The Catholic Church and Argentina's Dirty War

The Catholic Church and Argentina's Dirty War
Author: Gustavo Morello SJ
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2015-06-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0190234288

On August 3rd, 1976, in Córdoba, Argentina's second largest city, Fr. James Week and five seminarians from the Missionaries of La Salette were kidnapped. A mob burst into the house they shared, claiming to be police looking for "subversive fighters." The seminarians were jailed and tortured for two months before eventually being exiled to the United States. The perpetrators were part of the Argentine military government that took power under President General Jorge Videla in 1976, ostensibly to fight Communism in the name of Christian Civilization. Videla claimed to lead a Catholic government, yet the government killed and persecuted many Catholics as part of Argentina's infamous Dirty War. Critics claim that the Church did nothing to alleviate the situation, even serving as an accomplice to the dictators. Leaders of the Church have claimed they did not fully know what was going on, and that they tried to help when they could. Gustavo Morello draws on interviews with victims of forced disappearance, documents from the state and the Church, field observation, and participant observation in order to provide a deeper view of the relationship between Catholicism and state terrorism during Argentina's Dirty War. Morello uses the case of the seminarians to explore the complex relationship between Catholic faith and political violence during the Dirty War-a relationship that has received renewed attention since Argentina's own Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis. Unlike in countries such as Chile and Brazil, Argentina's political violence was seen as an acceptable tool in propagating political involvement; both the guerrillas and the military government were able to gain popular support. Morello examines how the Argentine government deployed a discourse of Catholicism to justify the violence that it imposed on Catholics and how the official Catholic hierarchy in Argentina rationalized their silence in the face of this violence. Most interestingly, Morello investigates how Catholic victims of state violence and their supporters understood their own faith in this complicated context: what it meant to be Catholic under Argentina's dictatorship.

Politics and Education in Argentina, 1946-1962

Politics and Education in Argentina, 1946-1962
Author: Monica Rein
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2016-07-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1315502712

This study focuses on the formal education system in Argentina during the 1940s, the 1950s, and the early 1960s. It analyzes the link between politics and education against the backdrop of changing social conditions in Argentina under the regimes of Peron, Lonardi and Aramburu (the Liberating Revolution), and Frondizi, by evaluating textbooks, official bulletins, childrens' periodicals, speeches, and personal interviews.

Catholicism and Politics in Argentina, 1810-1960

Catholicism and Politics in Argentina, 1810-1960
Author: Austen Ivereigh
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2016-07-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1349136182

A rare study of Catholicism in Latin-American politics prior to Vatican II, this work examines the role of Catholics and Catholic theology in the development of Argentine political history. The author challenges standard interpretations in arguing that Argentine authoritarianism derives principally from the Enlightenment offshoots of liberalism and popular nationalism. The author argues that the tension between these strains, and a broad humanistic cultural framework informed by the Catholic tradition, helps to explain Argentine political instability, while shedding new light on leaders and movements, and especially Peronism.

For God and Fatherland

For God and Fatherland
Author: Michael A. Burdick
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 1996-01-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0791498050

This study of Argentine Catholicism offers an important perspective to the country's turbulent political history. Church-state relations show a number of crisis points whereby the constitutionally-established Catholic Church underwent progressive disenfranchisement by various governments. In response, church elites struggled to maintain the institution's historic rights and privileges and to speak as the moral conscience of the nation. Three critical periods in church-state relations are examined: the anticlerical period of the 1880s; the rise of Perónism in the 1940s; and the series of events beginning with the upsurge of the revolutionary left in the 1960s. These events shaped the Argentine Church, while at the same time Catholicism, often imbued with a fervent nationalism, provided many groups competing for power the myths, symbols, and language necessary to articulate a vision for a new Argentina

Politicians, Pupils, and Priests

Politicians, Pupils, and Priests
Author: Virginia W. Leonard
Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers
Total Pages: 478
Release: 1989
Genre: Education
ISBN:

In Argentina, more so than elsewhere, the church's educational objective is basic to understanding its position in politics. In a broader context, the church's secular activities stem from its traditional role in Catholic Latin America and are related to strategies of the military and political parties. This book examines in detail two of the most contentious issues in Argentine history: catechism in the public schools and recognition of private universities. Politicians, Pupils, and Priests is vital reading for anyone concerned with the destiny of democracy in Latin America and, especially, the politics of Third World countries.

The Politics of National Capitalism

The Politics of National Capitalism
Author: James P. Brennan
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2015-08-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 027107373X

In mid-twentieth-century Latin America there was a strong consensus between Left and Right—Communists working under the directives of the Third International, nationalists within the military interested in fostering industrialization, and populists—about the need to break away from the colonial legacies of the past and to escape from the constraints of the international capitalist system. Even though they disagreed about the desired end state, Argentines of all political stripes could agree on the need for economic independence and national sovereignty, which would be brought about through the efforts of a national bourgeoisie. James Brennan and Marcelo Rougier aim to provide a political history of this national bourgeoisie in this book. Deploying an eclectic methodology combining aspects of the “new institutionalism,” the “new economic history,” Marxist political economy, and deep research in numerous, rarely consulted archives into what they dub the “new business history,” the authors offer the first thorough, empirically based history of the national bourgeoisie’s peak association, the Confederación General Económica (CGE), and of the Argentine bourgeoisie’s relationship with the state. They also investigate the relationship of the bourgeoisie to Perón and the Peronist movement by studying the history of one industrial sector, the metalworking industry, and two regional economies—one primarily industrial, Córdoba, and another mostly agrarian, Chaco—with some attention to a third, Tucumán, a cane-cultivating and sugar-refining region sharing some features of both. While spanning three decades, the book concentrates most on the years of Peronist government, 1946–55 and 1973–76.