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Liberation Theology: The Radicalizationof Social Catholic MovementsRobert Sean Mackin aa Texas A&M UniversityVersion of record first published: 11 Sep 2012.

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Liberation Theology: The Radicalization of Social CatholicMovements

ROBERT SEAN MACKIN∗

Texas A&M University

ABSTRACT This article argues that pre-existing networks and organizations were crucial to thedevelopment of liberation theology in Latin America. Drawing on concepts from social movementtheory, I demonstrate that in the early and mid-twentieth century, the Catholic Churches in Braziland Chile had favorable political opportunities, organizational resources, and insurgent conscious-ness which facilitated the rise of liberationist movements and organizations in both countries. Forthe case of Chile, data is drawn from forty interviews with Chilean activists and representatives ofthe Church with ties to social Catholic movements of the 1950s and 1960s. The article makes twocontributions to the literature on liberation theology: (1) by placing lay activists at the center ofanalysis it offers a corrective to research which emphasizes the role of Church elites in the emer-gence of liberation theology; and (2) it demonstrates the importance of pre-existing networks andorganizations for movement emergence. The article closes by examining the long-term conse-quences of activism and suggests directions for future research.

When Catholic bishops met at the Latin American Episcopal Conference (Consejo EpiscopalLatinoamericano, CELAM) in Medellın, Colombia in 1968, they surprised nearly everyoneby boldly stating that the continent’s population suffered from a situation of ‘structural sin’.In response, they called for the Church to be in solidarity with the poor. The meeting’sobjective was to apply the lessons of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965, VaticanII) to Latin America. However, with this statement the conference attendees took theChurch in a direction more progressive than Vatican II. Christian Smith describes theCELAM meeting in Medellın as a turning point for the liberation theology movement.1

At CELAM, the bishops encouraged the formation of small [Base Ecclesical] communities,‘grass-roots organizations and [collaboration]. . . with non-Catholic Christian Churchesand institutions dedicated to the task of restoring justice in human relations’, as a strategyto fight structural sin.2 For the rest of the 1960s and into the 1970s, the bishops’ statements,new movements of priests such as the ‘Movement of Priests for the Third World’ (Movi-miento de Sacerdotes para el Tercer Mundo) in Argentina and the ‘Group of 80’ in Chile,3

∗Email: mackin@tamu.edu1Christian Smith, The Emergence of Liberation Theology: Radical Religion and Social Movement Theory. (Chicago, IL:University of Chicago Press, 1991), p. 150.2Smith, The Emergence of Liberation Theology, op. cit., p. 19.3For the former, see Michael Burdick, For God and Fatherland: Religion and Politics in Argentina (Albany, NY: StateUniversity of New York Press, 1995). For the latter, see Brian Smith, The Church and Politics in Chile: Challenges toModern Catholicism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982).

Politics, Religion & IdeologyVol. 13, No. 3, 333–351, September 2012

ISSN 2156-7689 Print/ISSN 2156-7697 Online/12/030333-19 # 2012 Taylor & Francishttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21567689.2012.698979

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together with the growth and expansion of Base Ecclesial Communities (CEBs) throughoutthe region, evidenced dramatic change in the Catholic Church in many parts of LatinAmerica.

In this article, I draw on social movement theory to argue that many of the religiousand lay participants and leaders in the liberation theology movement in the 1960s and1970s began their activist careers in earlier Church-sponsored movements and organiz-ations.4 Social movement scholars have long noted the role organizations and pre-exist-ing networks play in the development of social movements. For example, early women’smovements impacted the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s.5 Southern blackurban churches were crucial to the development of the civil rights movement in the1950s and 1960s.6 The civil rights movement produced activists ready to lead theblack power, anti-Vietnam war, and new left movements of the 1960s and 1970s.7 Inaddition, organizations representing capitalists in the United States launched socialmovements with the objective of changing state policy in the mid- to late-twentiethcentury.8

In this article, I build upon research on social movements and the Catholic Church inLatin America to argue that pre-existing networks and organizations were crucial in thedevelopment of liberation theology.9 I use social movement theory to demonstrate thatliberation theology evolved, in part, from social Catholicism – the Church’s movementsfrom the first half of the twentieth century which sought to reincorporate workers, peasants

4Scholars are increasingly using social movement theory to understand religious movements. For a discussion ofthis literature and an application of this approach to a study of the religious left in the United States, see LauraR. Olson, ‘The Religious Left in Contemporary American Politics’, Politics, Religion & Ideology, 12:3 (2011),pp. 271–294.5Jo Freeman, ‘The Origins of the Women’s Liberation Movement’, American Journal of Sociology, 78 (1973),pp. 792–811; Verta Taylor, ‘Social Movement Continuity: The Women’s Movement in Abeyance’, American Socio-logical Review, 54 (1989), pp. 761–775.6Doug McAdam, Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1999); Aldon Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement (New York: The Free Press, 1984).7McAdam, Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, op. cit.; Doug McAdam, Freedom Summer(New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).8Harland Prechel, ‘Steel and the State: Industry Politics and Business Policy Formation, 1940–1989’, AmericanSociological Review, 55:5 (1990), pp. 648–668.9A partial list would include the following: Madeleine Adriance, Opting for the Poor (Kansas City, KS: Sheed andWard, 1986); Paul Almeida, Waves of Protest: Popular Struggles in El Salvador, 1925–2005 (Minneapolis, MN: Uni-versity of Minnesota Press, 2008); Phillip Berryman, The Religious Roots of Rebellion: Christians in Central AmericanRevolutions (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1984); Thomas C. Bruneau, The Political Transformation of the BrazilianCatholic Church (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1974); Thomas C. Bruneau and W.E. Hewitt, ‘Catholi-cism and Political Action in Chile’ in Edward L. Cleary and Hannah Stewart-Gambino (eds) Conflict and Compe-tition: The Latin American Church in a Changing Environment (Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner, 1992); BruceJ. Calder, ‘Interwoven Histories: The Catholic Church and the Maya, 1940 to the Present’ in Edward L. Clearyand Timothy J. Steigenga (eds) Resurgent Voices in Latin America (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UniversityPress, 2004), pp. 93–124; Emanuel de Kadt, ‘JUC and AP: The Rise of Catholic Radicalism in Brazil’ in HenryA. Landsberger (ed.) The Church and Social Change in Latin America (Notre Dame, IN: University of NotreDame Press, 1970), pp. 191–219; Emanuel de Kadt, Catholic Radicals in Brazil (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 1970); David Fernandez Fernandez, Historia Oral de La Iglesia Catolica en Santiago de Chile (Cadiz,Spain: Universidad de Cadiz, 1996); Jeffrey L. Klaiber, ‘The Catholic Lay Movement in Peru: 1867–1959’, TheAmericas, 40 (1983), pp. 149–170; Deborah Levenson-Estrada, Trade Unionists Against Terror: Guatemala City,1954–1985 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1994); Scott Mainwaring, The CatholicChurch and Politics in Brazil, 1916–1985 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1986); Milagros Pena, Theologiesand Liberation in Peru (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1995); Kenneth Westhues, ‘The EstablishedChurch as an Agent of Change’, Sociological Analysis, 34 (1973), pp. 106–123. For a critical assessment of theclaim that pre-existing ties affect later mobilization see James M. Jasper and Michael P. Young, ‘The Rhetoricof Sociological Facts’, Sociological Forum, 22 (2007), pp. 270–299.

