American Catholics to reflection, self-criticism, and reform, pp. 342–43. as indicated in Samuel Escobar, “Missions and Renewal in Latin 16. Mahon, Greeley, and McGlinn to Meyer, February 17, 1964, in ibid., American Catholicism,” Missiology: An International Review 15, p. 376. no. 2 (April 1987): 33–44.

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