Summary
1 Background of CELAM
1.1 The first Latin American Episcopal meetings
1.2 Creation of CELAM
2 The general conferences of the Latin American episcopate
2.1 First Conference: Rio de Janeiro, from July 25 to August 4, 1955
2.1.1 Social and ecclesial context
2.1.2 Organization and main highlights
2.2 Second Conference: Medellín, from August 26 to September 7, 1968
2.2.1 Social and ecclesial context
2.2.2 Organization and main highlights
2.3 Third Conference: Puebla, from January 27 to February 13, 1979
2.3.1 Social and ecclesial context
2.3.2 Organization and main highlights
2.4 Fourth Conference: Santo Domingo, from October 12 to 28, 1992
2.4.1 Social and ecclesial context
2.4.2 Organization and main highlights
2.5 Fifth Conference: Aparecida, from May 13 to 31, 2007
2.5.1 Social and ecclesial context
2.5.2 Organization and main highlights
3 Brief concluding questions
4 Bibliographical references
1 Background of CELAM
1.1 The first Latin American Episcopal meetings
The Latin American episcopate has a long history as a collegial body seeking to discern the path of Catholicism on the continent. During the colonial period, provincial councils or ecclesiastical councils were held in Mexico City and Lima, even before the post-Tridentine Royal Decree of 1621.
As early as 1899, at the initiative of the Chilean bishop Monsignor Carlos Casanueva, Pope Leo XIII convened the First Latin American Plenary Council in Rome, on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Spanish settlers. The thirteen archbishops and forty bishops gathered were mainly concerned with discussing, more than doctrinal issues, matters related to ecclesiastical discipline, with the emergence of common socio-ecclesial problems.
1.2 Creation of CELAM
CELAM was created in 1956, in connection with the First General Conference of the Latin American Episcopate held in Rio de Janeiro in 1955. Its legal origin dates back to 1958. The creation of CELAM precedes the existence of most Episcopal Conferences of the local churches. Therefore, its emergence cannot be seen as a regional reception of a local experience. At the aforementioned meeting of the late 19th century, the common consciousness of the Latin American episcopate had not yet emerged, as the Church in Latin America was the heir of rural Christendom, implemented in massive and passive forms of popular piety in the 19th century, strict traditional social patterns of coexistence, ecclesiastical elites of territory, etc. (HOUTARD, 1986, p.94). In this sense, CELAM was not forged in reflection by the episcopal body of the continent. It was institutionalized as an ecclesial-episcopal body by the initiative of some bishops and the impetus of Roman authorities. With the renewal of the Second Vatican Council, this Latin American ecclesial institution progressively gained more self-awareness of the meaning of collegial feeling and its positive pastoral repercussions.
For this Latin American Council to function effectively, a general secretariat was created as a permanent body for two purposes: to implement Council resolutions and coordinate the activities of the National Secretariats (IBAN, 1989, p.289). In May 1956, Bishop Julián Mendoza was elected by the Pope as the first Secretary-General, and he immediately prepared the first meeting of the Latin American Episcopal Council. Presided over by the Apostolic Nuncio of Colombia, the president and the two vice-presidents of the Council for the period 1957-1958 were elected at that meeting. By majority, the Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro, Cardinal Jaime de Barros Câmara, was elected president, and Mons. Miguel Darío Miranda, Primate Archbishop of Mexico, and Mons. Manuel Larraín, Bishop of Talca, Chile, were elected vice-presidents.
CELAM has met in General Conference five times: 1955, 1968, 1979, 1992, and 2007, issuing a final document at each as a conclusion of work. These documents are not explained automatically and independently; an appropriate hermeneutic is needed to evaluate them and understand what was expressed or omitted.
