Gustavo Morello, The Catholic Church and Argentina’s Dirty War

Introduction

p.4

In contrast to other countries, none of the most important dioceses in Argentina (Bs As,
Córdoba, Rosario, Mendoza) nor the CEA created any framework to protect victims or
document abuses

Scholars (Gill, 1998; Levine 2012; Mainwaring and Wilde, 1989) have been perplexed by
public silence of Argentinian hierarchy
 Image of Catholicism is now ‘that of an institution that was an accomplice of, or at
the very least did not condemn, terrorism by the state’

Some authors emphasise bishops’ support of state terror

 Emilio Mignone said that bishops and generals shared the same goal of defending
“Western Christian civilisation” and blamed some bishops: Pío Laghi, Plaza, Tortolo,
Bonamín of manipulating theology to justify mass killings
 Verbitsky argues that hierarchy knew what was going on but chose to stay silent to
maintain good relations with the regime- re-establishing Catholicisism as a national
church

p.5
 Dri identifies a theology of domination that was ideological legitimation for the
national security state

Some bishops saw some modern pastoral practices as responsible for creating guerrillas
(Bresci 1987; Klaiber 1998)

Majority of bishops worried about church division – concerned about Lefebvre

 “moderates” tried to keep church unity
 meant displacing from CEA bishops who openly supported the regime, but also
neutralising complaints of those concerned about human rights violations (Novaro
and Palermo 2003; Obregon 2005; Pérez Esquivel 1992)
 De Nevares (APDH and MEDH) and Novak, Hesayne and Kemerer (MEDH) ostracised
by colleagues

Gill: lack of free religious market and religious competition meant that Church didn’t bother
reaching the poor –

p.6

but the rational choice approach is problematic and oversimplifies the situation in Argentina
p.10

Both Peronism in 40s and 50s and national security doctrine of 60s and 70s redefined
church-state relationship
 Both tried to curb church’s influence and challenged bishops’ authority while using
Catholicism to legitimise political positions
 Disestablishment politics disputed church’s spaces and functions, while
caesaropapism sought to coopt the church for the state

p.12

“Anti-secular” Catholics – put up resistance to any accommodation with modern world

transformations
 Wanted to rebuild a Catholic fortress to be defended against the world
 Models were Franco’s Spain and an idealised medieval order

“Institutional” Catholics
 Realised change was unavoidable and the church had to navigate it
 Understood need for negotiation with modernity and encouraged pastoral
renewal/updating
 Because nation was Catholic, the church represented the interests of the people in
relation with political system
 Sought privileged position for the church to access govt

“Committed” Catholics
 Stressed public engagement with poor
 Social sensitivity and religious commitment characterised them more than political
or theological allegiances – many were theological conservatives or political
nationalistic, and many distrusted liberal democracy

p.14

Growing literature on role of Catholic Church in 1970s violence

 Mostly on Central America, Chile and Brazil
 Some on Argentina (Gill 1998; Graziano 1992; Torres 1992)
 Emphasis is on division between conservative and progressive bishops
 Focus is on institutional relations between Church and government – analysis of
official documents and their theological background => but this does not account for
changes in religious sphere such as church-state relations, pluralization of
Catholicism and growing autonomy of believers
 Some (Dri 1987; Obregón 2005; Verbitsky 2006) ‘wrongly assume that documents
produced by the official hierarchy represent the views of Catholics, neglecting the
fact that Argentine Catholics were “believers in their own way”’
This work takes into account pluralization of Catholic field and growing autonomy of
believers

Chapter 2 “We are here to serve!”

p.21

Tells story of disappearance of La Salette missionaries

On last week of winter break at the Centro de Estudios Filosóficos y Teológicos (CEFyT), La
Salette had a spiritual retreat in the countryside – returned to classes 2 August 1976

p.22

3 August – 7-9 men forced their way into the La Salette house claiming to be the police

p.23

First they found Humberto Pantoja – put him in the bath, beat him and gave him electric
shocks
 Pantoja in terror began to accuse the others

