CONFLICT AND COMPETITION: The Latin American Church in a Changing Environment
edited by Edward L. Cleary / Hannah Stewart-GambinoCHAPTER 5 =================================
The Church in Peru:
Between Terrorism and Conservative Restraints
====================================== JEFFREY KLAIBERIn the past few years Peru, like Job, seems to have been smitten by more than its share of misfortunes. In the 1960s it was considered a "middle" country, behind Mexico and Brazil but far ahead of Bolivia and Haiti. But by the middle of the 1980s, compared to Peru, Bolivia seemed a model of economic and political stability. In the last two years of Alan García's term (1985-1990), the annual inflation rate was around 2,775 percent and the minimum monthly salary was less than $50, Nearly one-half of the working force of Peru's 22 million inhabitants belongs to the "informal sector," a blanket euphemism that covers millions of subemployed, nontaxpaying peasants, street vendors, and part-time workers, who by First World standards would be considered as simply unemployed. In spite of sweeping reforms carried out under the Juan Velasco military regime (1968-1975), 40 percent of the population still receives less than 10 percent of the nation's income. Health care is another sign of social erosion; the death rate for children under five is 53 percent. Peru, once considered a promising Third World test case for the Alliance for Progress, twenty years later displays many of the traits of a Fourth or Fifth World nation.
Rising and widespread violence is the other specter haunting the country. Since Peru's home-grown terrorists known as the Shining Path declared war in 1980, approximately 17,763 Peruvians have been killed by the terrorists (between the Shining Path and another group known as the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement) or the army and the police, and another 3,000 have disappeared. The amount of damage to factories, wads, bridges, and farm cooperatives caused by terrorist attacks is estimated to be about $17 billion.(1) Close to 40 percent of the central Andes and jungle region have been declared emergency zones and are under the control of the military. The military left power in 1980, and Peru has since lived through two democratic administrations, Fernando Belaúnde in his second term (1980-1985) and the term of his successor, Alan García. Alberto Fujimori was elected in June 1990 with the hope of ending his term in 1995.
If poverty alone were the problem, Peru's frail democratic structures, would have a chance of surviving. But under the double pressure of poverty and violence, the future of democracy is far from assured. The cocaine trade in the eastern jungles, corruption in the police and government, and constant social discontent that manifests itself in innumerable union strikes place additional strains on democracy. This is the general context and background for understanding the church in the decade since the military left power.
The Conservative Shift The Peruvian church during the entire military regime (1968-1980) was considered one of the most progressive in Latin America. Under the leadership of Cardinal Juan Landázuri Ricketts, Lima's archbishop from 1955 to 1990, the church supported most of the military's measures, which included sweeping agrarian and educational reforms. ONIS (National Office of Social Information), the progressive priests' organization, took the lead in denouncing social injustices and in demanding further reform Unlike the situation in other Latin American nations (Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay) where repressive right-wing military governments persecuted the church, the Peruvian church actively cooperated with the military. Although proponents of liberation theology and other more centrist church groups criticized the military, they felt by and large that Peru was changing for the better. A spirit of optimism was noticeably evident among church personnel who worked in the pueblos jóvenes ("young towns," the euphemism invented by the military to describe the squatter settlements ringing the coastal cities). New parishes that sprang up offered something close to a tabula rasa for applying the reforms of Vatican II to the Latin American reality in an atmosphere of general receptivity.
But the election of John Paul II, the Puebla Conference in 1979, and most of all the episcopal appointees' orientation since then have clearly signaled, the end of the progressives' leadership in the hierarchy. By 1988 the conservatives achieved a majority in the national Episcopal Conference, which had 54 voting members. That year Cardinal Landózuri, who had been elected automatically president of the conference for years, did not present himself as a candidate, and Ricardo Durand Flórez, the Jesuit archbishop of Callao won the election by two votes. Durand, who had attracted attention to himself by writing two books critical of liberation theology, symbolized the growing shift, Highly visible in the conservative block are seven Jesuits (out of eight in the country) and six Opus Dei bishops. When Landázuri stepped down as head of the archdiocese of Lima in January 1990, he was succeeded by one of the conservative Jesuits, Augusto Vargas Alzamora, thus making the conservative turnabout almost complete. Progressive church leaders such as Bishop José Dammert of Cajamarca still speak out, but their influence is noticeably weakened at episcopal assemblies. The majority of the bishops fall between the extremes, neither conservative nor progressive. But in their case, the powerful weight of Rome is the determining factor that inclines them to support the conservatives.
Many other signs have pointed to a conservative shift. In 1983 Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formally requested the Peruvian bishops to conduct an examination of liberation theology. During the annual national episcopal meetings of 1983 and 1984, liberation theology dominated the discussion. In September 1984 Ratzinger published the first formal Vatican document on liberation theology, and in October the bishops produced their own. The bishop's document, which contained the same general warnings about importing "ideologies foreign to the faith," nevertheless was more positive in tone. One reason was that the progressives were still dominant in the hierarchy. But another was the fact that the pope, in preparation for his upcoming 1985 trip to the Andean countries, had addressed two groups of Peruvian bishops. His stress on the need to speak out against injustice and to speak for the poor weighed considerably in the bishops judgment.(2) But during his second visit to Peru in May 1988, John Paul warned the bishops again about the dangers of certain brands of liberation theology. This time the pontiff made no effort to point out the positive side of liberation theology.