2 The general conferences of the Latin American episcopate
2.1 First Conference: Rio de Janeiro, from July 25 to August 4, 1955
2.1.1 Social and ecclesial context
Two ecclesial events marked the first Latin American Episcopal Conference, namely the 36th International Eucharistic Congress, held in Rio de Janeiro from July 17 to 24, and the Second Latin American Meeting of Young Workers of Catholic Action (JOC), with the presence of Belgian priest Joseph Cardijn, founder of JOC (DUSSEL, 1965, p.63). There, the voices of the laity promoting a Catholicism marked by concern for the application of the Church’s Social Doctrine in the Latin American context, labor issues, and the social living of faith were echoed. The convocation, programming, and presidency were papal responsibilities; Cardinal Giovanni Adeodato Piazza, Secretary of the Consistorial Congregation, worked on the preparation and direction along with Monsignor Antonio Samoré, Monsignor Helder Câmara (Brazil), and the archbishops of Concepción (Chile), Puebla (Mexico), and Santo Domingo. Observers from the episcopates of the United States, Canada, Spain, the Philippines, and Portugal were invited.
Pope Pius XII expressly hoped that the bishops of Latin America would address the problem of the shortage of clergy, considered the main problem for regional Catholicism. There was no explicit mention of the enormous social problem caused by Latin America’s dependence on the United States. Nationalist and reformist governments that sought to distance themselves from the excessive influence of the United States in their internal policies were beginning to consolidate in the region; in response, the Americans promoted actions of political and economic destabilization. All of this was deliberately omitted. The main concern was focused on the rise of Protestantism, which, in the Pope’s opinion, was directly related to the lack of pastoral care by the clergy, leaving room for various social and religious groups that endangered the hegemony of the Catholic faith. For this reason, work in vocational pastoral care and careful formation of the clergy would help generate more and better local priests; but it was also necessary to encourage the arrival of foreign priests, to renew pastoral methods more appropriate to the demands of the religious problem in Latin America, overcoming fragmentation and generating more exchange between local churches.
2.1.2 Organization and main highlights
The religious reality of the continent marked the Conference’s agenda. To discover the face of God, in its splendor and deformations, Cardinal Piazza requested a statistical survey of the pastoral, spiritual, and social situation of local churches. Methodologically, it was a matter of mapping locally, so that provincial assemblies would later send the results to the Rio assembly.
The seven Conference commissions – Clergy, Clergy auxiliaries, Organization and means of the apostolate, Protestantism and other anti-Catholic movements, Catholic social activities, Missions, indigenous people and people of color, Immigration and people of the sea – outlined a profile of Latin American Catholicism, facing a process of dechristianization produced, according to reports, by the lack of priests. Special attention was given to the missionary issue, especially regarding rural migration and the increasing rise of Protestantism and sects, committing to immigrants and promoting an indigenous culture. The potential of various forms of lay apostolate against forms of Christian disintegration was highlighted. The Conference also proposed encouraging the creation of a Catholic newspaper in each country and limiting the influence of bad cinema. Despite identifying the problem of clergy shortage, with a very self-centered ecclesiology, there was a real sensitivity to the social problems of the time and the positive influence that a better-formed laity could bring to the continent.
The Conference approved a Declaration addressed to the clergy and all the faithful of Latin America, as well as Resolutions that all the Latin American episcopate should consider. The main one would undoubtedly be the formation of a Latin American Episcopal Council (Conclusions, 82-84), whose essential concern would be to identify common fundamental problems, coordinate, and promote Catholic initiatives on the continent.
2.2 Second Conference: Medellín, from August 26 to September 7, 1968
2.2.1 Social and ecclesial context
The second General Conference of the Latin American Episcopate was also preceded by an International Eucharistic Congress held in Bogotá. It was the first time a pontiff set foot on Latin American soil. Between 1962 and 1965, the Second Vatican Council was celebrated, bringing with it the crystallization of decades of renewing theological thought in Roman Catholicism. This universal magisterium would be contrasted with two documents promulgated by Pope Paul VI: the encyclical Populorum Progressio (PP), which was very well received in Latin America, and the encyclical Humanae Vitae, which triggered a bitter controversy. The content of both documents outlined the speeches of Paul VI in Bogotá, adding numerous condemnations of the justification and excuse of violence, according to PP, which established a clear condemnation of institutional violence as a cause of social instability.
Socially, the continent was facing an accelerated disproportion between economic progress and social development. Many local churches, such as those in Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Costa Rica, supported the creation of Christian-inspired movements, such as cooperatives and human promotion projects. The Church also collaborated in the creation of politically inspired parties. Some structural reforms, such as agrarian reform, were also promoted by the Church.