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and other neglected sectors. Thus, I suggest that students of religious change in LatinAmerica reconsider the role early risers10 or movement pioneers11 played in progressiveCatholicism in the 1960s and 1970s.

The argument is developed in three steps. The first step reviews scholarly explanationsfor social change in the Catholic Church. Then, I provide background on social Catholi-cism to understand how it is a precursor to liberation theology. The third step situatesthe discussion of the leading progressive Churches of the 1960s and 1970s – Braziland Chile – within a social movement framework. Drawing from the political processmodel, I discuss how political opportunities, organizational resources and insurgentconsciousness favored the development of, first, social Catholicism, and later, liberationtheology in Brazil and Chile. Data for the cases is drawn from secondary literature and iscomplemented, in the case of Chile, with 40 semi-structured interviews I conducted withlay activists, priests, missionaries, and a bishop from 2000 to 2009. Several individualsagreed to be interviewed on multiple occasions. Thirty members of my sample wereactivists. To protect their identity all interview subjects were given pseudonyms. Thefinal section summarizes the argument and makes some suggestions regarding futureresearch.

Theoretical Approaches to Social Change in the Catholic Church

Scholarly explanations of social change in the Catholic Church emphasize the role of Churchelites, mass movements, or challenges in the organizational environment of the Church.Elite-dependence theorists argue that changes in the Catholic Church are either instigatedby elites or only become widely disseminated once they have elite approval. Due to thehierarchy of control in the Catholic Church, innovations and the movements they inspirefalter when elites withdraw their support.12 Elite-dependence explanations of the rise ofliberation theology argue that reforms emanating from Vatican II unleashed a dramaticseries of changes throughout the Church, one of which was the liberation theology movementin Latin America.13 Critics note that in many places, national and local church leaderscarried out progressive reforms prior to Vatican II. Specifically, research on the diocese ofCuernavaca, Mexico,14 and the national episcopacies of Chile and Brazil demonstrateecclesiastical reforms began prior to the beginning of Vatican II in 1962.15

10Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movement and Contentious Politics, 2nd ed. (New York: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1998).11Doug McAdam. Freedom Summer (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).12See Lester R. Kurtz, The Politics of Heresy: The Modernist Crisis in Roman Catholicism (Berkeley and Los Angeles,CA: University of California Press); Brian Smith, The Church and Politics in Chile.13 For an examination of how progressives successfully outmaneuvered conservatives so that the conclusions of theSecond Vatican Council were substantially more progressive than they would have been otherwise, see MelissaJ. Wilde, ‘How Culture Mattered at Vatican II: Collegiality Trumps Authority in the Council’s Social MovementOrganizations’, American Sociological Review, 69:4 (2004), pp. 576–602. For research which argues that thereforms at Vatican II led to liberation theology in Latin America, see Scott Mainwaring, The Catholic Churchand Politics in Brazil, 1916–1985 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1986); Paul Sigmund, Liberationtheology at the Crossroads: Democracy or Revolution? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); DanielH. Levine, Popular Voices in Latin American Catholicism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992).14Miguel Concha Malo, Oscar Gonzalez Gari, Lino F. Salas and Jean-Pierre Bastian, La Participacion de losCristianos en el Proceso Popular de Liberacion en Mexico, (Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 1986); Robert Sean Mackin,‘Becoming the Red Bishop of Cuernavaca: Rethinking Gill’s Religious Competition Model’, Sociology of Religion,64 (2003), pp. 499–514; Luis Suarez, Cuernavaca ante el Vaticano (Mexico City: Grijalbo, 1970).15Thomas C. Bruneau, The Political Transformation of the Brazilian Catholic Church (New York: Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 1974); Thomas C. Bruneau, The Church in Brazil: The Politics of Religion (Austin, TX: University of

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A second approach to the study of social change in the Catholic Church is mass-move-ment theory. These scholars emphasize that changes among Church elites, and in theChurch more generally, result from the mass mobilization of the laity. That is, pressurefrom marginalized and exploited groups who organize to protest poor and deterioratingsocio-economic conditions best explain social change in the Catholic Church. Forexample, many mass mobilization scholars saw Base Ecclesial Communities as a revolu-tionary force in Latin American church and society.16 Critics of this view argued,however, that local bishops had a significant impact on the strength and political orien-tation of CEBs.17

In recent years, scholars have focused on how shifts in the organizational environmentaffect changes in the Church.18 Early work in this area emphasized the importance of staterepression in the rise of liberation theology,19 while more recent work has emphasizedcompetition from groups and movements outside the Church.20 Scholars in the firstgroup emphasize how national Churches that challenged repressive state regimes, callingfor respect for human rights and democratization, moved towards the Left. The main criti-cism of this approach lies with the fact that in many places (e.g., Chile and Brazil) thenational Church was taking progressive stances prior to the onset of authoritarianregimes. Thus, identifying state terror as the main causal factor in explaining the rise of lib-eration theology – across Latin America—is untenable.

A second group of scholars who focus on the organizational environment have empha-sized the importance of competing religious and political movements in the rise of liber-ation theology. Most notable is the work of Anthony Gill, who suggests that bishops are‘parishioner maximizers’ and thus argues that a viable Protestant threat increases the prob-ability national bishops’ conferences will publicly condemn authoritarian regimes.21 Criticsof this view note how over-reliance on environmental factors of social change miss keyinternal explanations.22

In this article, I argue that a narrow focus on Church elites, state repression, or reli-gious competition leads us to overlook the pre-existing networks and organizationsthat produced the leaders and participants in the liberationist movements and Churches

Texas Press, 1982); Scott Mainwaring, op. cit.; Brian Smith, The Church and Politics in Chile: Challenges to ModernCatholicism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982); Hannah W. Stewart-Gambino, The Church andPolitics in the Chilean Countryside (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992); Ivan Vallier, Catholicism, SocialControl, and Modernization in Latin America (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970); Ivan Vallier, ‘Church“Development” in Latin America: A Five-Country Comparison’ in Karl M. Schmitt (ed) The Roman CatholicChurch in Modern Latin America (New York: Knopf, 1972), pp. 167–193.16For example, Phillip Berryman, op. cit.; Penny Lernoux, Cry of the People (New York: Doubleday, 1980).17See W.E. Hewitt, Base Christian Communities and Social Change in Brazil (Lincoln, NE: University of NebraskaPress, 1991); Daniel H. Levine, Religion and Politics in Latin America: The Catholic Church in Venezuela and Colom-bia (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981).18Richard W. Scott, Organizations: Rational, Natural, and Open Systems, 5th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: PrenticeHall, 2003); Robert Sean Mackin, ‘In Word and Deed: Assessing the Strength of Progressive Catholicism in LatinAmerica, 1960s–1970s’, Sociology of Religion, 72:2 (2010), pp. 216–242.19Phillip Berryman, The Religious Roots of Rebellion: Christians in Central American Revolutions (Maryknoll, NY:Orbis Books, 1984).20Vallier, op. cit.; Neuhouser, op. cit.; Gill, op. cit.21Gill, op. cit.22For criticisms of Gill, op. cit., see Mackin, ‘Becoming the Red Bishop’, op. cit. For more favorable assessments ofGill’s work see Frances Hagopian, ‘Latin American Catholicism in an Age of Religious and Political Pluralism: AFramework for Analysis’, Comparative Politics, 40:2 (2008), pp. 149–168; Roger Finke and Rodney Starke, ‘TheDynamics of Religious Economies’ in Michele Dillon (ed.) Handbook of the Sociology of Religion (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 2003), pp. 96–109; Andrew Chestnut, Competitive Spirits: Latin America’s New ReligiousEconomy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

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of the 1960s and 1970s. The next part of the article focuses on social Catholicism,seeking precisely to describe these early reform efforts out of which liberation theologyemerged.