The contrast between the two papal visits was eloquent proof that a major shift had indeed occurred in the Peruvian church. The first one, in February 1985, was characterized by enormous crowd spontaneity and affectionate rapport between the pontiff and the people. Most noticeable was the emphasis on justice and solidarity in the pope's addresses. But the return visit, made on the occasion of a devotional congress of some of the Andean countries emphasizing an other-worldly approach to religion, was tightly controlled by conservative groups, and the papal addresses lacked the stirring summons to address the realities of poverty and injustice that had characterized the 1985 visit. The conservative groups, most noticeably Opus Del and Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (a lay-founded integralist association that has especially stood out for its attacks on liberation theology), appeared everywhere on organizing committees and advisory boards to the bishops.(3)
The conservatives, aided and supported by Rome, have also moved into areas not normally under their jurisdiction. For years most of the diocesan seminaries have as a matter of fact been under conservative bishops. But in 1987 Rome sent a visitor to investigate the seminaries, and the review extended to ISET in Lima (Superior Institute of Theological Studies), run by the religious orders. When the "visit" was over, women religious who attended classes were forced to leave on the pretext that the institute was only for religious who were going to be ordained. In fact, they remained-but in a separate program for them, on the same property. Most important, Rome ignored the normal electoral process and maintained its own men in place by fiat.
The Progressives: In Retreat but Undaunted In light of these and many other changes, subtle and not so subtle, a once highly progressive church has apparently been put under control; presumably with a few more episcopal appointments, it may soon disappear altogether. Nevertheless, there are many reasons for not arriving at too hasty a conclusion. Church realities are much more complex and the social and political sands in Peru are so shifting and uncertain that there is reason to doubt whether the new conservative fortress is built on solid ground. Conservative gains have been won by pressure from on high, not by acclamation from below.
The progressive church is very much alive and not likely to "disappear" for many years to come. There are three principal arguments to support this belief: the general missionary character of the Peruvian church that allows significant progressive enclaves to exist and even to flourish within a church dominated by a conservative hierarchy; the growth and strength of the progressive church since the influential Medellín Conference in 1968; and pressure from a society wracked by poverty and violence that can lead moderates and even conservatives to shift sides. It would be well at this point to define at least in general terms what is meant by the "progressive" church and then to focus on important characteristics of the progressive church and the church in general in Peru in order to understand why highly visible signs of change -- episcopal appointees -- do not necessarily signify real and lasting internal change.
The progressive church is made up of churchpeople -- priests, nuns, laypersons -- who are committed to the ideals of Vatican II and Medellín (reaffirmed at Puebla in 1979). In general this means that progressives have a twofold commitment: to encourage the growth of real lay participation in the church and to lend support and legitimacy to the popular movement. The first goal is clearly inspired by Vatican II, the second by Medellín. Although the progressives have been sympathetic toward the political left, that is not the key defining criterion. What is essential is their commitment to help empower the poor (campesinos, workers, women. youth, the mass of dwellers in the pueblos jóvenes) to build their own lives and to construct a democratic and just society from below.
In many ways the progressives have become, as one author termed them, "religious populists," who intersect the popular movement at many different levels: as advisers, members, and leaders.(4) The local parish in a pueblo jóven may reach only a small percentage of the people by way of its sacramental action. Indeed, in Peru only about 10 percent or less of the population may be regular churchgoers. But the pastor and the team of pastoral agents who work with him will be very much involved in a great variety of community activities that reach far beyond those who regularly attend Sunday mass. Those activities range from promoting mothers' clubs, to supporting a march to demand water or electric power for the district, to arbitrating among a group of "invaders" (squatters), the mayor, and the police. In this sense, the popular or progressive church is very "political," although it is careful not to identity itself publicly with any political party. As the popular movement (which includes unions and communal civic organizations in the pueblos jóvenes) has grown in strength since the Velasco years, so too has the progressive church grown in numbers and in strength. In Peru, as in the rest of Latin America, laypersons of the lower classes have become both vocal political leaders and active and critical church leaders.
Thus, a conservative retrenchment at the level of the hierarchy, reinforced by conservative religious and lay groups, will not easily stem an entire social movement, which has increasingly influenced and conditioned the political atmosphere in Peru. This popular movement has been influenced by the new church, but it has also flowed back to invigorate the progressive tendency in the church. This does not mean that a defiant "popular church" has come into being. On the contrary, the vast majority of lay leaders from the popular classes are extremely respectful of the hierarchy, conservative or not. But they have also grown accustomed to their leadership role in the church. They will continue to be loyal to the church, but not on the same terms as before. As we shall see in the case of the Fujimori election, the conservative church has a very limited capability for influencing the popular dames in Peru today if it goes against political, social, and religious goals they consider important.
