{"id":3414,"date":"2007-01-16T11:42:28","date_gmt":"2007-01-16T11:42:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/01\/down-south.html"},"modified":"2007-01-16T11:42:28","modified_gmt":"2007-01-16T11:42:28","slug":"down-south","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/01\/down-south.html","title":{"rendered":"Down South"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s a helpful overview by John Allen of emerging relations between various left-leaning Latin American political leaders and the Church in their respective countries.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Latin American Catholicism, observers say, has long been sharply divided between a traditionalist wing and social progressives, and in some cases clashes between the bishops and Latin America\u2019s new crop of leftist leaders appear to be ideological. In other cases, even Catholic leaders who might be sympathetic to leftist politics have nevertheless objected to what they see as the authoritarian tendencies of these governments.<\/p>\n

The Venezuelan bishops, for example, have repeatedly criticized what they see as a crackdown under Chavez. During an early January swearing-in ceremony for his third term as president, Chavez directly took on Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino of Caracas, who has challenged Chavez\u2019s decision to shut down an opposition TV station.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Cardinal,\u201d Chavez said, \u201cthe state respects the church. The church should respect the state. I wouldn\u2019t like to return to the times of confrontation with Venezuelan bishops, but it\u2019s not up to me. It\u2019s up to the Venezuelan bishops.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morales in Bolivia, a onetime cocoa farmer, has likewise crossed swords with the hierarchy. In a television interview last July, for example, Morales said the bishops had \u201chistorically damaged the country\u201d by functioning as \u201can instrument of the oligarchs.\u201d Over the summer, he attempted to end instruction in Catholicism in Bolivia\u2019s schools, but was forced to backtrack after vigorous opposition.<\/p>\n

Bolivian observers say things did not get off to a good start, as a disc jockey for a Catholic-owned radio station managed to get Morales on the phone days after his victory in December 2005 by pretending to be Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero of Spain. The prank, which included congratulating Morales for forming a \u201cnew axis\u201d with Cuba and Venezuela, was taped and later broadcast, prompting official protests and hard feelings.<\/p>\n

Ortega\u2019s clashes with the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, especially during the early days of the Sandinista Revolution, are by now the stuff of legend.<\/p>\n

In Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, the emeritus bishop of the impoverished San Pedro diocese known for advocacy on behalf of the rural poor and his support of the \u201cbase community\u201d movement, resigned the Catholic priesthood in December in the wake of a Vatican edict ordering him to stay out of partisan politics. He has announced plans to run for the country\u2019s presidency in 2008 elections, and polls currently give him a narrow edge.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a helpful overview by John Allen of emerging relations between various left-leaning Latin American political leaders and the Church in their respective countries. Latin American Catholicism, observers say, has long been sharply divided between a traditionalist wing and social progressives, and in some cases clashes between the bishops and Latin America\u2019s new crop of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nDown South - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/01\/down-south.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Down South - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here’s a helpful overview by John Allen of emerging relations between various left-leaning Latin American political leaders and the Church in their respective countries. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}