Guatemalan president rebukes bishops

National Catholic Reporter, Jan 12, 1996 by Paul Jeffrey

Guatemalan President Ramiro de Leon has blasted his country's Catholic bishops for "politicizing the evangelical rather than evangelizing the political."

De Leon made the comments on Dec. 27, 1995, three days after the bishops suggested Catholics should not vote for the party of former Gen. Efrain Rios Montt in January's runoff election for president.

In a pastoral letter read at Masses throughout this Central American country on Dec. 24, Guatemala's bishops stated that Catholics should cast their vote in a way that avoids "all those situations that provoked so much suffering for the people, such as the great massacres, the destruction of numerous villages and the administration of justice by means of special tribunals." The statement is taken to be a reference to the 17-month rule of Rios Montt, who took power in a coup d'etat in March 1982.

When Rios Montt was ruled ineligible last year to compete in presidential al elections, his party, the FRG, Guatemalan Republican Front, nominated Alfonso Portillo, Who placed second in Nov. 12 general elections, forcing a Jan. 7 runoff with Alvaro Arzu of PAN, the National Advancement Party.

De Leon has publicly backed neither candidate and didn't like the bishops' implicit support for the PAN. "Just as the military and economic sectors should dedicate themselves to their functions, so should the churches dedicate themselves to their evangelizing function,' said the president

The auxiliary bishop of Guatemala city, Juan Gerardi Conedera, defended the statement and claimed the function of the church "isn't just to teach people how to pray and behave themselves, but to evangelize the temporal reality that the country is living."

Rios Montt angrily responded to the bishops' letter by threatening to denounce Guatemala City Archbishop Prospero Penados del Barrio to the Vatican if he continues to make political statements. The archbishop recently suggested that supporters of Rios Montt were behind an upsurge in violence in an effort to create conditions in which voters would appreciate the FRG's hard line on crime.

Penados told reporters on Dec. 30 that he would refrain in the future to the press. It will be a difficult promise to keep for the prelate, who one church observer said enjoys making comments about everything under the sun." Penados' frequent Public statements have provoked private criticism from other bishops. In May, officials of the episcopal conference called a news conference to make clear that Penados didn't speak for the whole church.