Beyond this more social consideration, there are certain basic ecclesiastical realities that limit the power not just of conservatives but of bishops and church authorities in general. In the first place, on the level of the clergy and religious women, the Peruvian church is still a mission church: the great majority of the clergy belong to religious orders, and 61 percent of all clergy are foreign-born, while slightly less than one-half of religious women are foreigners.(5) Thus, religious orders and missionary groups have an extraordinary presence and influence in the Peruvian church, not unlike the reality of many other Latin American churches. Bishops in many dioceses do not really have absolute control over the personnel of their own dioceses. Lima is a good example. Many of the city parishes in middle- and upper-class neighborhoods are under diocesan clergy, directly responsible to the archbishop. But the great majority of the parishes in the pueblos jóvenes (which comprise about half of Lima's 6 million inhabitants) are in the hands of foreign religious (some of whom are not strictly "religious," such as the priestly mission associations like the priests of Maryknoll, the Saint James Society based in Boston, or the Irish Columban priests). A change in the formal direction of the archdiocese of Lima will not immediately change their pastoral orientation, especially because it is the result of thirty years or more of work. Furthermore, given the scarcity of priests and the fact that the Peruvian church cannot support priests in the popular urbanizations, the bishops must accept the presence of the progressive foreigners in their dioceses, at least for some time.
This same fundamental fact of ecclesiastical life is true for many other parts of Peru. For years the most progressive region within the Peruvian church was the so-called southern Andean church, which comprised the dioceses of Cuzco, Puno, Juli, Sicuani, Ayaviri, and Chuquibambilla. Most of those dioceses grew out of prelatures administered by different religious groups (the Maryknoll Fathers, the French Sacred Heart Fathers, the American Carmelites, among others), who forged strong ties among themselves in the 1960s and lent support to peasant organizations. Up until his death in 1982, the archbishop of Cuzco, Luis Vallejo, was a staunch member of the southern Andean church. But his successor, Alcides Mendoza, who was chaplain to the armed forces and holds the rank of general, sought to undo all the pastoral efforts of his predecessor. He pulled his diocese out of the southern Andean church and sent his seminarians to the Opus Dei seminary in Abancay. He attempted to dislodge a group of French Dominicans who run a center of research for the region. Even though some of the Dominicans were suspended, they did not leave the diocese. Their center does not depend on the diocese financially. The Bartolomé de las Casas Rural Studies Institute continues to offer seminars and courses Or researchers and lay church leaders from the region. The local diocesan clergy members, born in the area, are very conservative. But progressives have maintained a space of their own in the heart of the archdiocese, much to the displeasure of the archbishop.
There are other centers, dioceses, and institutionalized activities that for the near future will help to guarantee the progressive church the possibility of survival and even growth. The most celebrated activity of the progressive church is the summer course in theology organized by the theology department of the Catholic University in Lima. In the 1960s when the course was first offered, a few hundred attended. By the late 1980s the course drew close to 3,000 adult men and women and university students, mostly from the lower-middle and lower classes. The course, offered now both in the summer and winter, has over the years imparted a critical biblical-social consciousness to thousands of churchpeople, who come from all over Peru. Gustavo Gutiérrez is, without doubt, one of the main attractions, but the experience of ecclesial sharing is also one of the reasons for the popularity of the two-week course. The Bartolomé de las Casas Center founded by Father Gutiérrez in Lima holds seminars and training sessions for lay churchpeople who work in the pueblos jóvenes of Lima and other nearby dioceses.
In other areas, the Catholic University Students (UNEC) and the Christian Life Communities of the Jesuits, which is also university-oriented, hold annual seminars that draw up to 500 participants. In May 1990 the Christian communities (as they call themselves) at San Marcos National University in Lima organized a mass for peace. The mass was especially significant for two reasons: It symbolized an explicit repudiation of the Shining Path, which up until then had looked upon the university as its preserve, and it marked the coming of age of the progressive church in the midst of a university with a long laical and anticlerical heritage. The rector formally received the archbishop of Lima, who celebrated the mass. But far more important than the welcome given to a Catholic bishop at San Marcos was the presence of over 1,000 students who organized and attended the mass. Such a public Christian manifestation would have been unthinkable twenty years earlier. This and many other examples attest to the existence of a progressive church that is now far more widely based than when it consisted of We small core of priests and other religious activists who originally set out to create it.
