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Colombia Trends Within the Church since the 1940s
The church's involvement in such activities as social
welfare
and union organization flowed in part from changes in
Colombian
society beginning in the 1940s. Of equal importance was
the process
of renewal that characterized the worldwide Roman Catholic
Church
in the early 1960s. Both Pope John XXIII (1958-63) and
Pope Paul VI
(1963-78) issued a series of encyclicals that were
unequaled in
their efforts to modernize the church as an institution
and modify
its role in society. These encyclicals stressed the
government's
obligation to reduce socioeconomic inequalities and the
church's
obligation to take a leading role in reform.
Although the papal encyclicals pointed the Colombian
episcopate
in the direction of change, it was not until the 1968
Latin
American Bishops Conference (Conferencia Episcopal
Latinoamericana-
-Celam) in Medellín that these proposed reforms were
brought home
in the form of a declaration specifically involving Latin
America.
The core concepts developed during the Medellín conference
were the
conflict between the "haves" and "have-nots," the need for
fundamental institutional reforms, and social action as
the key
means of Christian influence in the world. The conclusions
of the
Medellín conference gave the Latin American church the
necessary
mandate to implement social justice and church reform.
In accordance with the thrust of the Medellín
conference, the
Colombian bishops endorsed the call for social action.
Unlike other
Latin American colleagues, however, the Colombian bishops
shied
away from some of the more dramatic aspects of Medellín.
They did
not, for example, accept Medellín's view that
institutionalized
violence characterized Latin American societies. Unable to
change
the shape of the Medellín documents, the Colombians
published a
dissenting treatise in the secular press.
The bishops' inability to agree on an approach to
social reform
and to implement it through strong and effective
leadership
increased the fragmentation within the church in Colombia
and the
controversy surrounding the latter's role. Some of the
problems
developed over organizational rather than ideological
disagreements
between groups fighting for the same resources or powerful
positions. The insufficient economic base and the lack of
qualified
personnel further limited developmental efforts.
Consequently, only
development programs operating in strongly Catholic areas
had
substantial success. Competition among upwardly mobile
priests for
the attention of the local bishop also detracted from
reform and
tended to promote those priests eager to conform to the
status quo.
Frustration over the lack of dynamic leadership caused
some
priests to strike out on their own. The first to do so was
Camilo
Torres, an upper-class Colombian who left the priesthood
to become
a guerrilla. Torres was killed in 1966, less than six
months after
he joined the National Liberation Army (Ejército de
Liberación
Nacional--ELN), thus becoming the first so-called martyr
of the
Catholic left in Latin America
(see Guerrilla and Terrorist Groups
, ch. 5). He became a symbol for many leftists with his
commitment to
radical change through violence.
In the late 1960s, many Colombian clergymen, encouraged
by
Torres's example, were determined to work for social
change. Except
for Gerardo Valencia Cano, bishop of Buenaventura, none of
the
episcopate supported their work. Spurned by the hierarchy,
the
group attempted to develop a power base strong enough to
break the
religious and secular hold of the elite. Basing their
platforms on
Marxist concepts, they began to hold protest
demonstrations to
rally support against the hierarchy and to promote
programs of
radical social change.
In spite of the rejection of the Medellín conclusions
by the
majority of Colombian bishops, the activists led by Bishop
Valencia
became the first group in Latin America to issue a
manifesto and a
platform for social reform based on the resolutions of the
Medellín
conference. Meeting in 1968 and taking the name Golconda
Group--
"Golconda" after the farmhouse where they first met--the
group led
the revolutionary wing of the Colombian church until early
1970.
The Golconda Group elaborated an anticapitalist,
anti-imperialist
stance and a platform that included recourse to violence
under
certain conditions. By advocating violence, however, the
group
touched a sensitive nerve among Colombians and undercut
potential
support from many progressive Catholics who were ready to
promote
change.
The Golconda Group became involved in political as well
as
social issues and encouraged the Colombian people to
boycott the
elections of 1970 and thereby refuse to give a democratic
stamp to
either of the official parties. This antagonistic attitude
toward
the government led to charges of communist sympathies and
to the
eventual repression and imprisonment of members of the
movement.
