Cassocks and Communism

A wedding ceremony in Florida, Uruguay, October 1967. Father Jean Paul Bidegain prayed the Lord “to maintain always the revolutionary spirit of these two young people who are about to unite their lives in holy wedlock.” Then he addressed the bride and groom, told them a few things about the war in Vietnam, about “Johnson the killer of children,” and having thus joined together what God had meant to put asunder, namely religion and rebellion, he declared them man and wife.

That happened in the good old days when the Latin American clergy were less radical than they are now. It would be a mistake to speak of the Church as having swung to the left; the majority of Catholics may want reform but not by violence, but the rebel priests are tough and noisy, and it is they who are heard. This gives the impression that the Church has gone Marxist, an impression skilfully used by the Communists who act as if Jesus were Party member Number One, and the Bible had been written by Karl Marx. No one has challenged ecclesiastical authority in Latin America for centuries, least of all in those countries with an Indian majority. In their minds the Christian faith and their old traditions had combined into a strange but strong spiritual cocktail, with absolute respect for the clergy an indispensable ingredient. The Indian will not believe anything not verified by the “tata cura.”

RP

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Robert Peter

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A wedding ceremony in Florida, Uruguay, October 1967. Father Jean Paul Bidegain prayed the Lord “to maintain always the revolutionary spirit of these two young people who are about to unite their lives in holy wedlock.” Then he addressed the bride and groom, told them a few things about the war in Vietnam, about “Johnson the killer of children,” and having thus joined together what God had meant to put asunder, namely religion and rebellion, he declared them man and wife.

That happened in the good old days when the Latin American clergy were less radical than they are now. It would be a mistake to speak of the Church as having swung to the left; the majority of Catholics may want reform but not by violence, but the rebel priests are tough and noisy, and it is they who are heard. This gives the impression that the Church has gone Marxist, an impression skilfully used by the Communists who act as if Jesus were Party member Number One, and the Bible had been written by Karl Marx. No one has challenged ecclesiastical authority in Latin America for centuries, least of all in those countries with an Indian majority. In their minds the Christian faith and their old traditions had combined into a strange but strong spiritual cocktail, with absolute respect for the clergy an indispensable ingredient. The Indian will not believe anything not verified by the “tata cura.”