Officials hail Vatican paper on land
use By LESLIE WIRPSA, NCR
Staff
A recent Vatican document condemning the concentration of land in
the hands of a wealthy few was welcomed by church workers and leaders
throughout Latin America as a landmark statement that runs counter to
prevailing economic wisdom and restores a prophetic edge to church
pronouncements.
But in its first real test, this new weapon against one of the
worlds fundamental inequities appeared to bounce off one principal target
-- Brazil.
When the Vaticans Pontifical Justice and Peace Council made
public in January its treatise condemning the unjust distribution of land as a
scandal that defies the will of God, Brazilian President Enrique
Cardoso responded with denial.
The document, Cardoso told the press, has nothing to do with
Brazil, even though in his country, according to the Brazilian bishops
Pastoral Land Commission, 46 peasants died, and 490 were detained in 1996
during 653 conflicts involving disputes over 8.4 million acres of land.
The document, of course, ranged well beyond Brazil. Echoing years
of declarations from church leaders throughout the region, it condemns the
appropriation of land from peasants and indigenous peoples. It denounces the
climate of terror established by landowning elites and mining
companies that take possession of indigenous lands and suppress the protests of
workers and farmers.
The 11-page analysis defines the earth as Gods gift to
all human beings. All created things, it states, are meant to
be shared fairly by all mankind under the guidance of justice tempered by
charity.
The issue concerns the universal church, said Fr. Leopoldo
González, a Mexican priest from the pontifical council who worked on the
Spanish edition. But, González said, in the first part, you can
see all the citations, and Latin America certainly had its influence on
it.
The voice of Brazils peasants and indigenous people,
articulated in part through years of theological and pastoral reflections by
leaders of the church, constitutes a primary source of the document
Toward a Better Distribution of Land: The Challenge of Agrarian
Reform.
Whats more, theologians and bishops previously criticized by
some in the Vatican because of their advocacy of liberation theology, have
described the document as a striking reversal of such criticism. Some
characterize it as a powerful example of Rome listening to the cry of its
people, especially the cry of the rural poor. And the Brazilian people, they
say, are at the forefront.
Antonio Canuto, communications secretary of the Brazilian
bishops land commission, said, The Pontifical Justice and Peace
Council recognizes, with this document, the work carried out by the church in
Brazil, especially through its Pastoral Land Commission. It provides
strong support and stimulus for the struggle of workers in their efforts to
secure their rights.
Throughout Latin America, in phone interviews in recent weeks,
church leaders echoed Canuto. Speaking from Nicaragua, José Luis Rocha,
from the Nitlapán, the rural development initiative of the Jesuit-run
Central American University in Managua, called the document prophetic ...
and against the mainstream ... especially at a moment when the climate of
neoliberal economics and the individualism it brings with it creates a very
negative climate for agrarian reform struggles.
Against the mainstream
Bishop Julio Cabrera of the Guatemalan highland diocese of El
Quiché said the document is extremely important for many countries
in Latin America -- Peru, Brazil, Paraguay and all of the Central American
nations. The text, he said, reaffirms church leaders who for years have
demanded more just distribution of land. The documents emphasis on
policies that not only redistribute land but also promote education, technical
assistance, access to credit, infrastructure and transportation is key to the
documents importance, Cabrera said.
Pablo Richard, head of the prestigious ecumenical institute in San
José, Costa Rica, known by its acronym DEI, said the document is
excellent, opportune and useful, particularly because it
approaches the issue from the perspective of the Third World.
Richard said the documents focus on indigenous peoples
rights to their land and culture is essential.
It will help the church begin to pay the huge debt it owes
to the indigenous people by strengthening the life and death struggle for
culture and identity they confront, Richard said. Supporters of economic
policies that exalt industrialization, modernization and technological
advancement, he said, would rather see the peasants and Indians simply
disappear.
But from a Third World perspective, Richard said, the
councils text breathes with the spirit of the social movements of
Latin America and, by urging Catholics to shout, Basta!
(Enough!) to individual and collective sins surrounding land
tenancy, it helps the church recuperate the prophetic tone it has
lost.