Social Catholicism: Historical Context

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Church elites in Europe and Romesought to slow the effects of secularization. The Church created Catholic Action andSpecialized Catholic Action movements as part of the ‘lay apostolate’, a novel way to‘turn nominal Catholics into practicing ones by bringing religion into their dailylives through secular activities within the context of religious study, and by drawingthem into the structure of the Church as lay apostles’.23 Church leaders hoped that byinvolving the laity in the apostolic work of the Church the laity would retain their ties tothe Church.

Gianfranco Poggi points out the justifications for Catholic Action-type programs havevaried with the times. 24 The author notes that the term Catholic Action first appearedin Italy following disestablishment in 1874. In the meetings of the Venice CongressChurch leaders called on the laity to organize in defense of Church interests, since thestate had abdicated this responsibility.25 Decades later, Pius XI noted that CatholicAction was designed as a response to the shortage of priests.26 In 1946, the editors ofL’Osservatore Romano commented on the multiple explanations for its existence, notingthat:

During its beneficial life course there have been two conceptions of CatholicAction, each having some distinct consequences for its structural setup: on theone hand, Catholic Action as a great league of Catholic citizens for the defenseof religious freedoms and rights and therefore of the rights and freedoms of theChurch; on the other hand, Catholic Action as the action of the faithful. . . in col-laboration with the apostolate of the hierarchy. The first conception is that of itsorigins; the second that of the last twenty-five years; each corresponds to differentpolitical conditions.27

Poggi hypothesizes that Catholic Action is inherently contradictory. While it implicitlyclaims –in modern parlance ‘to empower the laity’ – it attempts to control the laity andprevent them from being led astray from the authority of the Church.

In spite of Catholic Action and other attempts to reign in the laity, the Church was fight-ing a losing battle. The masses, especially the working class, were seen as leaving in droves.One Belgian priest and later Cardinal, Joseph Cardijn saw this trend and decided he would‘kill himself to save the working class’.28 Cardijn attempted to save the working class bydesigning what he called the Jeunesse Ouvriere Chretienne (Young Christian Workers –JOC) in the late 1920s. Unlike other Catholic lay sponsorship programs, which separatedparticipants by age and sex, the JOC organized the laity based on their economic identity,

23Levenson-Estrada, Trade Unionists Against Terror, op. cit., p. 81.24Gianfranco Poggi, Catholic Action in Italy: The Sociology of a Sponsored Organization (Stanford, CA: Stanford Uni-versity Press, 1967).25Ibid., pp. 168–169.26Ibid., pp. 169–170.27Quoted in Gianfranco Poggi, ibid.28Michael de la Bedoyere, The Cardijn Story (New York: Longman’s, Green and Co, 1958), p. 15.

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that is, as workers.29 That said, some JOC programs maintained the age-sex distinctions,such as the Belgian JOC branch, while others, such as the French branch, did not.

A major difference between JOC and Catholic Action groups can be seen in their approachto organizing. Catholic Action groups were organized and led by priests who met with eachgroup separately (young males, adults males, and so on) and determined activities for them.Priests dominated these groups, such that, when they gave less attention to the CatholicAction groups, they quickly folded. The JOC, on the other hand, called for ‘like on like’ orga-nizing. By this Cardijn intended that workers should recruit and train other workers. A JOCpriest trained a group of volunteer workers or ‘militants’ who organized other workers at theworksite. Like on like organizing challenged not only Catholic Action leadership models butcenturies-old Church traditions which held that authority resided with Church officials. Yet,since the Belgian Church had not been able to attract workers into lay organizations, Churchleaders permitted the Cardijn experiment to go forward.

Another important difference between Catholic Action and JOC concerns each move-ment’s relationship to the Church hierarchy. While Catholic Action groups were usuallydependent on Church officials the JOC was designed to have more autonomy from theChurch hierarchy. Cardijn insisted that if the JOC was going to succeed it must be regardedby workers as a legitimate movement by and for workers.

At the same time, Cardijn emphasized that militants should never forget the religiousroots of the movement. He developed the ‘See-Judge-Act’ methodology to remind militantsof the link between activism and faith. Militants were encouraged to see their own conditionand that of their fellow workers; to judge their status in light of God’s teachings; and, then,lastly, to act, that is, to change the world, making it closer to the ideals described in thegospels. This was, as Levenson-Estrada notes, a novel idea.

By declaring the masses capable of perceiving reality, by proclaiming them capableof being judges and actors, and by bringing them and their concrete problems intothe Church, JOC created a dynamic that often led to political activism long beforethe advent of liberation theology in the 1960s.30

In the 1960s and 1970s Base Ecclesial Communities also adopted the See-Judge-Act meth-odology first developed by Cardijn for the JOC. Because of this, some scholars have made alink between the use of the methodology and the subsequent radical stands taken by anumber of BECs.31

Cardijn’s initial attempt to create the JOC movement in Belgium was an immediatesuccess. When the local bishop began to see similarities between the JOC groups andlocal socialist unions, he attempted to terminate the movement. Cardijn appealed to thebishop to permit him to go to Rome and seek the Pope’s approval. After a strange seriesof twists and turns, biographer de la Bedoyere notes, Cardijn landed an audience withthe Pope and won him over to the cause.32 In the late 1920s the JOC was recognized asa new type of Catholic Action and Cardijn quickly began exporting the JOC, first to therest of Europe and then, after World War II, to Latin America. Elite-dependence theoristswould argue that had Cardijn not successfully persuaded Pope Pius XI to support the JOC itlikely would have had a different fate.

29This type of organizational focus is termed ‘milieu’ or ‘category’ based on other authors, see Gianfranco Poggi,op. cit.; William Bosworth, Catholicism and Crisis in Modern France: French Catholic Groups at the Threshold of theFifth Republic (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962).30Levenson-Estrada, Trade Unionists Against Terror, op. cit., pp. 81–82.31Berryman, Religious Roots of Rebellion, op. cit.; Lernoux, Cry of the People, op. cit.32de la Bedoyere, op. cit., p. 67.

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While the Vatican endorsed the JOC, that did not ensure its success everywhere. InItaly, JOC barely got off the ground. One reason is that the hierarchy was less inclinedto support milieu-based lay groups since they were seen as dangerous. For example, inMay 1960 Italian Cardinal Siri expressed concern over the dangers that confrontedItalian Catholic Action’s Labor group (ACLI), saying ‘the unavoidable continuous con-tacts [of ACLI] with milieus inspired by classist doctrines and by heterodox ideologiesmay lead the organization to share their language and thus to borrow from them attitudesand orientations’.33 For Siri, milieu-based Catholic Action groups were dangerousbecause contact with Marxists might rub off. Therefore, in Italy, milieu-based groups,when permitted to exist, were given a very short leash. However, in France the JOC flour-ished. The JOC was one of many innovations (including worker-priests) adopted in theFrench Church. There, a core group of the hierarchy gave such groups more leeway thanin places like Italy. For this reason, programs that reached out to the working classthrived.34

The JOC and other Specialized Catholic Action programs migrated to Latin America fol-lowing World War II. Cardijn personally promoted JOC in Latin America on a number oftours. The next section of the article directly discusses the JOC and other types of Special-ized Catholic Action programs in Brazil and Chile.

