A major cause of poverty and oppression in Latin America has been and remains the economic policies of the United States government and of multinational corporations-policies that buttress repressive governments.  As one observer puts it:

The basic difference between American imperialism today and American imperialism a century ago is that it is more violent, more far reaching, and more carefully planned today (Irving Horowitz et al, eds., Latin American Radicalism: A Documentary Report on Left and Nationalist Movements.  New York: Random House, 1969, p. 194).

Between 1950 and 1955, the United States invested $2 billion in Latin America, chiefly in raw materials and agriculture.  From this investment the United States made a profit of $3.5 billion, nearly half of which returned to the United States.  As is obvious, a nation that dominates the economy of another nation dominates its political sector as well.  For this reason, the U.S. government plan for so-called development in Latin America is a sure way to maintain economic, social, and political status quo.  Furthermore, in light of the insistence of protecting national security by military might, it becomes obvious why the U.S. government and multinational corporations will inevitably support political structures that favor their own self-interests above all else. (Ferm, op. cit. p. 9).

It is not surprising...that since 1960, the amount of violence has dramatically increased on the one hand by the military governments supported by the Pentagon, and the national police (with their methods of torture often taught by the United States experts in counterinsurgency), and on the other hand by the rural and urban guerrillas. With the death of John Kennedy and the failure of the Alliance for Progress program, the United States began to support all the forces in Latin America that called themselves "anti-Communists," a euphemism for counterrevolution, that is, those governments that directed their efforts against the popular revolutions through neo-colonial militarism ( A History of the Church in Latin America, op. cit., p. 51)

With this portrait in mind, one can understand why more and more Latin Americans mistrust "foreign aid" programs and "alliances for progress," wonder whether the only way to break the spiral of violence supported by entrenched political and economic structures is literally to break the structures themselves.  After all, as John F. Kennedy used to warn us, those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable (Ferm, op. cit. p. 10).  

For a long time, Latin America had been ripe for massive social revolution.  When the social teachings of Vatican II and the social encyclicals of Pope John XXIII and Paul VI began to trickle down into Latin America, a small but growing number of bishops, priests, and lay persons found confirmation of what they themselves had come to see as the role of the church in building a new social order.  After all, six hundred bishops from Latin America had attended the opening proceedings of Vatican II in 1962, and they and their advisers could not help but be deeply committed to the social documents that they and their Latin American episcopacy, the implications of Vatican II and the papal encyclicals-in particular, the more recent Populorum Progressio were throughly discussed (Ibid.).

In 1967, bishops from Latin America, Africa, and Asia issued "A Letter  to the Peoples of the Third World," which maintained that revolution can be an appropriate means to overcome justice, and stated that the rich were inciters of violence.  More and more bishops, priests, and lay persons had come to realize that in order to remedy the desperate poverty and injustices of the masses, Latin American nations had to eliminate political and economic domination and create their own destiny in the community of nations.  Thus, beginning in the 1960's, a new era began for the church in Latin America, an era marked by a growing concern for the poor, resistance to the privileged few, distrust of the established order, and protest against the prevailing structures of the social order.  It was in this atmosphere that Latin American Liberation Theology was born (Ibid.). 

The second major event in the 1960's for the Catholic Church in Latin America was called the General Conference of the Latin American episcopacy (CELAM II) held in 1968 in Medellin Colombia.  Enrique Dussel considers CELAM II the "Vatican II of Latin America" (A History, op. cit., p. 147).

Gustavo Gutierrez points to the year 1968 as the birthday of Latin American Liberation Theology (National Catholic Reporter, Dec. 11, 1982, p. 11).

What the Medellin conference did above all else was to focus attention on the Latin American situation, particularly the pervasive human injustice and oppression.  What does God have to say and what ought the church as God's agent do about all this suffering (Ferm, op. cit., p. 11).

The theme of the conference was "The Church in the Present-Day-Transformation of Latin America in the Light of the Council (The Church in the Present-Day Transformation of Latin America in the Light of the Council:  Second General Conference of Latin American Bishops. Washington, D.C ., National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 3rd. ed., 1979). 

Sixteen documents were produced, ranging in subject matter from justice, peace, education, and youth, to liturgy, lay movements, the mass media, and the poverty of the church.  In reading the documents, it becomes apparent that the majority  of the 145 cardinals, bishops, and priests who attended this conference had been deeply and positively influenced by Vatican II-many of them had been present at it-as well as by Pope Paul VI's encyclical Popululorum Progressio of 1967, which had directly addressed the Latin American situation (Ferm, op. cit. p 11.).

To be continued.

Rev. Dr. Juan A. Carmona