Insider Information

I find it particularly intriguing when an insider speaks. The Monk Who Lived Again is the story of Walter Manuel Montaño, a Peruvian monk who fled the monastery and found new life in Christ. While his story took place in the 1930’s, the description he gives us of Latin American Catholicism remains uncannily accurate and insightful for those of you who keep up with us.

“Religion in Latin America, like ancient Gaul, may be divided into three parts. There is the Roman Catholic Church, with its endless hordes of nuncios, archbishops, bishops, parish priests, acolytes, sacristans, monks, nuns, pertaining to a bewildering array of separate orders such as the Jesuits, Franciscanos, Dominicanos, Mercedarios, Corazonistas, Carmelites, Pasionistas, forming ecclesiastical hierarchy, a religious ruling class, with an army of dependents whose living and continued influence depend upon the worship of the ‘God-of-things-as-they-are.’

“Then there is an ever-growing company of intellectuals recruited from the student classes whose revolt at what they have seen pass for Christianity has driven them not only into frank, and sometimes violent criticism of the church, but into atheism.

“And between these two extremes may be found the women and children who appreciate the beauty of the churches, the richness of the ceremonies, the dogmatic authority of the priests, and who fear their power. As for the men in this latter group, for the most part they find it more convenient to compromise conscience, mind and religion and so while giving nominal support can be depended upon to appear only four times at the church – to be christened, to be confirmed, to be married, and to be buried.

“And then on the periphery of South American life is the sea of Indians whose life is still largely guided by their ancient gods, though they may call them by Christian names.”

Insider information; what exactly does one do with such information? We use it to our advantage of course – to understand, to respond with compassion, to pray.