Patch and writing by Hannah

Religion

“…Give us this day our daily bread,

        the one that, yesterday, you took away from us.

- A Latin American’s Lord’s Prayer

            Mario Benedetti”[1]

Organized religion and personal faith play such an important role all over Latin America, but the interaction between this and the sociopolitical realities has varied from country to country, from situation to situation.  Nothing is so clear-cut as to be divided in half (good on one side, bad on the other) the way I have on this patch, but I have done so for the purpose of general understanding.

On the left is Argentina (though not all of Argentina, and not only Argentina), where religious institutions turned their backs to gross human rights abuses and sometimes even worked with the military and against the people.  “So many priests have blessed the weapons of the military!” writes Alicia Partnoy in The Little School.  “So many rabbis thank God for the coup that has saved them from ‘chaos!’  Whenever things like this happen, I’m convinced that God is just a pretext…and I instinctively reject pretexts.”[2]

On the other side we have Chile (though not all of Chile, and not only Chile), where Liberation Theology took root (as it did also in much of Central America) and demanded that the Church stand with and support the most oppressed.  Not only did the Catholic Church assist the arpilleristas in their venture, but it also helped organize ollas comúnes, huge communal pots of soup that served to bring the community together and to nourish the people. 

The nuances of religion in Latin America do not appear visually in this patch, but I would like to let a few women bring out some of these intricacies by speaking for themselves:

“Now that I have had a chance to study Indian cultures and have discovered their values and how rich they are, I think the church must change many of its attitudes.  It must adapt to the people, not the people to the church.  It must return to the cultural values and traditions of these people and incorporate them into the liturgy…Most importantly, Indians should speak out and take part in the liturgy.  The symbols must change – bread, for example.  What does bread mean to Indians?  Corn is the basis of their diet.  The body of Christ for them is best expressed through the tortilla.” – Clemencia, a ladina nun in Guatemala.[3]

“As for me, I have a greater faith in the justice of God now that I have lost my faith in human justice.  God didn’t steal my son.  The soldiers snatched him from me in the name of an ambitious man who does not recognize love, justice, and basic human rights.” – Doris Meniconi Lorca, mother of Isidro Pizarro Meniconi, who was arrested and disappeared in Chile on November 19, 1974.[4]

“I was an atheist like my father – although my mother was Catholic – but after having seen so many people respond to the terrible abuses with love, I have to believe that goodness is divine.” – Victoria Díaz Caro, daughter of Victor Díaz López, who was arrested and disappeared in Chile on May 12, 1976.[5]