00:00Pablo XIV's visit to Argentina carries significance beyond its religious dimensions, bringing
00:07attention to the Catholic Church's historical role in the country's political and social
00:12lives.
00:13To explore the historical relationship, we join Nicolas Perone, a researcher with the
00:19RELIO Network for Studies and Catholic Religious Institutions Relief and Practices at Dr. Emilio
00:26Ravagnani.
00:27Welcome, Nicolas, to tell a story in English from the South.
00:35Hello, thank you for inviting me for this interview.
00:39Well, the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Argentinian state has a long
00:44history of cooperation, tensions and negotiations.
00:47How has this relationship developed through history?
00:55Well, I think that the relationship between state and church was always very close throughout
01:03Argentinian history because the Catholic Church provided a huge support in, sort of speaking,
01:11after the independence process to the nation-state building process.
01:16Nevertheless, this relationship was not easy nor linear because there were several points
01:23in history, for example, that the late 19th century with the secularization process or the
01:29secularization laws such as civil marriage, such as just to name a few, which were the tensions
01:36between the state and the church rose up.
01:40But nevertheless, the church was always a very active political actor, not only influencing the
01:47decisions in the political sphere but also by mobilizing the laity in Argentina.
01:54So, there are several governments, for example, the government of Juan Domingo Perón that was heavily
02:01influenced by the Catholic social teaching.
02:05But one has to think that the church as a whole, to think a little bit more complex, was never
02:14homogenous because one tends to think that the closeness between the Catholic hierarchy and power makes
02:25some points, some dark points of Argentinian history.
02:29The church is almost an accomplice, but the church is, or was, larger than that.
02:35Yeah, and also looking back to the 20th centuries, what were the main moments of tensions between
02:42the church and the political parties in Argentina, and what were the key issues at stake?
02:51Well, for example, Juan Domingo Perón, as I said, at the beginning of its government had close ties
02:59with the Catholic Church, but later on the church was one of the key actors in the
03:07coup d'etat against Perón because of the tensions accumulating in relation to its personalist government.
03:18Later on, maybe we can think also, of course, as in the last military dictatorship in which lots
03:27of members, lots of bishops and members of the Catholic hierarchy, not only were accomplished,
03:33but also blessed, sort of speaking, this tremendous, horrendous government.
03:40But also, there were a lot of Catholics and religious people who struggled for human rights during
03:49these horrible years for our country.
03:51And last but not least, the return of democracy was not exempt with tensions with the church.
04:00I'm thinking, for example, in relationship with the divorce laws of the 80s or the abortion
04:07laws in the early, no, in the 20, the second decade of this century.
04:15So, the comes and the come and go with the church is also, it's always active.
04:27Yeah, and also Argentinian local Pope John Paul II in 1982 and 1987, what's the difference
04:34of those visits and what difference can we identify compared to the current context?
04:44Well, first of all, we have to take the significance of this present visit, the visit of Leo XIV in
04:56Argentina in relationship to these last two visits, as you said, because it has been 39 years
05:03since this last Pope, this John Paul II visit us.
05:07And I think that 1982 and 1987 were completely different political contexts, but nevertheless
05:17very connected, because on the one hand, in June of 1992, we were in the middle of the
05:24Falkland Wars, the Pope, John Paul II had recently scheduled a visit to England, and in the middle
05:34of the conflict, in order not to appear partial to one of the sides of the war, he visited in
05:42a very improvised, in a good sense, Argentina in order to ease out the tensions between Argentina
05:50and England, and a couple of days after his visit, Argentina surrendered.
05:57In 1987, there was the new democratic government of Alfonsín, but despite of all the tensions during
06:08this government, the Pope came with a message to, in the middle of the divorce, the divorce laws,
06:17discussions in civil society. So, the country was still finding its way into democracy.
06:26Yeah, and today's relations between the church and the governments continue to be shaped by
06:32the debates about poverty, social justice, and the role of the state, what continuities and
06:39differences do you see compared to the historical tensions?
06:46Well, the thing is that the church hasn't changed its discourse in relation to Catholic social
06:55teaching. The problem is not the church in itself, but the tension that the government created,
07:02not only in its economic policies, but also in its discourse, because the President Millet,
07:10according to President Millet, social justice is an aberration, and the base of Catholic social
07:17thought is social justice. So, it's very difficult to fix that problem in the discourse, when you have
07:31the basics of the theological background of the Catholic social church attacked directly by the
07:39libertarian government.
07:41Well, Nicolas, thank you very much for joining us here from the south.
07:49Thank you very much for welcoming.