This description of progressives and conservatives is somewhat simplistic and leaves out many important nuances. The lines between the two sides are not always so clearly defined. For example, not all conservatives are the same. Opus Dei bishops are perceived as somewhat clannish by other conservatives. In 1988 Archbishop Mendoza of Cuzco felt it necessary to restrict the pastoral duties of his auxiliary Opus Dei bishop, who apparently had attempted to import an Opus Dei contingent from Spain to run the seminary in the archdiocese. Vargas Alzamora was chosen to be Landázuri's successor in Lima in part because he was regarded as a more conciliatory conservative. In certain dioceses, progressives have learned to work with conservative bishops in order to resolve concrete pastoral problems. In areas especially affected by violence, conservative bishops have turned to progressives for help. Archbishop Emilio Vallebuona of Huancayo in the central Andes fit the description of the traditional Salesian, at least in Peru: few intellectual interests and no commitment to political or social change. But by the late 1980s the Shining Path had systematically attacked towns near the city and organized armed strikes (by which the whole population is ordered not to go to work or school at the risk of being killed) in Huancayo itself. Thoroughly alarmed, Vallebuona urged priests known for their progressive stance to organize peace marches and to work with the youth of the archdiocese.
Fujimori and the Religious Issue The Fujimori election in June 1990 served to bring to light two of the phenomena touched upon here: the relative strength of the conservative church and the progressive church and the internal divisions between them. It also threw the spotlight in a most dramatic way on a third phenomena: the increasing influence of evangelicals and the "sects" in Peru. Protestants and other non-Christian religions make up approximately 5 percent of the population.(6) And evangelical Protestants (which include Pentecostals) make up the majority of that percentage. For several years evangelical pastors in Peru, as elsewhere in Latin America, had been questioning their traditional response to politics and social action. Ever-increasing levels of violence and poverty led some of them to see the need to take a political stance. In one dramatic incident in August 1984, six Presbyterian church members, accused of being "subversives," were killed by navy marines in a highland community.(7) On other occasions Shining Path attacks forced pastors to look for ways to defend their communities. In December 1989 a group of pastors who belonged to CONEP (National Evangelical Council of Peru) held a week-long session to discuss the relationship of politics to society. Many of the pastors came close to espousing some of the basic tenets of liberation theology. Among the participants were several who had already decided to organize themselves politically. Disenchanted with the corruption-ridden government of Alan García, young evangelicals formed a block to support the candidacy of Alberto Fujimori, whose themes of work, honesty, and morality attracted them.(8) Also, Fujimori identified himself as the man of the small entrepreneur. Some forty evangelicals ended up as candidates for congress on the list of Fujimori's new party, Cambio'90 (Change'90).
The presence of the evangelicals would never have attracted the attention it did were it not for the fact that Fujimori, a dark horse, won second place to Mario Vargas Llosa in the presidential elections held on April 8. Because neither candidate won a majority (Vargas Llosa, 27.6 percent and Fujimori, 24.62 percent) a runoff election, required by law, was set for June 10. When it became clear that Vargas Llosa had little chance of winning if all centrist and leftist groups threw their support to Fujimori, campaign strategists of FREDEMO (Frente Democrático), the electoral front for Vargas, groped in desperation for ways of galvanizing public opinion against their opponent. Given the fact that Fujimori identified himself with many of the neoliberal policies of Vargas Llosa, FREDEMO planners tried using more nonideological issues such as race and religion. The first backfired when it became evident that Fujimori, a first-generation Japanese, was popular in part because the lower dames identified with him racially. But religion had more potential. In the middle of the second electoral round, a mysterious flyer appeared that called upon evangelicals to vote for "our Pentecostal brother Fujimori" because he was "sent by Jehovah." The flyer also alluded to the superstitious practices of Catholics. Although 4 was evident to all critical observers that the flyer was forged by FREDEMO, and evangelicals denied any knowledge of it, the conservative bishops decided to hold processions in retaliation for the presumed attack on Catholicism.
Holding religious processions in the middle of an electoral process that had aroused passions throughout the country had the effect of infusing them with a political connotation. Although the bishops claimed that their interest was nonpolitical, their sympathies in favor of Vargas Llosa were only too well known. The bishops were no doubt sincere in their fears of growing Protestant strength in Peru, and they were especially concerned that the evangelicals with Fujimori would use political power to claim privileges for themselves. But they ignored or were unimpressed by the fact that Vargas Llosa was a nonbeliever and that Fujimori himself was a Catholic who enjoyed the support of the popular classes. The processions were held in Arequipa and in Lima (the Lord of Miracles, normally held only in October, was brought out in May), and warnings about the sects were made.(9) Bishop Bambarén of Chimbote, normally in the progressive camp, also published a pamphlet that underlined the dangers posed by the new religions. The pamphlet explicitly alluded to Fujimori and Cambio '90.(10)
If the bishops had hoped to dissuade the population from voting for a candidate with evangelicals, they certainly failed in their objective. Fujimori won 57 percent of the vote, Vargas Llosa 34 percent. In Chimbote, Cambio '90 won nearly 80 percent of the vote. In the meantime progressives, some of whom had supported Henry Pease, the Catholic candidate on the left, during the first round, openly sympathized with Fujimori -- or at least looked upon him as more of the people's candidate than Vargas Llosa. Somewhat scandalized by the spectacle of holding processions during a political campaign, Bishop Dammert of Cajamarca declared emphatically that he was not about to write pamphlets or hold processions in his diocese.(11) After the election a group of bishops, including Vargas Alzamora, held a procession to congratulate Fujimori on his victory.