The pontifical councils treatise on agrarian reform, he
said, suggests it is possible for the church to assume a firm and
decisive attitude opposing the unbridled free-market system. This,
Richard said, is a sign of hope for the construction of
alternatives.
Guatemalas Bishop Cabrera pointed out, however, that
applying the principles outlined in the agrarian reform document is a daunting
task.
So much depends on the governments and their policies, not
on the church. As far as those in power are concerned, Cabrera said,
declarations about land reform are often just pretty words.
He compared the difficulty of putting the text into practice to
walking down a muddy road where even four-wheel-drive vehicles get
stuck. In Guatemala, where 62 percent of the arable land is in the hands
of 2 percent of the population, the mere use of the words agrarian
reform creates, he said, explosions ... serious problems.
Roberto Oliveros of the Jesuit Theological Institute in Mexico
City agreed with Cabrera about the difficulties of putting the document into
practice. Weve seen even stronger documents, but they gather dust
in our libraries. They are not given life, he said.
He linked the pontifical councils text, with a line of
Vatican documents that express well the prophetic gospel spirit.
But, the problem is not that we dont have a good magisterium. The
problem is disobedience to the good magisterium, he said. In Chiapas, the
Mexican state that has been the focus of much of Oliveros work, the
document will enrich and confirm the road already traveled by the diocese of
San Cristóbal. He said he thinks it could push the church to put
more pressure on the government.
Speaking from Bogotá, Colombia, where Oliveros and other
theologians were evaluating the results of the recent Synod of Bishops for
America, Richard of Costa Ricas DEI said the agrarian reform document was
refreshing after the perverse, destructive and heretical text on
the laity produced by the Vatican during the synod.
Orionite Fr. Antonio Aparecido da Silva, a Brazilian who was also
at the Bogotá meeting, said the document did not surprise him,
considering the critical stance the Vatican and the Latin American bishops took
during the synod in regards to the neoliberal economic model. The
Vaticans position is a critical one: The [neoliberal economic] model does
not respond to the elemental needs of people. In this context, the land reform
document complements the magisterium.
Back to see, judge, act
Da Silva said the text represents an attentive
following of the voice of the Latin American church and that it will
strengthen the Brazilian churchs work with the landless. Richard, Cabrera
and others emphasized the importance of the documents methodology. It
adopts the see, judge, act model used for years by liberation
theologians and base communities. The method was discredited by some Vatican
officials in the early 1990s, said Richard, who views the new document as a
restoration of the model.
This methodology, which follows the Latin American see,
judge, act [model] used at Medellín and Puebla, has had a strong
influence, González said. He was referring to past meetings of
Latin American bishops at Medellín, Colombia, and Puebla, Mexico.
The Pontifical Justice and Peace Council is very attentive to the
pastoral needs of the people, so it must use this method -- which is inductive,
it illuminates, calls for reflection and action -- as a starting
point.
González said the document as a whole was the result of a
long process. Since 1989, bishops on ad limina visits to Rome to report
every five years on the status of their dioceses have emphasized land reform as
a pressing issue. There were bishops not just from Latin America, but
from Australia, Asia, Africa and so on, he said. Four years ago, Msgr.
Diarmuid Martin, secretary of the Pontifical Justice and Peace Council, began
more systematic consultation on the issue. Diocesan offices for social pastoral
policy channeled concerns from the local churches to the council. A team of
agricultural and legal scholars assisted with the writing of the text, which
was originally four times longer than the published version.
This consultative process will continue, González said.
We want to know how governments, nongovernmental institutions, banks,
economic sectors all respond. The idea is to really put the social doctrine of
the church into practice.
Every human being, the document states, has a natural and primary
right to the earths goods, and this right cannot be overridden by
any other economic right but must be upheld and implemented through laws and
institutions. A social mortgage exists on private property
that limits rights to it. Thus, in Aquinan tradition, When a person is in
extreme necessity, he has the right to supply himself with what he needs out of
the riches of others.
While the document assures that just compensation is due in the
case of appropriation of property, it is this line of thinking, according to
Mark Falcoff, resident scholar and Latin America expert at the American
Enterprise Institute in Washington, that could elicit strong responses from
economic and political elites.
