Rigoberta Menchú

Rigoberta Menchú Tum, a K’iche’ Maya woman from highland Quiché, Guatemala, is an international advocate for indigenous rights and the winner of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize. Born in 1959, she came of age during the country’s brutal and eventually genocidal armed conflict (1960–1996), and has been involved in organizing and advocacy most of her life. As a young woman, Menchú participated in Catholic activism seeking better conditions for people in Guatemala’s rural highlands, mostly indigenous Mayas. She and other Catholic Action catechists led efforts for rights and dignity in the here and now, challenging a traditional Catholic emphasis on rewards for the poor in heaven. The work led to involvement in the Committee for Peasant Unity (Comité de Unidad Campesina, or CUC), a group uniting campesinos from the region’s many Maya communities and connecting them to Maya and ladino (non-Maya) workers on coastal plantations. CUC was the first organization to achieve such a presence in Guatemala, and it quickly drew the attention of a military state determined to quell social mobilization. In the context of brutal repression in the late 1970s and early 1980s, CUC—like many opposition movements—developed an alliance with the revolutionary Guerrilla Army of the Poor (Ejército Guerrillero de los Pobres, or EGP). Violence spiraled, for the country and for the Menchú Tum family specifically. In January 1980, students and CUC activists, including Menchú’s father, occupied the Spanish embassy in Guatemala City to call attention to state terror. State forces firebombed the building, and the protestors and others burned to death. The army had murdered Menchú’s brother the year before, and tortured, raped, and killed her mother a few months after the embassy massacre. Rigoberta Menchú fled to Mexico in 1981. Personal trauma did not prevent her from becoming a compelling spokesperson for the opposition, and in that capacity she traveled to Europe to raise awareness of the violence in Guatemala. That is where interviews for the famous I, Rigoberta Menchú were recorded, facilitated by the EGP. That testimonio introduced audiences worldwide to repression in Guatemala while arguing for multiethnic resistance to it. Over the years, critics have levied charges that Menchú’s testimonio—with a narrative style blending many people’s lived experiences—misrepresented her life and served the interests of the revolutionary Left. These critiques in turn generated impassioned defenses of her testimonio as an important expression of political voice. Menchú has continued to work on behalf of Mayas and other marginalized people both internationally and within Guatemala.

A „Katolikus Akció” néven társult szervezkedés Marosvásárhelyen és Ágotha Endre papi életútja

With the available archival resources and through exploring the life, work and political actions of Endre Ágotha, the dean and parish priest of Nyárádselye I trace the unfolding and failing of the schismatic catholic peace movement legitimated in Marosvásárhely in the period 1950-1956. The state backed “Catholic Action” did not succeed in severing the Catholic Church in Romania from Rome by settling the “pending cases” between the church and the state and only a small portion of the clergy joined the movement, yet it has made significant moral damages by dividing the believers and the clergy. The Holy See condemned the movement and it’s key figure Endre Ágotha has brought upon himself the harshest punishment of the Catholic Church: excommunicates vitandus. He received absolution only on his deathbed.

Religious Renewal in the Context of Secularism

When public identity focuses on the convergence between Catholicism and the American way of life, markers of Catholic identity migrate to unique religious practices: popular devotions, sacramental attendance, obedience to disciplinary laws. Episcopal statements and the reflections of clerical and lay leaders note the growing split between religion and daily life. “Secularism” within the Church is identified in the analysis of John Courtney Murray, the Grail Movement, and in the pages of Catholic Action. In response to this “schizoid culture,” significant leaders network with affinity movements throughout the world. International congresses of the laity set the stage for the Council. Movements of Specialized Catholic Action join with the mainstreaming of scripture reading, catechetical reform, participative political processes, and the liturgical movement to foster a reconfiguration of clergy-lay relations. The bishops themselves begin to sponsor both liturgical change and Specialized Catholic Action even before the Council begins.

Vivat Christus Rex! The Cult of Christ the King, Vatican Apologetics, Catholic Action, and the Far Right

This essay will explore the origins of the cult and doctrine of Christ the King in the encyclicals of pope Pius XI and the role which the doctrine it played in his closely-twinned strategies of ‘a Christian restoration of society in a Catholic sense’ and the propaganda battles with the Church’s enemies, especially Communism, as the theological inspiration of Catholic lay mobilisation through the organisations of Catholic Action in the world-wide Church, from the early 1920s to the 1960s. Focussed on the use of the doctrine of Christus Rex as the key tool of Vatican apologetics against the enemies of the Roman Catholic Church, the essay will also show how it came to be exploited by more right-wing Catholic groups in the inter-war period, and how it has remained a major weapon in the armoury of traditionalist Catholics, as well as far right groups, down to the present day.

The Archbishopric of Manila Meets the Challenge of Shepherding Its Laity to Spiritual Maturity (1953-1963)

This study discusses, narrates, and analyzes how Archbishop Rufino Santos continued the work started by the country’s first native Archbishop of Manila, Gabriel M. Reyes, in steering the archbishopric to attain its full spiritual maturity. The research used the historical method guided by Arnold Toynbee’s Challenge and Response Theory identifying the Archbishop of Manila as the “creative personality” whose responses to the challenges of the post-war Archdiocese of Manila formed a “creative minority” who helped him respond to the challenges during his stewardship. As the "creative personality," Archbishop Santos led a series of responses that began to stir the social awakening of the Catholic Church in the Philippines to make it responsive to the social issues affecting the Filipinos. These responses allowed Archbishop Santos to elevate the Catholic Action movement to include socio-political concerns, thereby awakening the laity's socio-political consciousness and linking this to their Filipino Catholic identity.

“Carlson’s Continuing Commentary”

Chapter 6 explores how, during her years at SMJC from the mid-1960s until 1984, Grace embraced a unique form of Catholic activism that drew from the liturgical movement and Catholic Action movement, the ideas espoused by Catholic Marxists in the English Slant movement, and, ultimately, the reforms of Vatican II. She remained devoted to fighting for civil rights and for peace, now including antinuclear campaigns. Through her insistence on striking at the heart of capitalist exploitation, Grace maintained much of her Marxist thinking. In her continued belief in the importance of an organized political movement to effect revolutionary social change, she proudly touted her Old Left loyalties in the face of what she condemned as the undisciplined approaches of New Left protests. And in her call for engagement with the pressing problems of the day as a gospel mandate for the lay apostolate, she functioned as a Catholic activist. In her roles as a teacher, administrator, mentor, and friend, Grace also continued her struggle for women’s equality, now working to overthrow capitalist patriarchy by educating the masses through a variety of personal and professional interactions, particularly as she advised—and at times financially supported—women students at SMJC.

Oanh

This chapter recounts Oanh's return to Saigon after the Geneva Accords in 1954 that triggered a flood of refugees. It discusses how Oanh helped run a women's hostel for students, including refugees and girls from the provinces in 1955. It also discloses Oanh's political baptism that came when she saw the Diem regime impose Catholicism on a Buddhist country and use religion as a tool for political domination. The chapter details Oanh's affiliation with foreign and local priests, the Catholic Action Movement, and other groups focusing on social problems in a war–torn society. It chronicles Oanh's devotion to young people, the disabled, the unemployed, the abused, and to old friends from Lycée Marie Curie after she gained a master's degree in social work in the Philippines.