What hard and fast conclusions can be drawn from this entire affair are not clear. It did seem evident that the conservative bishops acted out of panic or fear, and at the very least, they acted imprudently. If they hoped to demonstrate their power to influence popular opinion, they did just the Opposite. On the other hand, it cannot be demonstrated that the progressive church influenced public opinion in any important way either. If anything, the election revealed how little the conservative church was in touch with the popular classes, and how little the popular classes were concerned about episcopal opinions on politics and religion, especially when they seem to go against political and social objectives that the popular classes consider to be completely legitimate.
The Church and Sendero Luminoso Conservative-progressive tensions in Peru have not unfolded in a vacuum. The shadow in the background that conditions all discussion in society and in the church is the worsening social situation of the lower classes and the rise of criminal and political violence-most of all the violence provoked by the terrorist groups, particularly the Shining Path. After ten years of incessant activity, the Shining Path, known in Spanish as Sendero Luminoso (or simply Sendero) has managed to win control over major areas of the central Andes and the Peruvian jungle. It also has bases in all major coastal cities, particularly in Lima. Numbering around 5,000 to 15,000, it is a highly clandestine organization. Its basic strategy and ideology are Maoist. By reason of its puritanical dogmatism, A has also been compared to the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia. Unlike other guerrilla groups in the rest of Latin America, it has shown no interest in attracting progressive or radical Christians. Although its symbols are infused with quasi-religious connotations (the leader is a mythical "Presidente Gonzalo," who may or may not be Abimael Guzmán, the founder), they have no reference either to Christianity or traditional Andean myths. Indeed, all signs indicate that Sendero is overtly hostile toward formal religious belief, which, in accord with classical Marxist lines, is viewed as a force that prevents Sendero from having total control over the people.(12)
Sendero originated in Ayacucho, a department located in the central Andes to the south of Lima. The region was not only isolated and poverty-stricken but dormant ecclesiastically. The city of Ayacucho was a tourist attraction in large part because of its many colonial churches, practically one on every block. But the living church also looked as though it had not changed much since colonial times. The clergy, like that in most of the highland communities, had little training, and many lived in concubinage. Their lack of culture, their conservative mentality, and the fact that some priests treated the people in a high-handed fashion made them very unattractive to the youth. Of the forty-six parishes in the archdiocese, twenty-three were unattended. The middle class sent their sons and daughters to one or another of the religious colegios in the city, but the schooling received there was so traditional that it offered them no preparation to deal intellectually with Marxism. While aging priests rushed through masses in the downtown churches, the Shining Path steadily built up a power base among the youth at the new university, founded in 1959.
Nevertheless, in the first few years after it initiated its own self-declared war, Sendero did not pay particular attention to the church. The conservative church in Ayacucho, which had not felt the winds of Vatican II or Medellín, simply offered no threat or challenge to its strategy. The most dramatic example that illustrates the ambiguous relationship between Sendero and the traditional church was the mass celebrated in the Ayacucho cathedral for Edith Lagos in mid-1982. Edith Lagos had graduated from the colegio run by the Salesian sisters, and by all accounts she was a model student in her religion class. But soon after graduating she was recruited by Sendero and shortly thereafter became a model leader: that is, a model terrorist She was killed at the age of nineteen in a clash with the police. She was also perceived in Ayacucho as something of a heroine. The cathedral was filled, and thousands waited outside.(13) Archbishop Federico Richtrt-Prada, a Franciscan, having no clear thoughts of what to say about terrorism and no doubt fearful to express them in public, allowed the mass to be celebrated.
That incident helps to explain why Sendero apparently ignored the church in the beginning. In the first place, the church in Ayacucho, with no social doctrine or activity of its own, outside of traditional charities, posed no obstacle to Sendero's advance. In the second place, Sendero hoped to avoid unnecessarily alienating the peasantry by directly attacking religious symbols and persons that they esteemed. But as it spread out of the Ayacucho area, it did clash with two groups: Protestants and progressive Catholics. By the 1980s Protestants had founded numerous small churches throughout the central Andes. Although of a very conservative social and political mentality, they did impose new standards of morality in the villages. For that very reason alone they posed an obstacle to Sendero, which correctly sensed that villagers and peasants, armed with a new biblical consciousness, could not be easily won over. In 1984 Sendero drove a Pentecostal pastor and eighteen families out of their village located in Ayacucho.(14) But in many other case, execution squads simply assassinated pastors and community leaders. One possible reason why Sendero singled out Protestants before coming down hard on Catholics was that the former stood out as more "alien" and therefore un-Peruvian. Although the vast majority of the Protestants attacked were in fact Peruvians, and a good number of Catholic priests and nuns are foreign-born, still Catholicism was perceived as a religion more deeply wedded to Andean ways.