Kidnapped James Weeks

Left behind Joan McCarthy

p.24

Accused Weeks of working for the CIA and “international communism”

 Searched for weapons and subversive literature
 Took his money as well as McCarthy’s
 Destroyed bathroom floor with a sledgehammer, removed the bathtub, the sink and
the bidet
 Found a machete (for cutting the lawn) and called it subversive

p.25

 Took Joan Baez and Beatles records, “Bolivia sings and fights” by Los Montoneros de
Méndez
 Collected various books, e.g. Cardinal López Trujillo, Christian Liberation and Marxist
Liberation
p.26
 Desecrated holy objects, e.g. putting on the priests’ vestments and mocking them,
stole the chalices and threw liturgical books
 They drew a swastika on the wall

p.27

Desecration important – ‘there is no explanation for this mockery and insult from a religious
perspective, especially from that of the “antisecular” Catholics’
 ‘it is at the service of ritual rules’ (Casanova 1994: 16)
 ‘improbable that a believer would profane sacred items’

p.30

The Task Force

Behaviour of this group similar to other cases

 repression required coordination among forces
o 1) police “liberated” an area (if any neighbours called the police, nobody
would respond) so a non-police group could operated clandestinely
o 2) a gang dressed as civilians and not identifying itself would break into
suspected house and kidnap whoever was there
o disappearances created their own rationale - confusion of abduction with
terrorist acts maintained necessity of state of siege and suspension of rights
(see Calveiro 2006; CIDH 1980; CONADEP; Graziano 1992)

p.31

Trial Order of the National Judiciary (7 October 2009) maintains that the gang belonged to
provincial police of Córdoba – Police Information Department of D2

p.32

Joan McCarthey went to local newspaper to report “Montoneros attack”

Then went to Claretian fathers, who offered to take her to a police station – she refused
because the police participation in the kidnapping was evident
 instead took her to archbishop Primatesta’s office, who was not there
 She called Father Zueco
 Had breakfast with auxiliary bishop Mons. Cándido Rubiolo on 4 August – day of
Angelelli’s assassination
p.34

Chapter 3 Who the La Salettes were

Kidnapping victims identified themselves as middle class – parents were professionals or

independent businessmen, families with university education
 Seminarians had received primary and secondary education, in public schools and
religious institutions
 Family atmosphere generally not politicized – anti-Peronists but not very strong ones

p.35

 Weeks had connection to Democratic Party in US

 Only one had worked before entering religious life, all others came from other
seminaries (diocesan, Salesian, Franciscan) and two had entered as children

‘La Salettes were, at the time of their kidnapping, a product of at least ten years of religious
formation within the Church, in high schools and seminaries’
 All participated in work with the poor – motivated to join seminary by 1) presence of
role model (religious workers who personified “committed Catholicism”); 2) the
impact that social reality produced; and 3) a spiritual interpretation of what was
going on

p.36

Role models reflected Christian ideal: commitment and faith ‘unplugs him from his own
reality and causes him to commit himself to those suffering hardship’

Personal contact with poor – did not imply a new social practice but were somewhat
traditional
 But for middle class youths these experiences produced irreversible change –
discovering “another universe”

p.37

Religious call – in Christian mysticism traditional seen as fuga mundi, but in the 60s was
transformed into transformation mundi
 While social commitment was often reason for expulsion in other seminaries, in La
Salette seminary it was encouraged

p. 40

Living with the Poor

All sought to consecrate themselves to God through an austere life and working for the poor
– Congregation of the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette embodied this ideal

p. 41

Catholic renewal ‘that crystalised in the Second Vatican Council inspired many Catholics to
get closer to the world they lived in’
 Major Seminary of the Archdiocese of Cordoba, Nuestra Virgen de Loreto, was
transformed

p. 42

In 1965 a group of seminarians asked to live in the marginal neighbourhoods of the city – at
the time Angelelli was auxiliary

