A recent publication from the Mennonite Central Committee — the cooperative agency of Mennonite denominations in North America for relief, development and peacebuilding — surveys bridge-building efforts between Roman Catholics and Evangelicals in Latin America. The April-June issue of the Peace Office Newsletter is available online at http://mcc.org/peace/pon/PON_2007-02.pdf. Introducing the newsletter is the following article:
Building Bridges of Reconciliation in Latin America
by Daryl Yoder-Bontrager
One of the fondest memories from my time of living in Latin America is watching a Mennonite pastor and a Catholic sister, both from Honduras, standing beside each other in a circle of people demonstrating against obligatory military service, holding hands and bowing their heads together in prayer. In the Latin American context, Catholics and Protestant leaders are more likely to preach in their pulpits about the faults of the other group then they are to pray together.
When Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) international programs chose Interfaith Bridge-Building as a key initiative, it arose out of a concern with the enmity between Christians and Muslims. Those of us working in Latin America and the Caribbean, where Islam is a very small presence, chose to focus on bridge-building between Catholics and Evangelicals, as Protestants are known in the region.
The history goes back to the early days of the Catholic church in the western hemisphere, when the church arrived hand in hand with the colonial powers. Any threat to the church was a threat to the state and vice versa. When evangelical missionaries began to work in the region, with their goal of winning as many Catholics as possible to evangelicalism, the Catholic church perceived a threat and pushed back.
The stories of tension between the two groups are many; emotions often run high when they talk about each other. At least one Mennonite leader in Bolivia, a former Catholic catechist, was confined by the government when a Catholic priest denounced him to political authorities. Those experiences are woven into the fabric of churchgoers, and too often reinforced by the people in the pulpits.
MCC workers on assignment have often lived the gap between the Evangelicals and Catholics. In many communities some MCC workers attend the Catholic church and others attend the Evangelical church. Some workers have regularly attended both. Either way often brings a holy confusion to the rest of the community.
And begins to build bridges. Included in this Peace Office Newsletter are the results of a study done last year by Laura Schildt who compiled experiences of MCC workers who lived and worked among Catholics and Protestants. One observation was that relations seem to work well when the groups focus on something outside of themselves. For example, Ricardo Torres recounts below his work with the Mennonite Peace and Justice Project work with gangs carried out in cooperation with several Catholic parishes.
Several writers in this issue note the Vatican- Mennonite dialogue and the progress in building relationships that has been made. However, as César García points out, while the dialogue has been fruitful, there is a much work remaining to get the reconciliation that is happening at the official level to trickle down to the average church member in Latin America who experiences first hand the tension felt between Catholics and Evangelicals. We hope that this newsletter will provide opportunities to think about how to help that task along.
Daryl Yoder-Bontrager is Mennonite Central Committee Director for Latin America and the Caribbean
to read the entire newsletter, go to
http://mcc.org/peace/pon/PON_2007-02.pdf