From Social Catholicism to Liberation Theology: Chile and Brazil

Theorists of the political process model – the dominant approach to social movements– have argued that political opportunities, organizational resources, and the presence ofan insurgent consciousness, best explains when and where movements emerge.35 InChile and Brazil we see that both episcopacies were undergoing rapid change.Simultaneously, a core group of bishops in each country gave relatively consistentsupport to progressives. By using the political process model, I demonstrate theprocesses that led social Catholicism in Brazil and Chile to become the most developedin the region.

Political opportunities

In recent years social movement scholars have sought to specify the concept of politicalopportunity. McAdam reviewed the work of several prominent social movement theoristsand developed a ‘highly consensual list’ of the key components of political opportunity.McAdam’s refinement suggests that movements with elite allies in unstable environments

33Poggi, op. cit., p. 186.34Gianfranco Poggi has argued that one reason for the difference in success of JOC and other programs in Italy andFrance can be explained by the fact that in France the parish-based model of Church participation was waning,therefore the hierarchy was open and supportive of new ideas. In Italy, where the parish-based model was stillstrong, the hierarchy was less supportive of innovations, see Poggi, op. cit., pp. 123–124.35Smith, The Emergence of Liberation Theology, op. cit. In recent years scholars have criticized political processtheory for privileging structure over agency, resources over emotions, and for adopting ahistorical understandingsof culture. For a discussion of these points, see Jeff Goodwin and James M. Jasper, ‘Introduction: From PoliticalOpportunity Structures to Strategic Action’ in Jeff Goodwin and James M. Jasper (eds) Contention in Context: Pol-itical Opportunities and the Emergence of Protest (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012), pp. 1–33; JeffGoodwin, James M. Jasper and Francesca Polletta (eds), Passionate Politics: Emotions and Social Movements(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), pp. 1–33; Marc W. Steinberg, ‘The Talk and Back Talk of CollectiveAction: A Dialogic Analysis of Discourse among Nineteenth-Century English Cotton Spinners’, American Journalof Sociology, 105 (1999), pp. 736–780.

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are more likely to thrive.36 Goodwin and Jasper advocate a more strategic and less structuralapproach to opportunity than that of McAdam’s.37 The authors note that rapid change canlead to ‘windows of opportunity’ where actors can find new forms of mobilization to reachtheir goals.

A closer look at Chile and Brazil reveals that both countries were undergoing rapidchange as a result of industrialization, which led to the emergence of two of the most devel-oped Marxist movements in the region, including Marxist political parties and unions.38

For Catholic leaders in Rome, the rise of Marxism and the decline of working class religiousparticipation was interpreted as a crisis which required an immediate solution. JosephCardijn elaborated the JOC as a means by which the Church could ‘save the workingclass’. This combination of perceived threat – Marxism – and an officially sanctionedresponse – the JOC – gave reform-minded Church officials in both Brazil and Chile thefreedom and the resources they needed to implement the JOC in their dioceses and nationalChurches.

Organizational resources

Organizational resources are a crucial component of the political process model. McAdamsuggests five key ways organizations contribute to the emergence of a movement:‘members, leaders, a communication network, solidary incentives, and “enterprisetools”, such as meeting places, mimeograph machines, lawyers, office supplies, telephones,secretarial help’.39 In addition, movement leaders can learn from and adopt the organiz-ational models of other movements. At the same time, they can build upon already existentorganizations. Social Catholicism was strong in Chile and Brazil, in part, because theimported models of Cardijn and Pius XI built upon the organizations and movementsof early reformers. In Brazil, the priest Julio Maria (1850–1916) and political activistJackson de Figueiredo (1891–1928) received the support of Archbishop, and later Cardinalof Rio de Janeiro, D. Sabastiao Leme (1882–1942) in their early efforts at implementingsocial Catholicism. Cardinal Leme founded an organization to coordinate lay Catholicorganizations in 1923, the Catholic Confederation (Confederacao Catolica). Soon thereafterhe founded a branch for students, Catholic University Action (Acao Universitaria Catolica)and later an organization for workers, the Catholic Worker’s Confederation (ConfederacaoOperaria Catolica).40

In Chile, two early risers were Archbishop Jose Horacio Campillo Infante (1872–1956)and Padre Pedro Vives (1868–1935). Campillo Infante is credited with creating Catholic

36Doug McAdam, ‘Conceptual Origins, Problems, Future Directions’ in Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy andMayer N. Zald (eds) Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures,and Cultural Framings (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 27. The other two dimensions of politicalopportunity described by McAdam are: the relative openness or closure of the institutionalized political system; thestate’s capacity and propensity for repression.37Jeff Goodwin and James Jasper, ‘Introduction: From Political Opportunity Structures to Strategic Interaction’,op. cit.38Ruth Berens Collier and David Collier, Shaping the Political Arena: Critical Junctures, the Labor Movement, andRegime Dynamics in Latin America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991).39McAdam, Political Process and the Development of Black Inurgency, op. cit., discussed in Smith, The Emergence ofLiberation Theology, op. cit., pp. 59–60.40Emanuel de Kadt, ‘JUC and AP: The Rise of Catholic Radicalism in Brazil’ in Henry A. Landsberger (ed.) TheChurch and Social Change in Latin America (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1970), pp. 191–220; Emanuel de Kadt, Catholic Radicals in Brazil: A Study of the Movimiento de Educacao de Base (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1970).

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Action in Chile,41 while Vives trained priests and members of the laity to work for socialreform.42 Three of Vives’ followers were Padre Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga, ClotarioBlest, and Father Manuel Larraın Errazuriz. Hurtado, beatified in 1994 and canonized in2005, promoted Catholic labor unions and founded the Chilean Worker Union Action(Accion Sindical Chilena – ASICH), a large labor movement which competed with thesecular, Workers’ Unitary Front (Central Unica de Trabajadores – CUT). In the 1950s,the CUT was headed by former seminarian Clotario Blest who combined his faith with acommitment to worker’s causes in movements that were not affiliated with the Church.Father Larraın Errazuriz became bishop of Talca and later president of CELAM.

Support among the hierarchy was essential to the development of social Catholicism inboth cases. When the conservative Archbishop of Chile, Crescente Errazuriz died, theVatican actively sought out a replacement with a pastoral background who wouldimplement social Catholic reforms. Archbishop Caro (named cardinal in 1946), CrescenteErrazuriz’ successor, dramatically reoriented the Church and actively supported the pro-motion of reform-minded priests such as Carlos Gonzales, Rafael Larraın, ManuelLarraın, and Fernando Aristıa, among others. Later, Caro’s replacement, Cardinal SilvaHenrıquez would pick up where Caro left off. In 1976 Silva Henrıquez founded the Vicari-ate of Solidarity (Vicarıa de Solidaridad), the Church’s chief means to combat the Pinochetdictatorship, documenting human rights abuses and calling for a return to democracy.

In Brazil, the progressive bishops were extremely influential. Their impact is well docu-mented.43 With the founding of the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops (ConferenciaNacional dos Bispos do Brasil) or CNBB under the leadership of Dom Helder Camara, pro-gressive bishops had an outlet to coordinate activities. Progressives would strengthen thisnetwork and draw on it to denounce the military dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s. Inboth countries the reformers did not constitute a majority, but the fact that these earlymanifestations of social Catholicism enjoyed strong support among some of the hierarchywas crucial to its later development.