In 1967 La Salettes moved into Yofre neighbourhood, and in 1970 they opened a house of
formation
 Residents in Yofre had gotten their homes via social policies of Peronism, and saw
priests as rivals of Peron – some threw firecrackers at the parish house, others wrote
graffiti

p. 43

Major Seminary
 Classes followed Nouvelle Theologie and Vat2
 Courses on contemporary history, psychology, sociology and ecumenism
 Primatesta began to get frightened when he heard what professors were teaching,
and the theological and philosophical nature of the studies changed from 1972-1975
– academic discussion closed up a lot, some seminarians went to La Rioja, some
faculty members expelled (Félix Casá, who’s teaching was gradually reduced to zero
and his contract terminated, and Ítalo Gastaldi, who was expelled when he claimed
that angels did not exist)

p.44

In 1975 the study centres were separated – one for diocesan clergy (Major Seminary) and
another for religious congregations
 Response to fundamentalist orientation dominated by Alberto Caturelli
 Claretinians offered a space, and in March 1976 the CEFyT was created

p.45

La Salettes moved to the same street as CEFyT, in Los Bulevares (working class
neighbourhood similar to Yofre)
 Small house, austere life with manual labour – hen house for eggs to be sold, work at
a cooperative making cement blocks, rotation of house and work tasks
  Decisions made communally

p.49

In February 1976 Weeks and Dausá began work at the Christ the Liberator chapel in the Villa
Siburu slum, until that point attended by a diocesan priest, Rodolfo “Quico” Emma Rins
 Some seminarians who went there as part of their formation were inclined towards
revolutionary militarism

p.50

 Emma Rins was threatened repeatedly, accused of being a Montonero – when he

spoke to Primatesta, the bishop told him that he had not seen his name on any lists,
and Emma Rins responded shocked that he had seen lists
 Emma Rins took exile on 22 February 1976

p. 51

Emma Rins threats may explain the Salettinian kidnapping – according to Carlos “Charly”
Moore (ERP) the kidnapping was linked to the work of that chapel
 A Peronist cell in the neighbourhood that followed the right wing ALN line were
deeply suspicious of Emma Rins, Weeks and Dausá – threats could have come from
there

p.52

Vicente Zueco, a Spanish priest with the Brotherhood of Diocesan Priests, helped locate and
authenticate kidnapping victims
 He had worked in Tucumán with the Cursillos, which was highly conservative and
where Lanusse was occasionally present
 Zueco found himself on Triple A blacklists
 But Joan McCarthy called Zueco after the kidnapping, who used his military contacts

p. 56

Chapter 4 Committed Catholics and the Machinery of Terror

p. 58

‘Those who use the category “genocide” attempt to link the enormous massacre in
Argentina to the holocausts of the twentieth century ‘(e.g. Marín 2007, Feierstein 2007) –
but ‘no evidence has been found of any sort that would imply ethnic persecution in order to
explain the quantity of state repression’

[although genocide does not only refer to ethnic or racial groups

 Moreover, Morello’s point is not strictly true:
1. the ruling enemies of the junta were Communism and Peronism, the
identification of foreign infiltration into the national being and national decay.
Since anti-Peronism has always been intersected with elements of racism, it can
be argued that the massive violence against Peronists was in part ethnically
motivated. This is not a merely speculative point, since there is evidence to
suggest that the animating discourse of the junta echoed ethnic cleansing
ideologies. The dictatorship’s obsession with hygiene excessively promoted in
media aimed at children – what Paula Guitelman has called “war metaphors” –
promoted ideas of whiteness and purification
2. the evidence that Jews suffered levels of violence disproportionate to the rest of
the population, and that anti-semitism was a central aspect of the military’s
crusading mentality, is indisputable. Why is this ignored entirely?]

p. 59

Pión-Berlín and Lopez (1991) and Harff (2003) distinguish genocide from “politicide”

The category used here is “state terrorism” – ‘the illegal use of force by the state against
opponents in order to impose a way of “being Argentinean”’
 “Dirty War” often used in English-language literature, with connotations of war
waged on own people – but in Spanish the term implies a non-traditional war and
justifies “excesses”, and these authors tend to be linked to the armed forces