Introduction

Summary

‘Until very recently the label “revolutionary” was practically synonymous with the label “atheist”, for the simple reason that Christianity had become radically debased. But in truth it is the label “Christian” that is most nearly synonymous with the true meaning of “revolutionary”’. Writing in 1974, the Spanish-born Venezuelan Jesuit, Antonio Pérez-Esclarín, articulated one of the central arguments of the phenomenon commonly known as liberation theology: revolutionary Christians had not simply been converted to a position previously occupied by apparent opponents of the faith, but in their view had recaptured the essence of the Christian message. Liberationist Christians across the continent opted for a revolutionary politics because they believed that their faith compelled them to do so. For others, such an idea seemed to contradict the very nature of Christianity, and in particular the political role of the Church, in a continent for which Catholicism was closely intertwined with the colonial legacy. The Church, as the religious ally of Spanish and Portuguese conquest and colonialism – a dual project of domination and evangelisation – and for the most part an opponent of independence, seemed directly at odds with revolutionary sentiments. Protestantism could perhaps claim to be even less likely an ally of revolutionary socialism: arriving alongside the emergence of the liberal bourgeoisie in the nineteenth century, it seemed to represent the very spirit of capitalism.

Yet looking back throughout Latin American history, many examples existed of a Christianity that defied these stereotypes: certain colonial Spanish clergy such as Bartolomé de las Casas, who decried the cruelty and absurdity of colonial violence during the conquest; Jesuits like Diego de Alfaro, who struggled alongside the Guaraní in the Paraguayan missions, resisting the slave raids of Portuguese bandeirantes; and priests and friars such as Luis Beltrán who rebelled against their Church and the Spanish crown to fight for independence. Added to this were the myriad local heroes and devotions that attested to a popular religiosity developed in contexts of suffering and protest against misery and subjugation. In Argentina alone there are many we might identify. For example, San Francisco Solano, the sixteenth-century missionary in Tucumán, is said to have refused to dine with rich colonists who made their fortunes from indigenous labour. In 2016, Pope Francis canonised José Gabriel Brochero, the so-called gaucho priest who in the second half of the nineteenth century spent endless hours attending to the sick, eventually contracting leprosy.