The Conference faced this neoliberal economic model of development, along with the convulsion of students from various countries on the continent. It was imperative to take on the challenge of speaking about and for this present Latin American moment.
2.2.2 Organization and main highlights
Medellín can be understood as the great continental reception of the Second Vatican Council. About 750 bishops gathered around the theme “The Church in the current transformation of Latin America in the light of the Council.” Along with the conciliar reception, they wanted to make an adequate reception of the social situation, from which emerged themes of ecclesial restructuring, base communities, and a new theological method, grounded in concern for the poor and liberation. From the biblical and pastoral assumptions (ABALOS, 1969, p.115), it is evident that the new ecclesial paradigm emerging in Medellín takes up a marginal theme in the conciliar debates, the ecclesiological model of the Church of the poor (SCATENA, 2008). This led to the emergence of a continental ecclesial self-awareness that would become a local contribution to the catholicity of the Church. In this way, it went beyond a mere application of the conciliar magisterium, proposing a renewal of the Church’s internal structures as a sign of a liberating presence in the complex social context (TAMAYO, 2000, p.11). There was also an appreciation of the political action of Christians, as an essential characteristic of the theology and pastoral care of continental Catholicism (MANZATTO, 2007, p.532). Bishops Gregory, McGrath, Pironio, Proaño, and Ruiz spoke from the podium of theology, addressing the signs of the times, attending to God’s passage in the history of a people seeking liberation in situations of oppression.
It is also within this ecclesial and theological-doctrinal context that the first systematizations of the so-called “theology of liberation” are inscribed, the great contribution in the method for universal theology. Liberation was the invented category, contrasting with the classic one of development, used in the economic-social models of the time (GUTIERREZ, 1988, p.17), although the final document referred to both (7 and 11) (OLIVEROS, 1977, p.127). From an ecclesial design perspective, it is in Medellín that special emphasis is given to the organization and formation of Basic Ecclesial Communities, a model of Church that emerges from ecclesial frontier environments, the initial cell of ecclesiastical structures (10-11). In the introduction to the final document, it is clearly stated that the continent is under the sign of transformation and development, in search of all levels of human activity, facing a new era in the history of the continent (4).
More than the local theological-doctrinal maturity, Medellín demonstrates, in its results, a Church that surpasses Christendom (CANAVAUGH, 1994, p.68), the dualistic understanding, assuming the autonomy of earthly realities with their own consistency, which led the Conference to empower itself in the face of social changes, distanced from the established situation and the Latin American oligarchies. It promotes a structural analysis of neocolonialism that affected poor countries both internally and externally (9), increasing the gap of inequality (23). This Conference would become the place to gauge ecclesial legitimacy in the liberation process of the continent’s Christian communities, a place to perceive the sensus ecclesiae in the following decades.
2.3 Third Conference: Puebla, from January 27 to February 13, 1979
2.3.1 Social and ecclesial context
The extraordinary reception of Evangelii Nuntiandi in the Latin American Church was the setting in which the idea of convening a new General Conference of the Episcopate on the tenth anniversary of Medellín emerged. The Latin American Church had matured between Medellín and Puebla, and this would be the context that determined the thematic proposal: “Evangelization in the present and future of Latin America.” The continent was witnessing one of the most complex social periods in recent history, facing dictatorial regimes, repression, institutionalized violence, blockades, dismantling of revolutions, electoral abstentions, political and military support from foreign powers, etc. (BORRAT, 1978, p.32-34).
The Church had assumed, in this way, in a large sector of the continent, a role of religious leadership in defense of people’s rights, in a climate of torture, disappearance, and death. Liberation theology had become, then, a militant ecclesial tool that systematized experiences of oppression and liberation from a faith option; a method of analysis and an appropriate language to express reality in a Christian way, much more than the Church’s social doctrine (POBLETE, 1979, p.38).