The theology that God made all of the wealth for everyone
... is something that will not fly well politically in some places like
Brazil, Falcoff said. It will lead to confrontations between the
Catholic hierarchy and the government.
Dominican Fr. Ricardo Rezende, who worked with dispossessed
peasants for 20 years in the Amazon region of the state of Pará, said
such rumblings have already begun in Brazil. In a telephone interview, Rezende
said that Cardinal Lucas Moreira Neves, the conservative president of the
Brazilian bishops conference, suggested publicly that the government should
re-examine the document because it does indeed include the Brazilian
reality.
Canuto of the Brazilian bishops land commission, meanwhile,
reported that, although President Cardoso maintained his denial that the
Vatican document applied to Brazil, spokespersons from powerful economic
sectors reacted to it negatively. The president of a national association of
large landowners and ranchers, Roosevelt Roque dos Santos, for example, warned
that the church should be more careful in divulging documents like this
because it could provide incentive for land invasions.
Narciso Clara, from a similar organization, accused the Vatican of
acting as an apologist for crime.
In El Salvador, where the concentration of land was a primary
cause of the nations bloody 12-year civil war, Bishop Gregorio Rosa
Chávez said the strength of the document and reactions to it will depend
on how widely it is publicized. Right now, no one is losing sleep over it
because practically no one had seen it, he said. I think it is
quite an inspiration.
International dimension
The document does not limit responsibility for the injustices
surrounding the use and tenancy of land to the policies of national ruling
classes in developing countries. It goes deeper, critiquing the presence
of important foreign interests concerned about the effects of any reform on
their economic activities.
It appeals to those who have the problems of the world of
agriculture and general economic development at heart, especially those in
national and international positions of responsibility.
The document critiques economic development models that force
small farmers to grow export crops rather than producing food for basic
consumption. These policies can put farming families at considerable
risk by exposing them to a circle of debt that can eventually force
them to give up ownership of their land.
Consumers worldwide are reminded of their participation in this
situation and in the phenomenon of world hunger in general. While the use
of land for export production reduces food costs in countries with developed
economies, it can have very negative effects on most of the families who live
from farming, the text states. No thinking mind or conscience can
countenance this paradoxical situation.
The document runs upstream of current conventional economic
wisdom, encouraging governments worldwide to implement macroeconomic policies
based on the principle that farmers rights to enjoy the fruits of
their labor are just as important as consumer rights, especially as concerns
taxation and monetary issues and trade with other countries.
It does not explicitly, however, provide a clear critique of
economic growth as the only path to development and well-being. And
the writers are ambivalent on the issue of individual or collectively owned
land -- a crucial point for indigenous communities. Collective ownership in the
case of indigenous peoples, it states, is a fundamental element for their
survival and well-being while making an equally basic contribution to the
protection of natural resources. Then, it takes a step in the other
direction, seeming to accommodate the free-trade impetus: Defense and
development of community ownership ought not to blind us to the fact that this
type of ownership is bound to change. Any action aimed purely at guaranteeing
its preservation would run the risk of binding it to the past and thus
destroying it.
Large landowners or national and international companies who
misappropriate the land of peasants and indigenous people, however, come under
powerful criticism for creating situations that not only increase
inequalities in the distribution of the goods of the earth but usually lead to
the destruction of a part of these goods of the earth.
This occurs because these actors bring about ways of
exploiting the land that upset balances between the human person and the
environment that have been built up over centuries, thus causing major
environmental degradation.
These acts should be seen as a sign of mans
disobedience to Gods command to act as guardian and wise administrator of
creation, the text states, and this sinful disobedience has a very
high price, for it causes a particularly shameful lack of human solidarity,
striking the weakest and future generations.
The ripple effect of this trend is immense: Perverse
inequalities in the distribution of common goods and in each persons
opportunities for development, as well as the dehumanizing imbalances in
individual and collective relationships brought about by such a concentration,
are the causes of conflicts that undermine the very life of society.
National Catholic Reporter, April 3,
1998
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