Another important way that organizations develop strength is through the creation, atthe early stages of the movement, of organizations that provide a place to developleaders, network, and decide on strategy. Social movement scholars have referred tothese places in a variety of ways.44 Aldon Morris elaborates the concept of movementhalf-way house defined as:

. . . an established group or organization that is only partially integrated into thelarger society because its participants are actively involved in efforts to bringabout a desired change in society. . . What is distinctive about movementhalfway houses is their relative isolation from the larger society and the absenceof a mass base.45

For Morris, examples of movement half-way houses from the civil rights movementincludes the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), theAmerican Friends Service Committee, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the War Resisters

41Fidel Araneda Bravo, Breve Historia de la Iglesia en Chile (Santiago, Chile: Ediciones Paulinas, 1968), p 178.42Ibid., p. 166.43Smith, The Emergence of Liberation Theology, op. cit.; Mainwaring, op. cit.; de Kadt, ‘JUC and AP’, op. cit.; deKadt, Catholic Radicals in Brazil, op. cit.44For example, see the discussion of ‘free spaces’ in Sarah M. Evans and Harry C. Boyte, Free Spaces: The Sources ofDemocratic Change in America (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1986). For a critical assessment of howthe concept of ‘free spaces’ has been used in social movement theory see Jasper and Young, op. cit.45Aldon Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement (New York: The Free Press, 1984), p. 139.

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League and the Highlander Folk School. These are places where movements which are at anearly stage are protected.

In the case of liberation theology, half-way houses provided protection by members ofthe hierarchy from conservative bishops, counter-movements, and state actors whowould wish to curtail the movement. It is in these half-way houses that movementsdevelop and gain strength over time so that later the movements can have an impact insociety more generally. It is here that leaders are trained, networks are developed bothinside and outside the movement, and a collective identity is formed.

In the 1920s in Brazil Jackson de Figueiredo, a self-described reactionary, founded theDom Vital Center (Centro Dom Vital, hereafter Centro) which functioned as a movementhalf-way house. De Figueredo received the support of Archbishop and later Cardinal of Riode Janeiro D. Sabastiao Leme. De Figueiredo tried to use the Centro to combat modernisttendencies in the political sphere. With his death in 1928, his second in command AlceuAmoroso Lima took charge of the Centro. Amoroso Lima played a leading role in Braziliansocial Catholicism at a time when its radicalization was just beginning.46 In addition todirecting the Centro, he became secretary general of the Catholic Electoral League (LigaEleitoral Catolica – LEC), which was Cardinal Leme’s ‘answer to those who were still press-ing for a Catholic political party’.47 Instead of functioning as a traditional political party, theLEC worked more as a pressure group, attempting to secure promises from candidates of allparties to defend traditional Catholic beliefs and practices.

De Kadt notes that under the direction of Amoroso Lima, the Centro began participatingless in political affairs and directed itself more towards coordinating study groups and dis-cussion circles. He notes that this ‘helped lay the groundwork for the “renewal” that cameabout from the late fifties on’.48 However, the author notes that despite Amoroso Lima’sleadership, the Centro did not ‘[attain] a real position of influence among Catholics inBrazil’,49 and this is in part explained by the presence of a conservative in the hierarchy,Cardinal D. Jaime Camara who from 1943 until the publication of de Kadt’s study in1970 directed the diocese of Rio.

In Chile, similar organizations emerged. Rafael Larraın founded the Institute for RuralEducation (Instituto de Educacion Rural) so as to organize Specialized Catholic Actiongroups in the rural sector. It enjoyed great success.50 Then, in the 1960s, according toone of my interview subjects, Elisabeth, a JOC militant who joined as a young womanand rose to be a national leader, Larraın used organizers from this institute to promotethe candidacy of the Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei.51 Another institute, primarily con-cerned with promoting popular education in urban areas, which I will call the Center forUrban Education featured many ex-JOCistas.52 These militants would go on to play pio-neering roles, in among other things, the Christian-left MAPU (Movimiento de AccionPopular Unitario) political party and later the Christian Left (Izquierda Cristiana) party.53

Social movements also develop organizational strength by adopting new strategies thatmobilize their constituencies. In both cases under discussion, we see the impact of using

46Emanuel de Kadt, Catholic Radicals in Brazil, op. cit., p. 195.47Ibid., p. 194.48Ibid., p. 195.49Ibid.50Brian Loveman, Struggle in the Countryside: Politics and Rural Labor in Chile, 1919–1973 (Bloomington, IN:Indiana University Press, 1976); Stewart-Gambino, op. cit.51Interview, December 2001.52Name changed to protect anonymity of informant.53This is a partial list. Other institutions in Chile would include (among others): Centro Bellarmino and RogerVekeman’s DESAL (Center of Economic and Social Development in Latin America).

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the See-Judge-Act methodology developed by Cardijn. One of my interview subjects,Violeta, who joined the JOC when she was a teenager and (like Elisabeth) rose to be anational leader in JOC, suggested that JOC militants were transformed from high-minded and aloof leaders to ‘organic intellectuals’54 by this methodology.

Insurgent consciousness

The third and final component of the political process model is insurgent consciousness.Scholars have grappled with the social psychological dimension of social movement partici-pation for many years. Relative deprivation theories emphasized the importance of grie-vances for mobilization while resource mobilization theories downplayed theirsignificance suggesting that grievances were a constant and therefore irrelevant for expla-natory purposes. Over the last 20 to 30 years scholars have been incorporating socialpsychological processes in their analyses of social movements. As Christian Smith noted,over the past 20 to 30 years scholars have sought to understand ‘the role of culture, identity,emotions and religious and moral commitments in social movements’. Smith suggests wecall this dimension ‘insurgent consciousness’.55

In both Brazil and Chile an insurgent consciousness developed among the participants insocial Catholic movements. By the 1940s, Brazilian Catholic Action was largely a paperorganization. According to de Kadt, however, specialized Catholic Action groups, especiallyamong the youth, were increasing in importance by the end of the 1940s.56 The JOC wasthe first to be officially recognized by the hierarchy on a nationwide scale in 1948. Withintwo years other branches were launched: JAC (agrarian youth), JEC (students) and JUC(university students); JIC (catch-all for ‘independents’, i.e., those who didn’t fit in theother organizations). Each except JUC had a separate branch for women and all exceptJIC ‘would play a part in the development of Catholic radicalism in Brazil’.57

In his study of what he calls the ‘young Catholic radicals’, de Kadt traces activists throughtheir formation in the Brazilian JUC – Young Catholic University Students – to othermovements including Popular Action. He argues that activists in the JUC were central tothe development of these later institutions. Prior to 1959, the JUC was like other specializedCatholic action groups – a mass-based movement – which emphasized the spiritual life ofits members. The movement, in the words of the author, stagnated: ‘The problem was thatJUC had too many “high sounding texts”, which came to nothing in the concrete life of themovement’.58

Nineteen fifty-six was a watershed year. A priest who wanted to see social Catholicismpracticed on a deeper level in the Brazilian Church, Padre Almery, presented a paper onthe JUC’s ‘Historic Ideal’ (Ideal Historico). In it he argued that however high-minded theobjectives of the movement sounded – such as ‘creating a Christian social order or restor-ing things to Christ’59 – they were too vague, too abstract. Almery argued that Christiansneed more practical guidance as to how to implement Catholic teaching in everyday life. Hestressed that what was needed were intermediate principles – principia media. De Kadt

54Interview, March 2001.55Christian Smith, ‘Response to James Jasper’ in Jeff Goodwin and James M. Jasper (eds) Contention in Context:Political Opportunities and the Emergence of Protest, op. cit., p. 217; Smith, The Emergence of Liberation Theology,op. cit.56Emanuel de Kadt, Catholic Radicals in Brazil, op. cit., p. 196.57Ibid., p. 19.58Ibid., p. 198.59Ibid.