In the long run, however, progressive Catholicism represented a far greater challenge to Sendero. In order to achieve control over an area, the Shining Path first studies the terrain, then singles out the authorities and other leaders who could potentially summon the community to resist the takeover. An armed attack by Sendero usually involves "executing" the mayor, other town officials, and certain landowners or shopkeepers accused of being "exploiters" of the people. An essential part of its overall strategy consists of destroying all development projects that in any way signify dependence on We outside, To achieve this objective, the Shining Path has systematically attacked and destroyed training schools for peasants, experimental farms, and credit or technical assistance cooperatives throughout the Andes. Civilian engineers and development projects volunteers are usually warned in advance to leave the area. But when Sendero strikes, it is no more merciful to ordinary civilians than it is to government officials, police, or military. In December 1988 two French agricultural assistants were killed in Apurimac, a department to the east of Ayacucho. A year before that incident, a North American agricultural economist and his Peruvian counterpart were shot to death near Huancayo.(15) Because the church also runs many such developmental projects and schools in the highlands, it was only a question of time before the progressive church and Sendero came face to face.
One of the first Sendero attacks on a church project occurred in August 1981, when a group of masked and armed persons destroyed an educational center for the peasants run by the Maryknoll parish in Juli in the southern highlands. At the time A was believed that local landowners and others resentful of the progressive church were behind the assault. Since then many such incidents have occurred. In August 1987 in San Juan de Jarpa, a small town two hours' drive from Huancayo, a column of Senderistas attacked at night and burned down a building used by the church for training peasants. As though following a plan, the armed invaders did not touch the two Jesuits who were present. They did kill a man, however, whom they mistakenly believed to be the mayor of the town. Even more destructive was an attack in May 1989 on the Institute of Rural Education, run by the Sacred Heart Fathers in Ayaviri in the south.(16)
As the level of violence increased, Sendero began throwing caution to the winds. In December 1987 a group of Senderistas killed the first priest to fall victim to terrorism: Victor Acuña, a diocesan priest in Ayacucho in charge of Cáritas. But that case was somewhat obscure: Whether Acuña was shot (while celebrating mass) because he was a priest or because Sendero perceived him as an exploiter of the people is not clear. In June 1989 a second priest was killed in a small town in Junin, but in this case he seemed to have been caught in the crossfire between the attackers and the police.(17) Finally, on September 27, 1990, a seventy-year-old Good Shepherd nun was executed along with several villagers in La Florida, in the jungle region of Junin in the central Andes.(18) This was the first case in which Sendero intentionally killed a Catholic religious person and for no other apparent reason than that she was a religious. A simple cook who was well-liked in the village, she could hardly have been accused of being, an "exploiter" of the people. The killing of the nun signified that Sendero. or some groups within it, had now declared war not just on projects but on churchpeople. In dozens of villages throughout Ayacucho, Apurímac, Juin, and other affected areas, Sendero systematically harassed and threatened church personnel and in most cases succeeded in driving them out.
As Sendero moved out of the Ayacucho area, going south toward Puno or north toward Cajamarca, it encountered resistance and rejection on Be part of We vast majority of peasants. The reason in part was that Sendero had not spent years building up bases of operation in those areas as it had in Ayacucho. But there were two other significant differences between the new areas and Ayacucho. In the southern highlands, quite poor like Ayacucho, the peasants had already gone through a politicization process since the late 1950s and were highly organized in peasant leagues or unions. Leftist parties were quite strong in the entire region. In addition, the progressive southern Andean church had built up a popular church throughout the area that harmonized with the new political consciousness. In 1969 the Maryknoll Fathers closed down their minor seminary in Puno, which had failed noticeably to produce priests, and set out to train adult catechists in the villages. Other religious groups in the area followed suit. More than twenty years later, IPA (the Andean Pastoral Institute), founded first in Cuzco but later relocated in Sicuani, had trained hundreds of lay leaders, many of whom were also community leaders in the villages. In October 1984 the first regional convention of Christian peasant "Animators" (one of the variant words used for "catechist" or "pastoral agent") was held in Puno. Some 550 Quechua- and Aymara-speaking peasants, men and women, attended, all armed with the Bible and the social teachings of the church.(19) These lay church leaders have spread the seeds of Medellín (and liberation theology) to their communities. In this situation the peasants have found religion to be a force that strengthens community cohesion and motivates them to work for community development. After the attack on the peasant training school in Ayaviri, thousands of peasants marched in protest to attend a mass of solidarity celebrated by be apostolic administrator, Francisco D'Alteroche.
