NEWS STORY: After Mitch, social justice undergirds rebuilding effort in Central America

c. 1999 Religion News Service UNDATED _ The bishops of Central America, with the moral support and financial backing of the greater Roman Catholic Church, are attempting to build a”new heaven and a new earth”in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch that goes beyond simply feeding and clothing survivors. The ambitious $500 million effort to build […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ The bishops of Central America, with the moral support and financial backing of the greater Roman Catholic Church, are attempting to build a”new heaven and a new earth”in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch that goes beyond simply feeding and clothing survivors.

The ambitious $500 million effort to build a fairer society than Mitch destroyed _”a Central America that is free of the social inequities that have haunted its past and threaten its future”_ is likely to face resistance in a region that has been a bloody battleground over socialist ideologies and the distribution of wealth.


Church leaders are cautiously charting a course that steers clear of the political adventurism that got Marxist-leaning priests from the region in trouble with Rome but that they hope goes far enough to relieve the suffering of millions of poverty-stricken Catholics in Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala.

The strategy includes aggressive lobbying of the U.S. government, the World Bank and others to forgive Latin American debt. The plan also seeks a relaxation of U.S. immigration laws. But its most ambitious elements include anti-poverty development projects and a campaign to persuade Central American governments to parcel out both land and representation to the rural poor.”There is an effort to reconstruct a better world,”said the Rev. James Ronan, executive director of the U.S. Catholic Conference’s Secretariat for Latin America.”If a lot of the people say that is what they want to do, then that is what is going to start to happen.”What form it will take, what shape and what color the roofs will be and how wide the streets will be, I don’t know,”he added.”But one of the enduring qualities of the people of Central America, which convinces me of the direction things will move in, is their resilience and their faith.” The strategy of building social justice into relief plans is a direct response to a plea issued two weeks after the storm by Central American bishops that called for a more equitable situation for their impoverished flock.”This new mentality assumes a deep change of heart … in order to realize what God has in store for us,”the bishops wrote.”The coherence between faith and the lives of Christians will make it possible that we all become builders of a new Central America.” Texas Bishop Joseph Fiorenza, president of the U.S. Catholic Conference, echoed those words in a Jan. 12 letter to the nation’s bishops, in which he urged them to step up the flow of funds to the region. Although $85 million in money and services had already reached Central America at the time of the letter, Fiorenza told bishops much more would be needed to rebuild the devastated countries and bring real change.

The $500 million pledge was made by Caritas, the international relief arm of the church, which includes Catholic Relief Services in the United States. Although Caritas units in the developing world have sent goods and services to Central America, much of the hard cash will come from North America and Europe, which has already sent millions of dollars.

Hurricane Mitch hovered over the region from Nov. 10-13, unleashing mud slides and flooding that killed more than 10,000 people and left thousands more homeless. It denuded farmland and washed out roads and bridges farmers used to take their goods to market.

Wealthy businessmen and landowners are likely to resist efforts to help the poor, who lived on some of the most slide-prone hillsides and flood-prone riverbanks.

Noemi Espinoza, executive president for the Christian Commission for Development in Honduras, an ecumenical group supported largely by Protestant denominations that works closely with the Catholic Church, said the landed rich are doing their own lobbying.”It is very difficult … but I think the church has a great opportunity to influence the (Honduran) government in their decisions,”Espinoza said.”There is a good relationship, and the government is going to listen.” But while it is true that entrenched or established interests might be nervous about the Catholic bishops’ program, the historic success of small-scale development programs by the church bodes well. By making small-business loans or helping rural women develop cooperatives that reduce their dependence on exploitive merchants, the church can improve the lot of the poor without seriously threatening the system.”This money from the church does not take anything away from the rich,”said Brian Smith, a religion professor at Ripon College in Wisconsin who has written several books on the Catholic Church in Latin America.”It’s another channel to people who have nothing, and so it’s not political work in the short term.” Mark Schneider, assistant administrator for the Latin America and Caribbean Bureau of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said his visits to the region convince him vast segments of the society support such change.”In our discussions with the presidents of both (Honduras and Nicaragua) and their reconstruction cabinets, it’s clear they are all imagining a transformed Central America, not merely a reconstructed Central America,”he said.

He added that there is recognition by business leaders in the region that their countries must modernize and better educate their work force if they are to join the global economy. He said he is hopeful the United States will respond, as Caritas has, with an”unprecedented”level of assistance.


One of the biggest challenges church leaders say they face is to persuade government officials to cede land to people who have lost everything.

Mark D. Snyder, who represents Catholic Relief Services in Nicaragua, said the church already is having some impact. He pointed to a small example in the municipality of Ciudad Dario, where 75 families had built a squatters’ community around their riverside brick works. The storm washed away the business and the houses.

In the aftermath, the church persuaded the municipality to donate land on higher ground. Money from the church paid for partial construction of new homes. The people are finishing them, and are in the process of rebuilding their cottage-brick industry.”They are on higher ground. They are in better-planned housing structures that can be expanded,”Snyder said.”These are the kind of creative models that are sprouting up all over the place.” Church leaders say this Christian call to aid the poor should not be confused with liberation theology, a controversial philosophy espoused by leftist-leaning priests that brought them in solidarity with the poor, but also with Marxist guerrillas.

Pope John Paul II, a strong opponent of communism and Marxism, condemned these priests for being too political, but he also has chastised Western Catholics for not doing enough to aid their impoverished brethren in Latin America.”People have a right to a decent home, basic security and a fair wage that would support a family,”said Florida Bishop John H. Ricard, chairman of Catholic Relief Services board of directors.”This is basic Catholic social teaching. The church differs in terms of approach from liberation theology, in that we do not see the need for a violent end.” American bishops say they are acting on the clarion call issued by Pope John Paul II in his recent visit to Mexico and the United States to help their Central American brothers and sisters and are lobbying harder than ever on their neighbors’ behalf and backing up words with their own money.”When you have the opportunity to help in the rebuilding of a country, there is the hope you can build in as much justice and humanity as can be allowed,”Newark Bishop Theodore McCarrick, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ International Policy Committee, put it succinctly.

DEA END CHAMBERS

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