New Spirit in the Church

Those in Latin America who argue the need for widespread social changes used to regard the Roman Catholic Church as an enemy or a neutral --certainly not as an ally. But in several Latin American countries the late Pope John's influence -- and in particular his 1961 encyclical Mater et Magistra, calling for social justice -- set off a new spirit of reform and social action in the church.

No Time to Delay. In Colombia, though the church hierarchy remains magisterially conservative in the person of 71-year-old Luis Cardinal Concha Cordoba, priests have led peasant pro tests, organized community stores to sell low-cost food to the poor, set up a radio network that beams reading les sons and farming instructions to remote villages. In Mexico (where since 1926 it has been illegal for priests to walk around in cassocks) and in Venezuela, churchmen have sponsored organiza tions of idealistic volunteers who, in Peace Corps fashion, seek to help the poor in slums and backlands.

Brazil's Roman Catholic hierarchy last year issued a broad appeal for re form, and in several states of Brazil, priests and bishops are actively engaged in trying to help workers secure better wages, education and housing. Last week Dom Helder Camara, Auxiliary Archbishop of Rio, warned that de lays in undertaking reforms of Latin America's social and economic structure "can be catastrophic."

More than Sermons. Perhaps the most outspoken advocate of social change and reform among Latin American prelates is Raul Cardinal Silva Henriquez, 55, Archbishop of Santiago and primate of Chile. A square-jawed intellectual, Cardinal Silva Henriquez collects pottery and rare books, tries to discourage visitors from kneeling to kiss his ring. Soon after his elevation to Cardinal last year, he issued three pastoral letters calling for broad land reform, public housing and school construction programs.

"Statistical studies," he said, "tell us that one-tenth of the Chilean population receives almost half of the national income. This bad distribution of Chile's riches is paid for in malnutrition of the people." Practicing what Silva Henriquez preached about agrarian reform, the Roman Catholic Church in Chile undertook its own land-distribution program, parceling out 13,200 of its own acres in the Andean foothills, and providing financial and technical help to the new proprietors. Cardinal Silva Henriquez has also been the enthusiastic sponsor of Father Pedro Castex, a lively priest in a beret, who lives in the barest of shacks in the worst of Santiago's slums, where 180,000 people live, and who by sharing the lot of the poor has made .the church's presence felt in a community that is ordinarily left to the Communists.

Last week Cardinal Silva Henriquez called upon Chile to speed up the pace of reform. "Social injustice and poverty," he said, "foster Communism. It is urgent to act quickly. We are at the brink. If we do not produce legal and immediate solutions, others can break in and take our place. It is necessary to be Christian with social justice, with charity, with brotherhood. We must not be reactionaries."

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