In the diocese of Cajamarca in the northern central Andes, Bishop José Dammert has also promoted development projects and education for the peasants. The Opus Dei dioceses of Abancay and Cañete also operate projects for the peasants, but there is a fundamental difference in the orientation given the peasants in the two situations. In Cajamarca the emphasis in the training programs is on community action as opposed to individual advancement. Furthermore, the peasants are encouraged to stand up for their rights, a fact that led to tension between the military government and Dammert. Perhaps the best example of the link between peasant assertiveness and the church is the rondas, bands of armed peasants who organized themselves in 1976 in order to protect their herds from bandits. Many of the ronderos are catechism who look upon their nightly vigils as a form of community service. Because they are armed, it is evident that they also represent a potentially serious obstacle to Sendero. In an inter-view in 1989 Dammert stated, "Rondas are the best form of democracy in Peru."(20) In the context of the war being waged throughout the Andes and the jungle, that statement was a challenge to both the government and Sendero.
The concept of community self-defense, a virtual necessity in Peru where the armed forces and the police have proven to be ineffectual in the war against terrorism, has been taken up by individual towns in the Andes, by unions, and by other private groups. In Villa El Salvador, a vast pueblo jóven of Lima, Miguel Azcueta, the leftist mayor and an ex-seminarian with close ties to the church, has also favored organizing defense groups against terrorism. In the middle of the eastern jungle, an American Franciscan, Father Mariano, tried arming the Ashaninkas Indians to resist Sendero, but he was finally driven out of the area.(21)
But churchpeople have to wrestle with another problem: The armed forces and the police can be as brutal as the terrorists, and they violate human rights with virtual impunity. Everywhere military and police commandos, sometimes disguised as terrorists, have raided villages, conducted summary executions of suspected terrorists, pillaged the countryside, and dragged hundreds of young people off to military compounds or detention centers. A counterterrorist organization called Comando Rodrigo Franco, founded in 1988, has assassinated many union and student leaders presumably because they were sympathetic to Sendero. Frequently, the police, the military, and politicians on the right have accused the church of catering to subversives. In November 1987 the Aprista mayor of Puno accused the foreign clergy in the area of supporting the subversives. Bishop Jesús Calderón retorted that the church was only guilty of following out its "option for the poor."(22) The mayor himself was later assassinated by the Shining Path. In many highland communities, the church is held in suspicion by both the terrorists and the armed forces.
Leadership from Below The church's response to violence has ranged from courageous to timid. from creative and energetic to totally ineffectual. The national Bishops' Conference has issued many statements on violence and the social situation in Peru since 1981. One of the most eloquent was entitled "Choose Life," published in April 1990.(23) The difficulty with these pronouncements, however well-written they were, was that the conservative attack on liberation theology and the generally timid support given by the bishops to human rights groups tended to diffuse their impact. Far more effective was a pastoral letter of the southern Andean bishops, "Sow Life to Harvest Peace," written in 1988 following a wave of attacks by Sendero.(24) In the letter the bishops announced the creation of vicariates of solidarity to aid victims of terrorism and to defend human rights. With the notable exceptions of these and certain other progressive bishops, the peace and human rights initiative has been promoted primarily by groups within the church, not the hierarchy as a whole.
The most energetic official agency of the bishops in this regard is CEAS, the Bishops' Commission for Social Action, founded in the 1960s. After presiding over the commission since the beginning, Bishop Luis Bambarón was succeeded in 1988 by Miguel Irizar, a Spanish Passionist who had been bishop of Yurimaguas in the jungle. Consisting of a team of about twenty lawyers, social workers, and volunteer activists, CEAS has become one of the main channels in Peru for funneling cases of missing persons and violations of human rights. CEAS is limited by the fact that it does not enjoy the full support of the conservative bishops. But Irizar, once labeled a conservative himself, has defended his commission against other bishops. Under Bambarón and Irizar, CEAS has become the single most influential body within the church affecting official church statements on peace and violence. The bishops in the jungle sponsor a similar agency called CAAAP (Amazonian Center for Applied Pastoral Anthropology) that promotes the natives' culture and speaks out against violations of human rights.
Beyond these official church organs are myriad human rights groups in Peru, many of them closely tied to the church. The National Coordinator of Human Rights, a central office that coordinates all other human rights groups in Lima and elsewhere, is led by committed Christians, both lay and religious. One of the attention-drawing activities of the human rights groups and other grassroots Christian organizations has been the holding of peace marches. In order to counteract an armed strike that Sendero had announced in order to disrupt the November 1989 municipal elections, the leftist candidate Or mayor, Henry Pease, summoned the city to have a peace march in Lima on the day of the strike. Close to 200,000 people showed up.(25) Similar marches were held in Huancayo, Piura, and other cities. In all of these cases, progressive Christians played an important role in organizing and leading the marches.
