The Pope in Latin America

ROMAN CATHOLICS

In imitation of Columbus' first act when he landed in the New World, the frail figure in the scarlet cloak fell to his knees at the foot of the airplane ramp and kissed the concrete. With that dramatic gesture, Paul VI last week became the first Pope to set foot in South America, the only predominantly Roman Catholic continent. The Pope's journey was not an entirely joyous one. Though he received a warm and at times tumultuous welcome, the cause of his trip was a crisis. His central purpose was to try to prevent a disastrous worsening of the division in the Latin American church--a schism between entrenched reactionaries and radical clerics advocating social and political revolution.

By his trip to Latin America, cabled TIME Correspondent John Shaw, who traveled with the Pope, Paul is trying to devise for the continent's clergy and faithful "a middle way to social progress with justice." He thus hopes to satisfy the radicals without totally alienating the large number of reactionaries, who are strongly allied with the church. "Seeking evolution, fearing revolution, warning against violence but agreeing that reform is needed urgently, the Vatican is seeking to influence Latin American governments, awaken the conscience of the rich, involve the wealthy nations, and arouse its Latin hierarchy. But all without the church itself risking the loss of its privileges."

Oddly Anachronistic. Thus, in his three-day visit, the Pope tried to identify Catholicism more effectively with reform and with various efforts to ease the social ills of a poverty-ridden continent. Whatever his success, the Pope was clearly moved by the opportunity. Speaking in accented but accurate Spanish to a crowd of peasants outside Bogota, he cried: "Greetings, greetings to you, campesinos of Colombia. And greetings to the workers of the land in Latin America. Greetings, greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, Our Lord, Our Savior. We confide to you that this meeting with you is one of of the dearest and most meaningful moments of this journey of ours. It is one of the dearest and most meaningful moments of our apostolic and pontifical ministry."*

Still, the occasion for the Pope's visit --the 39th International Eucharistic Congress--was oddly anachronistic in a day when a large and militant part of the Roman Catholic Church is turning away from pomp and tradition. The Eucharistic Congress, conceived in the late 19th century by a devout French grande dame, Marie Marthe Tamisier, is a liturgical spectacular that reaffirms the otherworldly glories of the faith. The event particularly venerates the Eucharist, the ritual in which, according to traditional Catholic doctrine, bread and wine are transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ. With its emphasis on ceremony and doctrine, the congress could have little bearing on the problems of poverty and social callousness that plague Latin America. Pope Paul selected Colombia, Latin America's most unshakably Catholic country, as the site for this year's event, frankly calling the honor "a prize for Colombia's illustrious services to the Catholic cause."

The congress drew 10,000 foreign ecclesiastical and lay pilgrims to a Carnpo Eucanstico in a 60-acre pasture outside Bogota. On a "Day of Conversion," 20 Andean Indians--who left aside their usual breechcloths to don city clothing for the first time--were publicly baptized, received first Communion and were confirmed all on the same day. Later, showing his concern for the shortage of priests in Latin America, the Pope ordained 161 priests and deacons in a group ceremony. Four of the new deacons have wives, and thus became Latin America's first married clergy under a 1967 authorization by Paul reviving the ancient institution of the diaconate. In a touch of ecumenism, three Protestants, including a Bavarian Lutheran bishop, and a local Anglican priest took part in a Mass. The Lutheran preached the sermon, and the Anglican publicly criticized the lack of religious freedom in Colombia before the Catholic audience.

Heavy Guard. For a man of 70 in uncertain health, the 5,941-mile flight to Bogota was an ordeal, and the Pope's aides tried to surround him with every amenity. Paul's compartment in the specially outfitted Colombian jet that carried him on the 11-hr. 50-min. flight from Rome was equipped with commercial aviation's first airborne bathtub --a convenience that even President Johnson's Air Force One does not have.

The Pope was also heavily guarded. Not since feudal times, when several Popes were murdered and the papal food taster was a Vatican fixture, had there been such concern for a Pontiff's safety. As always on foreign trips, Paul was accompanied by his bodyguard, Colonel Spartaco Angelini, commander of the Pontifical Gendarmerie, the Vatican police force. Angelini carried a 7.65-mm. Beretta in a shoulder holster, and under his own standing orders was prepared to shoot to kill to defend the Pope. At least 1,000 white-gloved, white-helmeted Colombian military policemen patrolled the Campo Eucanstico with rifles and submachine guns.

Though in some places the crowds did not live up to expectations, the Pope was engulfed by a roar of emotion everywhere he went. For Paul, the acclaim was a tonic. After months of agonizing over his encyclical on birth control, then weeks of widespread and often bitter criticism, here was simple, uncomplicated, old-fashioned affection. The papal presence transformed Colombia's somber capital, insulated 8,355 ft. high on a plateau between two Andean ranges, into a scene of sheer, uninhibited joy. Shoulder to shoulder, an estimated 500,000 bogotanos lined the eight-mile route to town, straining for a glimpse of their spiritual leader, who rode in an open-topped Lincoln Continental, and waving white handkerchiefs in the South American flicker of greeting.