2.3.2 Organization and main highlights
The preliminary consultation document to the Episcopal Conferences was partly the result of suggestions made during the fourth regional episcopal meeting of various episcopates of the continent between July and August 1977 (CELAM, 1978). Regarding the general theme of the Conference, “Evangelization in the present and future of Latin America,” this document makes a social, economic, and political diagnosis, resuming the main nuclei of social thought in the Church. It is warned transversally that, despite economic development, the gap between rich and poor is very large and that the existence of extreme poverty strongly challenges Christians. The preliminary document had massive socialization, receiving comments from all Episcopal Conferences. With representatives from the four regions of the continent, they were analyzed, and from this, the base document for the Conference was prepared, which was thematically continuous with the preliminary document.
The results in the final document were notable. They represented a step forward compared to the Medellín meeting. The recovery of historical consciousness, in the demand for a certain understanding of the mission, determined the way evangelization of culture and popular piety was understood; the Church’s preferential option for the poor and oppressed, for the youth, for the dignity of people, for integral liberation. The Church demonstrated the ability to achieve a totalizing historical self-awareness of its mission, making its own contextual Catholic reading of the reality of the faithful people, of the joys and hopes of Latin American faithful.
In Puebla, the Basic Ecclesial Communities are confirmed in their status as a path for building a communal and participatory Church (MANZATTO, 2007, p.538). The model of the Church as the sacrament of the Kingdom of God is established, actively promoting the active participation of the laity and the development of ministries. The Church is confirmed in its irreplaceable religious mission of establishing a more humane community in the face of the complex sociopolitical situation faced by most Latin American countries (42).
2.4 Fourth Conference: Santo Domingo, from October 12 to 28, 1992
2.4.1 Social and ecclesial context
More than twenty years separate the fourth and fifth conferences. By the mid-1980s, it was considered that the fifth centenary of the Church’s presence in Latin America would be an appropriate setting for a new episcopal meeting. John Paul II, opening the 19th Ordinary Assembly of CELAM Bishops in Port-au-Prince on March 9, 1983, maintained that the continent needed a new evangelization: new in its ardor, in its methods, in its expression. In preparing for the Fourth Conference, there was a decrease in participation, affecting its reception and impact on the life of the Church. Due to the variety of interpretations it provoked, the occasion of the Fifth Centenary elicited contrasting reactions in well-defined ecclesial sectors. The “new evangelization” was read in many ecclesial environments in ideological terms, as backing Roman Catholicism’s colonial attitude towards Amerindian peoples. The vitality of Basic Ecclesial Communities, resulting from integration and social participation, was progressively overshadowed by other instances, opened with the incipient process of re-democratization in most countries of the continent. This also aimed to limit national episcopates to their own borders, reducing CELAM’s potential, which also faced certain frictions with the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.
2.4.2 Organization and main highlights
Two new impulses from the Pope were especially significant in Santo Domingo. The first was the proposal to initiate a Synod of Bishops from the entire American continent. The second was strong support for the new integration processes that had emerged in Latin America since the early 1990s.
CELAM convened the fourth conference under the theme “New Evangelization, Human Promotion, Christian Culture. Jesus Christ Yesterday, Today, and Forever (Heb 13:8),” preparing a consultation document that did not permeate all ecclesial strata and was unsatisfactory for a large number of bishops. Some bishops and theologians prepared the Second Report, or Relatio, which seemed more inspiring and prophetic and would represent the authentic soul of the Latin American Church (HENNELLY, 1993, p.31); however, the final working document received by the conference participants radically altered the traditional theological-pastoral method used in previous conferences.
The diagnosis of the social and ecclesial reality was weak, especially due to the replacement of acquired theological categories for understanding this reality with more generic and less committed ones. Catechesis and liturgy are overvalued as channels for inculturating the Gospel (42-53). The cultural issue largely displaced the socio-political emphasis, and thus the final documents insisted on the need for evangelization based on the paradigm of the culture of life vs. the culture of death, distancing themselves significantly from the assumed positive theology of history and the autonomy of earthly realities. A more polarized and less penetrating mission model was insisted upon, defending Roman Catholic exclusivity (Cf. 275ss).
2.5 Fifth Conference: Aparecida, from May 13 to 31, 2007
2.5.1 Social and ecclesial context
In the fifteen years between Santo Domingo and Aparecida, many social and ecclesial changes occurred. The change of pontificate reached a continent where the local Episcopal Conferences and CELAM itself had lost their importance as collegial bodies for pastoral impetus (MANZATTO, 2007, p.540). The massive emergence of new religious movements changed the confessional face of a continent that had practically lost the direct pastoral influence of Basic Ecclesial Communities.