Now, in the early 1990s, the mood in the Peruvian church ranges from gloomy pessimism to cautious hope. Conservative bishops either restrain or dampen efforts to respond creatively to Peru's crises. Many believe that a decade has been lost in useless debates over liberation theology. No doubt relations between conservatives and progressives will be strained for quite some time, especially given Rome's policy of promoting the former and snubbing the latter. Coexistence without dialogue seems to characterize relations between many in the two camps. Yet in other situations poverty and violence have drawn the two together to stand on a middle ground. When faced with the spectacle of terrorism at his doorstep, the bishop of Huancayo appealed to the progressives for aid, and the bishops, frequently uncertain of what to do, look to both CEAS and CAAAP for an agenda. For their part, the teams that make up CEAS, CAAAP, and the human rights groups have offered their full support to the bishops in their quest for some kind of response to violence and poverty. In some cases that support has been accepted; in other cases it has been ignored. In the meantime, as Peru stumbles from one crisis to the next, the emerging popular classes continue to look to the church for leadership and moral support. If they do not find that guidance and support in the church, they are more likely than at any other time in Peruvian history to look elsewhere.
Postscript Since the writing of this chapter Sendero Luminoso has escalated dramatically its attacks on the church. In May 1991, a Senderista column killed an Australian-born nun, Sister Irene McCormack, in the department of Junín. On August 10th two Polish Franciscan Missionaries, Zbgniew Stralkowski and Michael Tomaszek, were shot and killed by Sendero in a town near Chimbote on the northern coast. And toward the end of August an Italian priest, Allessandro Dordi, was also killed in the same area.
Notes 1. "Perú, 1989-1990: Informe de la Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos," Lima, August 1990, mimeo, p. 1. The statistics cited in the report are based on a Peruvian senate investigation into the causes of violence in Peru.
2. For different analyses of the story behind the various liberation theology documents, see Jeffrey Klaiber, La Iglesia en el Perú (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica, 1988), pp. 430-433; Catalina Romero, "The Peruvian Church: Change and Continuity," in Scott Mainwaring and Alexander Wilde, eds., The Progressive Church in Latin America (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), pp. 258-259. See also Luis Pásara's analysis of the radical clergy in Peru in Mainwaring and Wilde, The Progressive Church, pp. 276-327.
3. For a view of the conservative shift in Peru see John A. McCoy,America, June 3,1989, pp. 526-530.
4. Charles A. Reilly, "Latin America's Religious Populists," in Daniel H. Levine, ed., Religion and Political Conflict in Latin America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), pp. 42-57. See also Jeffrey Klaiber, "Prophets and Populists: Liberation Theology, 1968-1988," The Americas 46 (July 1989), pp. 1-15.
5. Klaiber, La Iglesia en el Perú, pp. 60, 458.
6. The figure of approximately 5 percent referring to Protestants and the non-Christian sects is based on national census figures. See ibid., pp. 478-479. Samuel Escobar, a Peruvian Protestant pastor, accepts those figures: "Protestant Minority Reaches Political Significance in Peru," Pulse, July 27,1990, p. 4. For one of the few studies on Protestantism and the new religions, see Manuel Marzal, Los caminos religiosos de los inmigrantes en la gran Lima (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica, 1988).
7. Latinamerica Press (Lima), November 9,1989, p. 2.
8. This author was an invited guest at one of the sessions of the CONEP pastors held in December 1989 in Lima. Information also derived from private interview with Dr. Carlos García García, Baptist minister and second vicepresident of Peru, Lima, July 5, 1990.
9. Jeffrey Klaiber, "Fujimori: Race and Religion in Peru," America, September 8-t5, pp. 133-135.
10. Luis Bambarén Gastelumendi, Sectas y política (Lima: Empresa Editora Latina, 1990), p. 5.
11. Interview with Bishop José Dammert, Pigina Libre (Lima), Sunday supplement, June 3, 1990, p. B5.
12. For two accounts by specialists on the Shining Path and its origins, see David Scott Palmer, "Terrorism as a Revolutionary Strategy: Peru's Sendero Luminoso," in Barry Rubin, ed., The Politics of Terrorism: Terror as a State and Revolutionary Strategy (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1989), pp. 129-152; and Cynthia McClintock, "Peru's Sendero Luminoso Rebellion: Origins and Trajectory," in Susan Eckstein, ed., Power and Popular Protest: Latin American Social Movements (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), pp. 61-101.
13. McClintock, "Peru's Sendero Luminoso Rebellion," p. 61.
14. Latinamerica Press, October 25, 1990, p. 7.
15. Latinamerica Press, January 26, 1989, p. 5.
16. Latinamerica Press, June 8, 1989, pp. 1-1
17. Latinamerica Press, July 6, 1989, p. 2.
18. Catholic News Service, October 8, 1990, p. 10.
19. Klaiber, La iglesia en el Perú, p. 439.
20. Latinamerica Press, March 16, 1989, p. 5.
21. Gustavo Gorriti, "Terror in the Andes," New York Times Magazine, December 2, 1990, pp. 40-48, 65-72.
22. La República (Lima), November 26,1987, pp. 1, 8; (LADOC), May/June 1988, pp. 19-21.
23. LADOC, September/October 1990, pp. 20-29.
24. LADOC, March/April 1988, pp. 21-27. 25. News Notes (Maryknoll Justice and Peace Office, Washington, D.C.), January/February 1990, pp. 23-25.
INDEX