I have been reading extensively on Guatemalan history lately because I wanted to know why the Military/Government decided to kill Catholic Bishop Juan Gerardi in 1996. In 500 years of Central American history, a bishop had never been killed, yet in only 16 years time from 1980-1996, two Central American Bishops were martyred: El Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero and Guatemalan Bishop Gerardi.
I have read almost every book that exists on Romero. But I had never read anything on Gerardi. I had studied him somewhat when I worked in Costa Rica’s Caritas office, since Gerardi was exiled to CR in the early 80s. Honestly, I did not know much about him. So I read The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop by Francisco Goldman. The book documents and proves who killed the Bishop and their motive for doing so. It is no secret that the US supported military dictatorships of the two countries were responsible for the Bishops’ murders. At this point, all of us should know this.
What I didn’t realize is that the spread of Evangelical Christianity was ALSO a method of the military dictatorships against the Catholic Church. The war against the poor was fought by primarily spreading terror via random killings and tortures and making people disappear. But it was ALSO fought by disinformation (as they learned from their training at Ft. Benning, GA) and chaos. If the military’s enemies were split amongst themselves it would only make them weaker. So the Governments invited and encouraged and promoted the spread of Evangelical Christianity.
From his famous, ground breaking book, Daniel Wilkinson’s Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala has this to say:
In the end, it wasn’t only a matter of food, however. A major part of the army’s campaign was to blame the guerrillas. So that people hated us, so that they erased us from their minds. And that is why they promoted the Evangelical churches. The Evangelicals reject everything that’s political. They have a vertical relationship with God–‘el Senor and me’–and nothing about the community. Many Evangelical churches appeared after the massacres. The preachers took advantage of people’s fear. They called the guerrilla the devil. They needled the pain of the people when they should have been more compassionate, more understanding (313). emphasis mine.
What is interesting to me is that I have spoken to many American Catholics who believed that the guerrillas automatically meant “communist.” And yet that is not what they were about. From the army’s perspective, the “guerrillas” were anyone who disagreed with the Government. Anyone. That is why the Church, union leaders, human rights advocates, indigenous peoples, and political leaders were targeted for execution and terror. The Central American Governments sure figured out that all they had to do was use the word “communist” and the Americans would support them.
And that is how US sponsored and supported regimes managed to make saints out of two ordinary Bishops and how the Church was split in Central America.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In