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notes that while Almery wanted to encourage Catholics to practice their faith in theireveryday lives, he was very careful to not encourage millenarianist tendencies.60 Theauthor describes the immediate impact of Padre Almery’s paper. Soon, students began pro-testing ‘as Christians about the shape of their society’.61

De Kadt argues that three factors are key to explaining the radicalization of JUC. First,movement leaders and participants felt the movement was too abstract, too removedfrom the ‘concrete problems facing its potential membership’.62 Second, the emergenceof progressive Christian and Catholic thinking in Europe and the availability of these trans-lated works in Portuguese greatly impacted the militants. Third, this occurred as studentswere becoming more and more concerned with poverty and other social problems.

In Chile the See-Judge-Act methodology, with its emphasis on the concrete practice ofhigh ideals, seemed to oblige militants to be politically engaged. In Fernandez Fernandez’soral history of the archdiocese of Santiago, Chile he interviewed several former JOCmilitants who spoke of the role played by the See-Judge-Act methodology in theirradicalization.63 Hernan Silva, a former member of the JOC who became a militant atthe age of 21, learned:

. . . the method of See-Judge-Act and discovered that in addition to being a mili-tant of this apostolic movement he could commit himself in social organizations:unions, neighborhood groups, political parties, and above all discover the dignityof being a worker.64

In open-ended semi-structured interviews, former JOCistas expressed similar feelingsabout how the See-Judge-Act methodology affected their lives. One such person, Violeta,commented:

The See-Judge-Act methodology was important in the formation of militants andin the formation of the people and in making not only discursive movements, but[movements] active in social change. Analyzing reality, the causes that produceproblems and their solution [is] action.65

The methodology of the social Catholic groups helped increase the organizational strengthof the movement by mobilizing participants’ to root their ideals in action. This was criticalin developing an insurgent consciousness within the Church movement.

Another JOC militant, Elisabeth, argued that the See-Judge-Act methodology encour-aged activists to become more progressive. Because of the See-Judge-Act method, she said:

. . . the [Church] hierarchy was always afraid of us. . .[because our] classconsciousness was awakened, we became aware of injustices, we knew thegospel, and we were being empowered toward what? Not to the right. You areempowering that person to go [to the left].66

60Ibid., p. 198–199.61Ibid., p. 199.62Ibid., p. 200.63David Fernandez Fernandez, Historia Oral de la Iglesia Catolica en Santiago de Chile: Desde el Concilio Vaticano IIHasta el Golpe Militar de 1973 (Cadiz, Spain: Universidad de Cadiz, 1996).64Ibid., p. 196.65Interview, March 2001.66Interview, March 2009.

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The views of Violeta and Elisabeth were echoed among the other JOC militants Iinterviewed.

The See-Judge-Act methodology helped the JOC to organize workers and bring theminto the movement. Workers, who had grown up skeptical of the Catholic Church’s com-mitment to social justice, were learning that the Church might be changing its ways.Violeta, a former president of the JOC in Chile noted that she grew up nominally Catholicand by the time she was a young adult, she was outside the Church. This was in large partbecause of the Church’s treatment of workers. She says:

I discovered very early on that the Church. . . the thinking of the Church’s reasonto work with the workers, to evangelize them was because of their anti-Marxism.Because in Chile, they would do a lot of masses in the factories and very early on Idiscovered that this was absolutely against the gospels. . . . And this pushed metoward a Marxist approach, much more than as an evangelizer. However, I didhave an evangelical [or spiritual] side, very strong with the Bible . . . it was atime when we read a great deal, and half of what we read was religious and theother half were social and political books. So, I felt that the Church was notclose to the workers, that they wanted to domesticate them more than workwith them.67

Yet, despite this critical view of the Church from early on, she joined the JOC to be withfriends. The experience of a different Church made her not only return but eventuallybecome a JOC leader.68

In the social Catholic groups under review, the JUC in Brazil and the JOC in Chile, aninsurgent consciousness developed that combined Catholic social teaching with Marxism.This insurgent consciousness became more coherent as these movements became morecommitted to action. One interview subject, Magdalena, joined the JOC at 15 or 16years of age, when she still could not participate in the labor unions or work on the assem-bly line. Through her work with JOC, she monitored assembly line plants to make sure thecorporation was paying what it owed the workers. She clearly articulates this synergybetween Marxism and her Catholic faith when she said: ‘I became the most Christianwhen I discovered Marxism’.69

The Young Catholic Worker ideology expounded by Cardijn valorized workers as a classand as full members of the Church. This had dramatic results. For JOCista Hernan Silva,the words of Cardijn still resonate with him: ‘young worker, you are worth more thanall the gold in the world’.70 Violeta, the JOCista who changed from skeptic to leadernoted that the

. . . [sense of class] was very strong [in the JOC]. But the way in which you feel apart of a class. . . there was a latent Marxism. . . the JOC’s vision of class carried usto a search that was closer to Marxism than to Christianity.71

67Interview, March 2001.68I am unaware of studies which document whether specialized Catholic Action programs succeeded in bringingworkers and other sectors back to the Church. In my snowball sample, which in no way claims to be representative,29 of the 30 JOC militants I interviewed said they returned to the Church or strengthened their faith as a result ofparticipation in the JOC. Only one militant identified as an atheist prior to joining the JOC and indicated that hisparticipation in the movement led him to convert. He is still a practicing Catholic.69Interview, February 2000.70Fernandez Fernandez, op. cit., p. 196.71Interview, March 2001.

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I pressed another activist, whom I will call Tomas, who had a similar perspective to that ofVioleta. Tomas told me: ‘I am a JOCista, I am a Marxist, and for these reasons a worker andwe all have the same problem’.72 Tomas, who began in the JOC and graduated to the leftChristian political party, MAPU, described the transition from being a militant in the JOCto becoming a Marxist. He noted it was a relatively easy transition because of his experi-ences on the shopfloor. Owners were opposed to all organizing among workers, be theymilitants in the JOC or the Communist Party. He said:

In a factory, when you’re fighting for a better wage – whether Marxist, or amember of MAPU – there is no difference. It becomes an issue when thisfactory, all of a sudden, the owner is conservative or along those lines, and hedoesn’t want, though he has plenty of resources, to sign [a contract] with theworkers.73

Thus, it was in opposition to recalcitrant owners that many JOCistas saw that they hadmuch in common with their Marxist co-workers.

Furthermore, Tomas underlined that he was not alone. With a sarcastic tone and a biggrin, Tomas said:

Here in Chile, I think one doesn’t realize a change is taking place [from being ananti-Marxist Catholic to being a Marxist Catholic] because, those who are Marxistin Chile, are atheists. And this is one of the pillars of Marxism: to be an atheist.And here we find in the Communist Party many Catholics [laughter].74

And, he continued:

One is a Communist in the way one approaches society but in his faith he is aCatholic. I have come across many poor people and friends that are Communistsbut also Catholics. This is the case with many people.75

In the Brazilian example we see a similar process. The young radicals also combinedCatholic social teaching with Marxism, among other strands of thought. De Kadt describesthe ideal historico as a bricolage of ‘Socialist ideas and Marxist slogans. . . mingled withbarely digested pieces of personalist philosophy, whose implications for practical policyare hardly considered’.76

In the 1960s, university reform movements swept throughout Latin America. In Brazilthey encountered less success than elsewhere. Ironically, de Kadt notes it was the relativefailure of the students that helped cement JUC militants and Marxist student organizationsin the university reform movement.77 Lack of success convinced the students that moregeneral reform in society at large, that is, revolution would be necessary in order tobring about change at the university. A JUC bulletin stated it clearly in 1963:

At the present time the student movement, and particularly its leadership, isbecoming conscious of the fact that university reform is part of the [more

72Interview, December 2001.73Interview, December 2001.74Interview, December 2001.75Interview, December 2001.76Emanuel de Kadt, Catholic Radicals in Brazil, op. cit., p. 202.77Ibid., p. 203.

