Political Participation of Native and Foreign Catholic Clergy in Guatemala
| Autor: | Paul Tortolani |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 1973 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Journal of Church and State. 15:407-418 |
| ISSN: | 2040-4867 0021-969X |
| DOI: | 10.1093/jcs/15.3.407 |
| Popis: | Political participation usually implies involvement in elec toral campaigns, demonstrations, and rallies of a political nature, writing letters to representatives in government, or direct lobby ing with government officials ; all these techniques are directed at exerting a decisive influence over the decisions and policies of those who govern. Such behavior, however, does not accurately characterize the political participation of Catholic clergymen in Guatemala. Their involvement in political affairs has spanned vociferous conservatism, violent radicalism, and relative indiffer ence. With such a wide divergence in the nature of political orientations on the part of the Guatemalan clergy, it is difficult to make any valid all-encompassing generalizations on their role in the political arena. For a creditable evaluation of the political participation of the Catholic clergy in Guatemala, domestic and foreign clerical groups must be considered separately. This evaluation concedes that—as many churchmen have come to stress after sensing the difficulties of political involvement and factionalism—the role of a Catholic clergyman, whether foreign or domestic, is to be primarily spiritual. The Catholic clergyman's main mission is to spread the word of God as in terpreted by the Catholic Church, thereby leading men to eternal salvation. In fulfilling his role, however, he may, consciously or unconsciously, stray from his strictly religious functions and adopt a certain political orientation to his work. It is necessary, then, to examine and explain both the deliberate and inadvertent activities of domestic and foreign Catholic clergymen in the context of Guatemalan politics. Political participation by priests in Guatemala has pivoted historically and more recently on one factor: the scarcity of priests.1 For the 4.5 million inhabitants of the country, 96% of whom claim to be at least nominally Catholic, there are 522 |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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