This book makes a valuable contribution to the study of religion and politics in Chile and in Latin America. The author’s detailed analysis of the slow development of a rural social policy in the Chilean Catholic church poses and answers several questions of general interest. Why did a church hierarchy that has been properly well known for progressive thinking take so long to disentangle itself from traditional alliances with political and economic elites in the countryside? What have been the implications of this delay for the church, politics, and the relations between them? What does research into the past tell us about present and likely future alternatives?
The author demonstrates the importance of local histories in understanding the general history of Catholicism and politics in Latin America. The conventional wisdom assumes that religious and political change in the region began with the reaction to the Second Vatican Council, consolidated and advanced with the CELAM meetings at Medellín and Puebla and concurrent developments, such as the emergence of liberation theology. Stewart-Gambino shows that in Chile, as elsewhere, change has deeper historical roots and a wealth of predecessors. Moreover, change emerges from powerful internal conflicts, conflicts that remain part of the current arrangement of forces and orientations in this, as in other churches of the region.
The book opens with a brief general statement of method and orientation. The author aligns herself with the school of thought that attributes church positions to calculations of “influence” by church leaders. Chapter 2 takes a careful look at the church’s relations with the Chilean party system. Contrasting Chile to Colombia, the author shows how the breakdown of oligarchic control and the gradual emergence of new political alternatives capable of reaching into rural areas began to spur change. The next three chapters examine the growing “identity crisis within the church” from 1925 to 1952 (chapter 3), the creation of a rural policy (chapter 4), and the strategy of “preemptive reform” (chapter 5) intended to deny rural support to the Left. The book concludes with an acute analysis of the nature of the church’s alliance with Chilean Christian Democracy (chapter 6), a discussion of recent trends (chapter 7), and brief general conclusions.
The central thesis advanced in this study is that for church leaders, the core of their relationship to politics and politicians is an exchange of support and legitimation for protection and “influence” (p. 116). This is no simple two-way street; for, as the author shows, political groups compete extensively to retain the aura of church sponsorship (vital for the Conservative party), to gain it (the Christian Democrats), or, at the very least, to neutralize the church and avoid condemnation (the organized Left).
Although the analysis is well done and, on the whole, quite convincing, here, as with other instances of the “influence” thesis, there are ambiguities. Is the heart of the matter a relatively simple trade of support for influence? Or were church leaders responding to internal pressures that required a redefinition of influence in terms not encompassed by traditional alliances with the rich and powerful? The author argues strongly that alliance with the Conservatives gradually came to be perceived as no longer in the church’s interest. Perceptions of Conservative decline and fears of the growing power of the Left sparked organizational and policy innovations. At the same time, however, the author’s evidence supports the conclusion that much of this changing viewpoint rested on long-term shifts in the class base of organized rural life.
The issue is important, because it speaks to the enduring quality of new policy initiatives and to the breadth of support they draw in the church hierarchy. If fear and a search for influence drive change, then support for new initiatives as such is likely to be weaker and more subject to short-term shifts. If, on the other hand, change stems from a basic redefinition of what the church is all about and how its ties with the poor should be organized, then change is likely to endure even in the face of severe attacks. Here again the evidence is ambiguous. One of the author’s central contributions is to reread the historical record in ways that correct much of the conventional wisdom about the Chilean church and politics. In particular, she shows that ties with the Right endured longer and had much deeper roots than many have allowed for. She also demonstrates the continuing depth of internal conflict, a point valid not only in Chile but also in other leading “progressive” cases like El Salvador and Peru. At the same time, if a trade of influence for support were the only point at issue, it would be hard to account for the church’s longstanding and justly honored role in opposing a military regime that claimed to be defending Christian civilization from the Left. By the mid-1970s, moreover, that simple equation no longer had the power to convince important sectors in the church.
This short, well-written book presents its arguments and evidence with great clarity. Although she breaks no new ground in methodological terms, Stewart-Gambino’s well-crafted study affirms the continuing virtues of solid historical research in clarifying the present configuration of issues and alternatives.