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general] Brazilian process, intrinsically articulated with the socio-economic andpolitical structures. This being so we could not simply start with universityreform and move on to achieve [changes in wider society]; university reformhas to become part of the Brazilian Revolution.78

As with the Chilean example, social Catholic activists in Brazil went from actively organiz-ing to stop Marxism, to joining Marxists in efforts at radical social change. This insurgentconsciousness which combined Catholic Social Teaching with Marxism, as Violeta claimed,‘fed the movement’,79 helping it to grow.

In the above section I have attempted to sketch out how the structure of political oppor-tunities, increasing organizational strength, and insurgent consciousness favored a strongsocial Catholic movement in both Brazil and Chile. In the remainder of this section, Iwant to address how activists in social Catholic organizations went on to play foundingroles in other organizations and movements. At times, militants left the JOC and othersocial Catholic organizations because they felt pressure from Church leaders. We will seethis in the case of Brazil. At other times, they left a social Catholic group and foundedor joined another group either affiliated with or independent of the Church for thesimple reason that they had outgrown the Catholic youth group (i.e., they felt they hadbecome too old to participate in youth groups). Lastly, a contingent of middle-classex-JOCistas noted an irony to their participation in the JOC. The JOC gave them skillsas leaders and as critical thinkers which enabled them to get better-paying jobs and ineffect, leave the working class. This created a very fluid structure where opportunitiesfor advancement were always available in the JOC. One negative aspect to having thisfluid structure is that some claimed the movement lacked continuity because of suchchange.80

Long-term consequences of activism

In Brazil, the JUC’s radical stances did not go unnoticed by the hierarchy. Soon, priests andbishops (such as Frei Romeu Dale and D. Eugenio Sales, respectively) began trying to reinin the Catholic radicals. For them, the JUC had fundamentally challenged the authority ofthe hierarchy and that its members had ‘run away with the organization’.81

Frustrated with the interventions of the hierarchy, JUC militants organized the PopularAction movement, (Acao Popular) or AP. De Kadt notes:

AP officially started June 1, 1962 as a political movement and not a politicalparty. . . many of its initiators were drawn from among the most active JUCmilitants, though from the start AP attracted people from outside Catholicstudent circles. By now no trace was left of the lack of social engagement prevalentin the Catholic student movement at an earlier stage.82

78Ibid.79Interview, March 2001.80In my interviews, several ex-JOCistas mentioned that when they reached their late twenties, still active in theJOC, they began to feel old. Some started families and stopped participating actively. Others went on to jointhe social Catholic organizations for adults, including the Catholic Action Workers Movement (MovimientoObrero de Accion Catolica, MOAC). Finally, others commented that they went to more actively participate in poli-tics, usually with the Christian Democratic Party.81Emanuel de Kadt, Catholic Radicals in Brazil, p. 207.82Ibid., p. 208.

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De Kadt describes the AP as, until the coup in 1964, ‘essentially a populist movement ofintellectuals for the people’.83

The author traces activists from the JUC through the AP to two other organizations, oneexplicitly affiliated with the Church and the other independent. The Base Education Move-ment (Movimento Educacao de Base) or MEB, was closely associated with its founder PauloFreire, who sought to raise the awareness (or, in the parlance of Freire, to ‘conscienticize’)the poor.84

The MEB was formally under the aegis of the Brazilian bishops and was financedby the federal government. . . The movement always insisted that it was merelyconcerned with adult education in the rural areas and that, as such, it could notand would not become involved in the mechanics of action, in actual organizationof the rural povo [poor]. . . The laymen who made up the movement’s cadres,many of them members or ex-members of JEC or JUC and a good number atleast sympathetic to AP, showed a remarkable degree of independence.85

The second organization that de Kadt traces ex-JUC and AP members to is the Move-ment for Popular Culture (Movimento de Cultura Popular). De Kadt relates:

From the start, students played an important part in its development, and theirunions initially sponsored many Popular Culture Centers (Centros Popular deCultura) or CPC. Later, these became autonomous organizations financed withpublic funds. These organizations tried to reach the masses by plays, films, leafletsand other cultural manifestations that focused on the people’s own problems andhad a clear socio-political content.86

It should be emphasized that though de Kadt focuses on the JUC, militants from otherspecialized Catholic Action organizations, especially the JOC also played key roles in themovements of the 1960s and 1970s. 87 In fact, Scott Mainwaring notes that JOC militantsand advisors, through participation in the Workers Pastoral Commission, would start BaseEcclesial Communities, which in the 1970s came to be closely associated with liberationtheology. 88

Although he does not systematically collect data on the background of his interview sub-jects, Fernandez Fernandez, in his interview of 35 key lay figures from the archdiocese ofSantiago, notes that at least five of them drew from experience in social Catholic programs.Moreover, these five all went on to play roles in the progressive movements of the 1960sand 1970s. One such person is Mario Garces who was an historian working with thenon-governmental organization Education and Communication (Educacion y Comunica-cion). His first experience with social Catholicism came by way of the Young Catholic Stu-dents (JEC) and he would later participate in the Christians for Socialism movement.Enrique Palet began in Catholic Action and then later in life worked in the Vicarıa de laSolidaridad, among other organizations. The previously mentioned Hernan Silva who

83Ibid., p. 209.84Conscientization is regarded as one of the core objectives of liberation theology. See Smith, The Emergence ofLiberation Theology, op. cit., p. 19.85Emanuel de Kadt, Catholic Radicals in Brazil, op. cit., p. 217.86Emanuel de Kadt, Catholic Radicals in Brazil, op. cit., p. 218.87Ibid., pp. 196–197.88Mainwaring, op. cit., p. 138.

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entered the JOC at an early age would later be active in the left Christian political partyMAPU and two organizations focused on Christian workers: the Formation of ChristianWorker Leaders (FOLICO) and the Vicariate of Workers’ Pastoral office in the Archdioceseof Santiago.89

In the course of conducting interviews in Chile for this article, I found that slightly lessthan 25 per cent (7/30) of the ex-JOCistas I interviewed maintained an activist career afterleaving the JOC. The remainder (23/30) dedicated themselves to their work and family lifeor strictly religious organizations. This is more than one interview subject, Elisabeth’s, esti-mate regarding the percentage of activists who became radicalized in the JOC. She esti-mated that about 10 per cent of JOCistas became radicalized, with 50 per cent goinginto the Christian Democratic Party, and the final 40 per cent seeking apolitical religiousorganizations or dedicating themselves to their family.90 Among the sample, militantswent from the JOC, to the Center for Urban Education and/or the Christian DemocraticParty (PDC) and then into the MAPU or Izquierda Cristiana party. This challenges theconclusions of Vitale who argues that the JOC was a training ground for the PDC only.91

Violeta, an ex-JOCista, national president and Vice President of the Center for UrbanEducation, who later worked in the socialist President Salvador Allende’s UnidadPopular government, saw a connection between her experiences in the JOC and herensuing life’s work:

I think the relation is. . . to work for people. Everybody likes working for thepeople, to improve their situation, including in the Christian spirit of loving[their neighbor]. . . we worked in education, but I think it is the sense of trainingthe people, helping the people, and giving a formation or training to leaders. . .The objective is to prepare the people to be leaders, right? To change thepeople, their sense of nation, of Christ, of people in society.92

The training Violeta received in the JOC carried her for a lifetime, providing an ideologicalfoundation to her life’s work.

