Both Marx and Jesus

Christians must decide definitively for the revolution . . . [but] they must come without the pretension of evangelizing the Marxists and without the cowardice of hiding their faith in order to assimilate themselves . . . When Christians dare to give an integral revolutionary testimony, the Latin American revolution will be invincible.

--Che Guevara

More than 400 self-proclaimed "Christians for Socialism," meeting in Santiago, Chile, last month, acted on Che's prophecy. They declared that the time has come for "a strategic alliance of revolutionary Christians and Marxists in the process of liberating the continent." Participants in the meeting, from all 28 Latin American countries, the U.S., Canada and Europe, were both Protestant and Roman Catholic; they were social scientists, missionaries, teachers, theologians, social workers. Some were nuns. The majority were Roman Catholic priests. One bishop took a leading role: Don Sergio Mendez Arceo of Cuernavaca, Mexico.

The "class struggle," said the socialists' congress, has so sharpened in Latin America that there remain "only two possibilities: dependent capitalism and underdevelopment, or socialism." The participants emphasized that they want to use Marxian economic and social analysis as a tool to transform society, but do not accept philosophical Marxism's doctrine of atheistic materialism. It "does not mean for Christians an abandonment of their faith, but rather gives renewed impetus to their hopes in the future of Christ."

To what extent were the Santiago activists speaking for their Christian brethren throughout Latin America? In terms of numbers, radical Latin American clerics are a small minority everywhere. But in some countries, at least, they form a vocal, dedicated cadre determined to influence the masses through conscientizacion--"consciousness raising"--or as some now prefer, politizacion. Chile's radical priests' organization, which is led by Jesuit Gonzalo Arroyo, the congress organizer, is called the Group of 80--in a nation that has 2,500 priests. An Argentine priests' group, the Third World Movement, claims 400 members out of a clergy numbering 5,200. Mexico's new Movement of Priests for the People says it has 100 priests (out of the nation's 8,700). Peru has its National Office of

Social Information (ONIS), an organization that includes both native priests and missionaries (TIME, Feb. 22, 1971).

Other major countries show less organized involvement. Colombia, home of Rebel Priest Camilo Torres, martyred hero of the left, has virtually no radical Christian organization; the once active Golconda movement has all but disappeared for lack of leadership. Brazil's Dom Helder Camara, Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, is still an outspoken proponent of "liberation," and many of Brazil's priests and bishops, while quiet on ideology, are actively working for change. But the government has become so repressive that it now censors even church newspapers; no visible leftist priests' movement could hope to exist.

There is still plenty of room in most Latin American countries for conservative and reactionary churchmen. Probably the majority, however, are moderate progressives, interested in reform but fearful of revolution, and far from convinced that socialism is the best way to make progress.

If serious commitment to social reform is the measure--rather than loyalty to socialism--the Santiago radicals are only the tip of the volcano. Far more than U.S. churchmen, Latin Americans have heeded recent papal social pronouncements closely. Shortly after Pope Paul VI's encyclical Populorum Progressio acknowledged Latin America as part of the oppressed Third World, Latin American bishops, meeting at Medellin in 1968, denounced "the institutionalized violence" of economic and social structures in their countries. Heretofore one of the pillars of the old social order, the church, observes former Bolivian President Luis Adolfo Siles-Salinas, is "now becoming a battering ram to topple it."

Christian Love. Some right-wing secular groups have reacted heatedly to this new leftist and Marxian thrust. When Cuernavaca's Don Sergio returned from the Santiago meeting, he was greeted at the airport by a group of angry youths who sloshed him with dark red dye. The Mexico City newspaper El Heraldo called him a "Luther" and pronounced him excommunicated. Don Sergio calmly insisted in a sermon at the national Shrine of Guadalupe that elimination of the divisions that create "class struggle" should be "a work of Christian love." The Marxian aggiornamento has its friendly critics too. Jesuit Sociologist Neil P. Hurley, who has worked in Chile, wonders if the Christians for Socialism might not be inviting a "new church-political alliance that could be as intractable as the alliance with capitalism in the past."

Despite such misgivings the radicals enjoy open sympathy from highly placed liberals in the Vatican. "God created the earth for all the human family," says an important Vatican official, "not just a favored few in any nation or just the favored nations. We want to erode national boundaries and transfer technology on a worldwide basis, as part of the patrimony of humanity. If this is socialism, make the most of it."

In one respect, Vatican liberals are more frankly realistic than the Santiago reformers about the risks of such reform. Most of the Latin American pro-nunciamentos--including the Santiago statements--carefully avoid any mention of violence, as if the "class struggle" could end somehow in a handshake. But one Vatican insider says grimly, "We hope for--but do not expect --transformations without violence."

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