Pressed Flesh. The most dangerous crush occurred at the national cathedral, Paul's first stop after the airport. Some of the faithful had waited all night in the Plaza de Bolivar fronting on the cathedral. When Paul arrived, the surge of the mob was so forceful that women lost their shoes, 300 persons fainted or were pressed breathless, and even the Pope himself was jostled. Escorted into the cathedral by a phalanx of police, Paul was greeted by 5,000 priests, nuns, novices and seminary students who jammed every niche of the basilica, elbowing and shoving for a better look.

The most colorful scene was at the village of Mosquera, 13 miles from Bogota, where the Pope was set down by helicopter before 50,000 campesinos. Leaving his copter, Paul boarded a white Jeep and, for half an hour, drove through a multitude of awed faces. Present in the crowd were "typical" peasants from 21 Latin American coun tries, selected to attend the confrontation with the Pontiff. Bolivia sent the head of its National Peasants' Union.

From Peru came an Indian who an swered all questions with "Cuzco," meaning that was his home town. A Uruguayan peasant, Roberto Rodriguez, wore bombachas (Gaucho-type bloomers), and there was even a black peasant-delegate from Haiti. During the Pope's speech, the honored peasants sat behind him on a flag-decked platform. Afterward, they received his blessing and gave him gifts, including a bottle of chicha (corn beer) from Chile and a Peruvian wreath of alpaca, llama, and vicuna known as a chopo.

Education over Violence. Everywhere, Paul tried to sound a call to reconciliation and reform. He advised the new priests to "be able to understand men's concerns and to transform them. not into anger and violence, but into the powerful force of constructive work." At Mosquera, he told the campesinos: "We know how, in the great continent of Latin America, economic and social development has been unequal. It has passed over the multitude of the indigenous peoples, who have almost always been abandoned to an ignoble level of life."

The Pope added: "We will continue to denounce unjust economic inequalities between rich and poor. We exhort all the governments of Latin America and also those of other countries, as well as the managerial and well-to-do classes, to persevere in facing the reforms necessary for a more just and efficient social arrangement." Facing up to Latin America's social ills, Paul declared, demands "progressive advantage for the classes today less favored and fairer imposition of the fiscal burden on the more well-to-do classes, especially upon those who own vast estates and on those classes who, with little or no real toil, realize huge incomes."

Concluding his address, the Pope warned his leathern-faced listeners:

"Do not place your trust in violence and revolution. That is contrary to the Christian spirit, and it can also delay instead of advance that social uplifting to which you lawfully aspire. See to it rather that you support undertakings in education, that you seek to organize yourselves under the Christian banner and to modernize your agriculture." On the final day of his visit, Paul inaugurated the annual meeting of Latin American Catholic bishops by defending his encyclical prohibiting Catholics from practicing artificial birth control.

Privileged Powers. The question was whether, despite the enthusiasm that his visit evoked, Paul would be able to narrow the tremendous differences that exist between Latin America's two principal blocks of Catholics--the peasants living in subhuman conditions and the ruling elite. These two forces have been in conflict ever since the continent was colonized, and their struggles have usually been resolved either by the aristocracy's maintaining power through the military or by the peasants' destroying the landed oligarchy through bloody revolution, as occurred in Mexico early this century and later in Bolivia.

What Latin America needs in today's age of aspiration is a means of resolving the differences between the two factions in a way that would favor social progress while circumventing the old extremes of reaction and revolu tion. As spiritual mentor of both sides, the church could play a major role in achieving a reconciliation within its flock. But the truth is that the Latin American Catholic church has almost always been identified with the privileged powers, from the days when its priests went ashore with the conquistadors. As a result, there is widespread doubt that it can ever attain the status of a reunifying social force.

Structural Reform? As the Pope jetted back to .Rome, his prescription for progress in Latin America probably satisfied neither the church's radicals nor its reactionaries. Conservative Latin Americans were pleased by the Pontiff's condemnation of violence. Gua temala's right-wing newspaper, El Im-parcial, praised Paul's words on the subject as "particularly opportune" and expressed the hope that they would "contribute to the Latin American people's growing resistance to ideological struggle." The attitude of the upper class to drastic social reform was best reflected in Bogota's leading "liberal" daily, El Tiempo. "What is this 'reform of structure' that the church's reform ers speak so much about?" the newspaper asked. "Is it modifying society so that we shall all be poor?"

Paul's words were constructive as far as they went. Yet they did not sound strong enough on an impatient continent that more than ever demands change and forceful leadership. The Pope's presence and pronouncements alone were not likely to bend the conscience of Latin America's wealthy Catholics sufficiently to spur them on to creative social revolution.

* Paul's five earlier visits abroad were to the Holy Land, India, the U.N., Turkey and Portugal.

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