Conclusion

In this article I have drawn on social movement theory and argued social Catholic move-ments from the early and mid-twentieth century produced a cadre of ‘movement pioneers’or ‘early risers’ who led the movements and organizations associated with liberation theol-ogy. Both Brazil and Chile had, in the decades prior to the 1960s, developed a solid base ofsocial Catholic movements and organizations. In the case of Brazil activists radicalized in

89I suspect that more of Fernandez Fernandez’ subjects had prior experience in social Catholic organizations thanhe indicates. He did not systematically attempt to collect information on his subject’s backgrounds. And the factthat he had only one brief period to collect data in Chile – apparently a little over one month – probably limitedhis study. Future research could further clarify this question. For further discussion see David Fernandez Fernan-dez, op. cit., pp. 53–103.90Interview, December 2001. Jasper and Young, op. cit., interrogate the received wisdom regarding the importanceof pre-existing ties to mobilization in social movements. They note that one problem concerns sample bias: scho-lars frequently select research subjects who are active in movements. Selection on the dependent variable glossesthose individuals who had similar pre-existing ties but did not join the social movement. Building upon Jasper andYoung, this study’s sample included both ex-JOCistas who remained active and those who’s activist careers endedwith their time in the JOC.91Luis Vitale, Esencia y Apariencia de la Democracia Cristiana (Santiago, Chile: Arancibia Hermanos, 1964).92Interview, March 2001.

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the JUC went on to found the Popular Action movement and from there to other progress-ive organizations.

In the case of the JOC in Chile, it trained a cadre of leaders – militants, in Cardijn’s par-lance – who developed a strong working-class ideology. Many of them became radicalizedthrough the collective application of the JOC’s See-Judge-Act methodology. They com-bined their Catholic faith and Marxist analysis into what social movement theorists callan insurgent consciousness. Then, these leaders went on to play pioneering roles inleftist Christian movements and organizations in the 1960s and 1970s – which we havecome to associate with liberation theology. Through all this, activists in both countriesenjoyed the support and the protection of a core group of the Church hierarchy, even inthe midst of conflict.

Building on previous research, this article makes several contributions to the scholarlyliterature on liberation theology. First, it offers a corrective to elite-dependence expla-nations which focus on the role of Church elites in their explanations for the rise of liber-ation theology. For example, working in the elite-dependence approach, Smith describesliberation theology as a revitalization movement, led by progressive bishops and theolo-gians.93 While these individuals clearly played crucial roles in the movement, focusingon elites can lead us to elide the factors that motivated the laity to participate in the move-ment in large numbers. Focusing on elites, moreover, can lead us to miss the leadership roleplayed by non-elites. In her work on the civil rights movement, for example, BelindaRobnett describes the role played by African-American women as bridge leaders, linkingformal leadership with local communities.94 In a similar fashion, specialized Catholicaction movements developed lay leaders who acted as a bridge between Church elitesand the working classes.

In addition, the See-Judge-Act methodology combined with like-on-like organizing radi-calized some lay leaders and activists. In Chile, activists understood their radicalization notas a result of measures taken by elites but rather as a result of their own experiences as theygrappled with their own identities as Catholics and workers, and with the new experience ofa Church which embraced both aspects of their lives. Thus, focusing on Church and move-ment elites can lead us to overlook how the laity themselves understood their own experi-ences of radicalization.

A second contribution of the article concerns the importance of focusing on theChurch’s internal dynamics and pre-existing organizations and movements, in contrastto research which emphasizes challenges from the organizational environment alone.While the Catholic Church in Brazil and Chile clearly faced threats, especially fromMarxist unions and political parties, the findings of this article call us to consider howexperiences of many activists in social Catholic movements led them to embrace liberation-ist movements. Some scholars have noted that many times participants join and remain inmovements for reasons other than those articulated by formal movement leadership. Thusto understand why individuals join movements we need to examine their motivations andexperiences. The case studies of Brazil and Chile highlight the dynamics that facilitatedmovement participation and for some, radicalization. The See-Judge-Act methodology ofCardijn empowered much of the laity to not only think about the ideals of social Catholi-cism, but also to put them into practice by consciously working with others to build a morejust society. This laid the foundation for the emergence of liberation theology.

93Smith, The Emergence of Liberation Theology, op. cit.94Belinda Robnett, How Long? How Long? African-American Women in the Struggle for Civil Rights (New York:Oxford University Press, 2000).

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The argument developed here regarding the relationship between social Catholic move-ments and liberation theology – that many of the religious and lay participants and leadersin the liberation theology movement in the 1960s and 1970s began their activist careers inearlier Church-sponsored movements and organizations – parallels research on othersocial movements including the black liberation,95 the civil rights,96 and the women’s lib-eration movement.97 Furthermore, the literature on the long-term consequences of 1960sactivism notes that activists from that era, in contrast to the media stereotype, stayed active.Many times, they were the pioneers in the so-called new social movements of the 1970sand 1980s.98

Future research would do well to further explore systematically the relationship betweensocial Catholicism and liberation theology. A study of activists from social Catholic organ-izations, modeled on McAdam’s Freedom Summer,99 would capture the many ways thiseffort by the Church to re-incorporate the working class and other groups impacted theindividuals and how they in turn changed the Church and society at large.

Acknowledgements

The author gratefully acknowledges the support of the Melbern G. Glasscock Center forHumanities Research and the input of Nancy Plankey-Videla, Paul Almeida, Sam Cohn,Harland Prechel, Bruce Calder, four anonymous reviewers and the editor. An earlyversion of this paper was presented at the Latin American Studies Association AnnualMeetings in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 2006.

Notes on Contributor

Robert Sean Mackin earned his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2005and since then has worked at Texas A&M University. His published work exploresprogressive Catholicism in Latin America from a comparative historical perspective. Heis currently working on a book on the origins of liberation theology in Mexico.

95McAdam, Freedom Summer, op. cit.96Morris, op. cit.97Jo Freeman, ‘The Origins of the Women’s Liberation Movement’, American Journal of Sociology, 78 (1973),pp. 792–811; Verta Taylor, ‘Social Movement Continuity: The Women’s Movement in Abeyance’, American Socio-logical Review, 54 (1989), pp. 761–775.98McAdam, Freedom Summer, op. cit.; Tarrow, op. cit.; Jack Whalen and Richard Flacks, Beyond the Barricades: TheSixties Generation Grows Up (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1989); James Max Fendrich and KennethL. Lovoy, ‘Back to the Future: Adult Political Behavior of Former Student Activists’, American Sociological Review,53 (1988), pp. 780–784; James Max Fendrich and Robert W. Turner, ‘The Transition from Student to Adult Poli-tics’, Social Forces, 67 (1989), pp. 1049–1057; James Max Fendrich, Ideal Citizen: The Legacy of the Civil RightsMovement (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993).99McAdam, Freedom Summer, op. cit.

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