Because the group was small and radical and because
government and
ecclesiastical opposition was effectively organized
against it, it
was short lived. After several members were imprisoned on
the eve
of its third annual meeting in early 1970, the Golconda
Group
ceased to exist as a single organization, although
individuals
continued to use its name. Despite the fact that their
efforts to
effect sweeping social changes were not successful,
members of the
Golconda Group came to be considered forerunners of the
controversial
liberation theology (see Glossary) movement
among the
Catholic clergy elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere.
After the demise of the Golconda Group, radical
activity
remained largely diffuse and ineffective, appearing to
have
subsided. Bishop Valencia was killed in an airplane crash
in
February 1972, and with his death the radical clerics lost
their
only supporter among the hierarchy. Other groups were
formed, and
support grew for the radical wing of the church, but no
group was
as dynamic or controversial as the Golconda Group had
been.
The lack of active commitment on the part of the
bishops had
several effects. On the one hand, the weakness of the
hierarchy's
approval and/or disapproval of radical clergy led to
confusion in
the public interpretation of Catholic social ideology
among
Colombians. On the other hand, the lack of protection
against
government repression convinced many that the official
church was
not genuinely interested in change. Finally, the national
effort at
socioeconomic development was hampered because, without
consensus,
the impact of the church on reform remained piecemeal.
The explanation for the Colombian church's relatively
undynamic
nature rested primarily with the distinctive political
context
within which the church operated. The church had become
most
prominent in those countries of Latin America where a
repressive
political context simplified options and displaced
ordinary social
pressures and where the episcopal leadership--more often
than not
impelled by lower-level activism within the church--was
willing to
commit the institution to an active role in public
conflict.
Neither of these conditions existed in Colombia after the
Medellín
conference.
The Colombian church functioned within a relatively
open,
competitive political system. Despite continuing high
levels of
violence, Colombia's political context allowed some play
of social
and political forces, keeping open channels that when
closed in
other societies displaced pressures onto the church. The
political
system showed at least some responsiveness to changing
demands and
was accompanied by considerable economic success. The
nation's
imperfect, oligarchical democracy, muddling as usual
through a
series of crises, did not offer a target to justify
violent
corrective action. No convincing case had been made by
anyone--
whether militants in the church or the secular left more
generally-
-that gathered significant popular support behind armed
overthrow
of the regime.
The absence of a repressive political context limited
the
political role of the Colombian church. Indeed, after the
1960s the
church's ability to shape the outcome of political issues
declined
substantially. Nor did the church use its teaching
authority
compellingly enough to affect clearly the broader agenda
of social
choices. Its negative pleas--for example, against birth
control and
political violence--were notably ineffective.
The one way in which the church may have been important
politically was in upholding the legitimacy of Colombia's
oligarchical democracy. It came to this position in the
mid-1950s,
after having been long divided over identification with
the
Conservative Party. The horrifying spectacle of la
violencia
(1948-66) and the affronts of Gustavo Rojas Pinilla led
the church
hierarchy to endorse his overthrow and the subsequent
regime of the
National Front
(see Collapse of the Democratic System, 1946-58
, ch.
1). It consistently defended the National Front regime and
its less
formally consociational successor against critics in the
church
itself and in society in general.
Has this church legitimation of the existing political
system
made a difference? Colombia's oligarchical democracy
survived,
against many predictions and in contrast to the civilian
politics
of many other countries. The continuing support of the
institutional church was one potential explanation. A long
line of
"rebel priests" and nuns, beginning with Torres in the
mid-1960s,
believed that the church's legitimation of established
politics was
both morally wrong and politically important. They
frequently
suggested that the church's support was crucial to the
status quo.
The recent past, however, did not bear out this
assertion in
any clear way. The church had demonstrated a potential
negative
power to topple a regime (for example, in helping bring
down Rojas
Pinilla in 1957). From that, however, the weight of its
positive
support, as distinguished from its neutrality, could only
be
indirectly inferred. If progressive activists had been
able to move
the institutional church into a militant, liberationist
position
against the regime, they would undoubtedly have threatened
the
regime's foundations. In addition, if they had even won
enough
support for the church to have publicly divided internally
over the
legitimacy of the regime, they would have deeply shaken
the
regime's stability. However, neither development occurred.
Data as of December 1988
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