The Catholic Church's Role as Mediator: Bolivia, 1968-1989

Abstract

In no other Latin American country in recent times has the Catholic Church played the role of mediator to help resolve na tional political and social crises to the degree that it has in Bo livia. Beginning in 1968 and up until the present, the Church has acted as mediator in practically every major clash between the miners and the national government and in the many im passes that were produced by the elections for the presidency. In all of these cases the Church, which was invited by the con tending parties to act as mediator, served as virtually the only nationally acceptable forum in which deep social and political antagonisms could be conciliated. Up until the 1960s the Bolivian Catholic Church, like the Catholic Church in every other Andean country, was small, tra dition-laden, and politically conservative. The impact of the na tional revolution of 1952, and most of all the Second Vatican Council, turned it into one of the most progressive churches in Latin America. Also, the presence of many missionaries from Europe and North America (in the 1970s, 80 percent of all clergy were foreigners) gave progressive groups a clear major ity.1 This shift in the Church was especially noticeable during