These paths lead to Rome

National Catholic Reporter, June 2, 2000 by John L. Jr. Allen

Six cardinals who got to the curia by supporting right-wing governments in Latin America, opposing liberation theology

At the peak of the recent furor over possible extradition of former Chilean president and senator-for-life Augusto Pinochet, many observers were shocked to learn that high-ranking Vatican officials had urged Pinochet's release.

"There have been discussions at every level on this affair, and we're hoping that they will have a positive outcome," Chilean Cardinal Jorge Medina Estevez, head of the Vatican's liturgy office, told a newspaper in January 1999. "I've prayed and prayed for Senator Pinochet as I pray for all people who have suffered."

Pinochet is allegedly responsible for thousands of deaths and disappearances during his 17 years in power, and in light of John Paul II's strong stands on human rights this expression of solidarity with one of Latin America's most infamous dictators seemed to the world at large bizarre.

No one who follows Vatican affairs should have been surprised.

Like the other three Latin Americans who occupy top-rung positions in the Roman curia, as well as Italians with extensive experience of Latin America in the papal diplomatic corps, Medina rose through the ranks as a friend of right-wing governments and a staunch opponent of liberation theology, which seeks to align the Catholic church with movements for social justice. Sympathy for Pinochet was of a piece with the values and policy decisions; on both secular and ecclesiastical matters, that have propelled these men to the peak of the Vatican's power structure.

Along with Medina, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, the other Latin American cardinals who head curial agencies are: Brazilian Lucas Moreira Neves, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops; Colombian Dario Castrillon Hoyos, prefect of the Congregation for Clergy; and Colombian Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family. Two Italian cardinals with backgrounds in Latin America are Angelo Sodano, secretary of state, and Pio Laghi, former prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education.

It was Sodano, papal nuncio in Chile from 1977 to 1988, who joined Medina in pleading for Pinochet's release.

A review of the backgrounds of these officials provides key insight in at least three areas.

First, because curial appointments are rarely based on specific professional competencies -- Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, for example, is the first well-regarded theologian to head the Vatican's doctrinal office since St. Robert Bellarmine in the 17th century -- the background of these six men illustrates what sort of conduct and which theological instincts have been rewarded during this papacy.

Second, their track records are of interest because each man is taken seriously as papabile, a candidate to be the next pope.

Third, such a survey offers a reminder of the enormously high stakes at play in the last quarter-century in Latin America -- where, given the overwhelming Catholic majority, a possible reversal of the church's traditional alliance with the power elites posed vast social consequences.

Defenders of liberation theology, pondering the globalization and economic expansion of the 1990s that managed to leave most of the continent in poverty, can only wonder what might have been if promoting the new vision, rather than impeding it, had been the preferred path to ecclesiastical advancement.

Angelo Sodano

Sodano's service in Chile began four years after Pinochet had toppled the elected government of socialist President Salvador Allende in 1973. Sodano, now 72, represented a rival center of power to Santiago's Cardinal Raul Silva Enriquez, a John XXIII appointee who had cautiously supported Allende and was critical of Pinochet. The nunciature in Santiago came to be seen as the headquarters of the conservative, pro-Pinochet wing of the Catholic church.

Chile's post-Pinochet civilian government concluded that 3,191 people were either killed or disappeared under his regime, though unofficial estimates put the total at several times that number. When the general stepped down in 1990, he did so after securing the status of head of the armed forces and immunity from prosecution.

Sodano was publicly critical of the Sebastiano Acevedo Movement, composed of religious and laity who staged demonstrations outside secret prisons and police stations during the Pinochet years to protest the torture they believed was going on inside. In the run-up to a key plebiscite in 1988, Sodano appeared at a televised gathering of Pinochet supporters. One year later he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit by Pinochet for his "skill and brilliance" in diplomacy.

In 1987, Sodano choreographed John Paul II's visit to Chile, and although the pope had described the regime as "transitory by definition" on the papal plane, a different message was communicated on the ground. The pope administered Communion to Pinochet and then appeared with him on the balcony of Moneda Palace to the cheers of Pinochet supporters.