Aid to the Church in Need: Argentina’s changing face

Argentina’s changing face – at the expense of the Church

Posted by ACN News on 27/8/2009, 5:06 pm
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Argentina’s changing face – at the expense of the Church

by Reinhard Backes

Argentina faces major challenges today. The social situation in the country is far from satisfactory. However, the reason lies not only in the current world economic crisis but still further back in a succession of economic ups and downs that has been continuing for decades. Argentina has long been a divided nation, with around 20% of its population officially classified as living below the poverty threshold. In actual fact the true figure may well be double this.
The two dominating political philosophies of recent times, the neo-liberal tendency of the 1990s – the so-called "Menemismo" of President Carlos Menem -- and the currently dominant authoritarian style of "Kirchnerismo" have done little to bring any real advance for the country.
Moreover, the attitude of the ruling powers with regard to the Catholic Church has been slowly but steadily changing. Under the constitution the Church holds a privileged position, given that over 90% of the population are Catholics. But now in Argentina there is an ongoing tendency that has also been observable for some years now in other parts of South America, whereby prominent politicians are seeking to position themselves by distancing themselves from the Church and even trying to exclude her from public life. Criticism from the Church over certain areas of social policy, such as issues of family policy or the right to life, is contemptuously dismissed.

(Father Daniel Julian (45) , diocese of Cordoba in Argentina, during his visit to ACN. He is a military chaplain for the church in Argentina.
The military diocese does a lot with ACN's Child´s bible and the Rosary Booklet)

In 2005 in the Rio de la Plata region, a fierce quarrel erupted between Church and State, following comments made by the Armed Forces Bishop Antonio Baseotto in a private letter to the Health Minister. The bishop, who is now 77, was protesting at government plans to liberalise the abortion laws and referred in his letter to the Bible passage that states that anyone who harms a little child would be better off thrown into the sea with a millstone round his neck.
The minister immediately made the letter public. The unfortunate parallel aroused great indignation, since during the time of the military dictatorship in Argentina many opponents of the regime had indeed been thrown into the sea from aeroplanes. President Kirchner dismissed the armed forces bishop. In fact Bishop Baseotto has now retired for reasons of age, but the bitterness lingers on.
To this day no new Armed Forces bishop has yet been appointed, and the government shows little interest in filling the vacancy. In fact it has announced that it wants to cancel the agreement with the Church over the Armed Forces chaplaincy. Priests involved in this chaplaincy work speak of a changed atmosphere, of increasing obstruction of their legally sanctioned activities and numerous attempts at intimidation. "Contact between the soldiers and us priests is not exactly forbidden, yet their opportunities for approaching us are being restricted", said Padre Daniel Julian, a military chaplain in Cordoba, in conversation with representatives of the international Catholic pastoral charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). This charity, which supports the pastoral work of the Church worldwide, also helps for the training and the support of Catholic priests.
Whereas up till 2005 it was quite usual for the Church to offer pilgrimages for Argentinian soldiers, 45-year-old Padre Julian reports that it is now being made difficult or even impossible for them to participate. He tells how one soldier came up to him and said, "During the week I do not know you, but at the weekend I do".

(Father Daniel Julian distributes holy commmunion to Argentinian soldiers)

Soldiers are being warned not to accept opportunities for religious activities and to avoid priests as much as possible. Many of them, fearful of being held back in their military careers, are following these instructions, which obviously come from the highest levels, he told ACN – though of course it is impossible to prove this.
Currently Argentina has something over 100,000 men under arms and these are served by 180 military chaplains. Padre Julian and 49 other priests are directly answerable to the Armed Forces Bishop, while the remaining 130 have been temporarily released by their dioceses for the military chaplaincy.
What the future will hold nobody can really say for sure, but one thing is quite clear, and that is that Argentina's military chaplains will have no easy task in the future.
Padre Julian, who in the past has ministered regularly to many hundreds of soldiers, has now been transferred as a punishment. His crime? He had worked intensively so that cadets could receive Confirmation. In this way even the attempt to continue pastoral work privately, in civilian life, is being undermined. But he concludes: "We are not going to let ourselves be intimidated, because priests are needed here. One officer said to me, 'We cannot help you, but your presence is important'."

Editor’s Notes:

Directly under the Holy See, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need. ACN is a Catholic charity – helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action.

Founded in 1947 by Fr Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named “An outstanding Apostle of Charity”, the organisation is now at work in about 130 countries throughout the world.

The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, 46.5 million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed worldwide.

For more information, contact please contact the Australian office of ACN on (02) 9679-1929. e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org or write to Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148.Web: www.aidtochurch.org

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