Priests and Peronism: Radical Clergy and Argentine Politics

Abstract

For sheer fascination, few countries in the world can offer a more intriguing post-war political history than Argentina, whose experience with Peronismo will long challenge the explanatory powers of social scientists. That this complex working-class political movement founded by Juan Peron could persist through seventeen years of proscription, together with the exile of Peron, is by itself unusual. That Peronismo not only survived these conditions but retained sufficient integrity and vitality as a political force to take center stage once again in 1973 after successive civilian and military regimes had demonstrated their inability to cope with the nation's problems is remarkable indeed. Among the forces which help to account for this unique political history, the activities of the Movimiento Sacerdotes para el Tercer Mundo, or Third World Priest Movement, have received little if any attention. This religio-political movement of the Left, which crystallized among Catholic priests in the mid-1960s, became, in the relative political vacuum of the time, not only an important actor in its own right but a vocal and highly publicized advocate of the Peronista cause as well. In the following analysis I want to show how Tercermundista' activities were instrumental in laying a foundation for the return of Peronistas to political participatin and in paving the way for Peron's triumphant return. Then I describe and evaluate the political relationship that developed between Tercermundismo and Peronismo from mid-1968 to Peron's death on July 1, 1974. As a whole the analysis is composed of four parts. In the first I examine the conditions which gave rise to Tercermundismo in order to show how Tercermundistas sought an alliance with the Peronistas. In this connection I look at the Tercermundistas approach to social analysis, its conception of a good social order, and its definition of the target groups of the liberation process. A second subject of analysis is the role of Tercermundismo as a political opposition movement from 1968 until Pero'n's return to power. Here I look at Tercermundismo as an agent of political change. A third part of the analysis concerns the mutual impact Tercermundismo and Peronismo had on one another during t4is period. Finally, in part four of the essay I formulate and attempt to answer some basic theoretical questions which arise from Argentina's recent experience with converging populist movements from the religious and secular left.