Moreover, Latin America and the Caribbean were affected by the establishment of a new world order, governed by neoliberalism as an economic system and globalization permeating all spheres of society.
2.5.2 Organization and main highlights
Unlike the methodology of other Conferences, where a consultation document was sent that, after being reviewed and altered, served as a working document, for Aparecida CELAM had the intuition to propose a Participation Document (CELAM, 2005), with work sheets for the communities, to encourage the active participation of different sectors and ecclesial instances. The convocation theme was “Disciples and missionaries of Jesus Christ, so that our people may have life in Him. I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6).
This consultation process lasted about three years, in which new ecclesial movements and new communities, religious congregations, and associations of the faithful also participated. The document showed great concern in considering the lives of the faithful holistically and thus generating social transformations (BRIGHENTI, 2005, p.302-336). A synthesis was then prepared that reaffirmed the need and deep desire for an open and participatory Church (CELAM, 2007). This synthesis resulted in a base document that the bishops received at the beginning of the Conference. This material reflects the great theological-pastoral richness of the continent, affirmed in the “jocist” method of seeing, judging, and acting (BOFF, 2007, p.5-35).
The general theme of the Conference, “Disciples and missionaries of Jesus Christ so that, in Him, our people may have life: I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (CELAM, 2007), was in line with traditional Latin American theological categories, namely, communal discipleship, the appreciation of the concrete history in which this discipleship is expressed, and the following of the incarnate Word (61ss). A renewed understanding of the mission is concretized at the Conference, more open and inclusive, without the excesses of an exclusive ecclesiocentrism (163ss) and more attentive to the claim of ethnic plurality in Latin America.
Even though a change in nomenclature is noted, due to a certain climate of opposition, liberation theology will no longer be mentioned as traditionally since Medellín (RICHARD, 2006), but Latin American theology will be discussed, without renouncing the theological-pastoral tradition of the continent, led by the irreplaceable preferential option for the poorest (SOTER/AMERINDIA, 2006). In this sense, explicit emphasis is placed on continuity with both Medellín and Puebla (19). Thus, the passages in which both the preferential option for the poorest, against poverty, and the bishops’ appreciation for a grassroots ecclesiology, with the Basic Ecclesial Communities (178-180), are read with strength; in these points, the Church on the move, so characteristic of this Assembly, emerges. This theme, turned into an ecclesiological paradigm, was universalized by Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium. In both emphases, however, the bishops’ criticism is clearly noted; the pastoral urgency of the option for the poorest was lost in circumstances that increased the forms of structural exclusion. Moreover, the Basic Ecclesial Communities could not develop despite their enormous value due to the restrictions that the local Church itself established.
3 Brief concluding questions
The conferences of the Latin American episcopate undoubtedly marked the agenda of Catholicism on the continent, providing it with new pastoral languages so that the Latin American believing people could approach the world with mediations closer to their own reality. The early assemblies gave a certain legitimacy to emerging or consolidated Christian social movements; the later ones, particularly Aparecida, solidly gave visibility to categories for understanding social and ecclesial reality that became common, such as institutionalized violence, the ecclesial preferential option for the poorest, the inculturation of the Gospel, the promotion of human dignity and its inalienable rights, and the inclusive Church emerging for new realities and new faces.
Through these Assemblies, a more mature continent is perceived in the search for and use of more collegial forms of ecclesial discernment, although Latin American creativity still leaves much to be desired in designing forms of governance more representative of all ecclesial members. It is also evident that in the gestation of local magisterium, the consideration of other disciplines in the analysis of reality is necessary, as well as the permanent advisory of those who cultivate theological discipline. The Latin American episcopate has matured, and this should be projected in relationships with other episcopal bodies, as well as with the Roman Curia. This maturity should translate into proactivity in designing local ecclesial policies to reverse the irrelevance that Latin American Catholicism has acquired.
Sandra Arenas – Faculty of Theology – Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Original text in Spanish.
4 Bibliographical References
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