Father Jeffrey Klaiber has written a well-documented if brief introduction to that area of Peruvian intellectual history focusing on the interaction of religion and politics in the past 150 years. Key thinkers are discussed, ranging from nineteenth-century anticlericals like González Prada to figures like Mariátegui and Haya de la Torre who saw particular uses for the religious feelings of many Peruvians. Instead of condemning the Church as inherently conservative, more recent personalities, including several key military leaders, have recognized that the popular intensity of lower-class religious beliefs might be rechanneled behind groups committed to meaningful social reform. Rather than being a vulgar deviation from more orthodox practices and beliefs, such “popular religiosity” might serve as a necessary link between long isolated reformist elites and their needed mass support. Klaiber sees the new Catholic Church as better equipped than the Aprista Party or the post-1968 military to use religious ties as a means of promoting political mobilization.
Klaiber’s historical treatment clearly suggests that the old stereotype of the Church as monolithically committed to the status quo may never have been true for Peru. This point as to the diversity of the views of the clergy has been made earlier in more general terms by authors such as Ivan Vallier. However, before the reader assumes the exact opposite about the present-day Peruvian Church, he needs specific information not provided here about the ideological makeup of the clergy and exactly what positions in the hierarchy progressives hold. While the Church may have wider contacts than the military or the APRA Party in urban working-class districts and in the sierra, one needs solid data on the extent of the Church’s popular ties before accepting claims as to its likely role in promoting social change. Finally, some discussion is needed of the type of change envisioned by younger clerics and whether it is as revolutionary as is implied in the title of the book under review.
