MEDELLIN, Colombia (CNS) -- Although Latin America has advanced since a 1968 church conference first declared a "preferential option for the poor," a number of troubling signs threaten the progress made, both socially and religiously.
In many ways the region has become "a paradox," said Father Francisco de Roux Rengifo of Colombia, who has become one of the country's most respected voices on poverty issues. Father de Roux serves on the truth-seeking commission, which is investigating the country's decades-long civil war that ended in 2016.
"Here we have 10 percent of the population in the world, but we produce half of the world's murders," he said. "Countries like Japan and China, which don't have a Christian tradition, have much fewer murders per year."
The priest was one of six regional leaders invited by the Latin American bishops' council to participate in a forum on the state of Latin America, part of an ecclesial congress marking 50 years since the Second General Assembly of the Bishops' Conferences of Latin America and the Caribbean.
Several panelists said the high rates of violence continue to be an impediment for the advancement of the region's poor, who are most likely to suffer its effects.
Several panelists said the high rates of violence continue to be an impediment for the advancement of the region's poor, who are most likely to suffer its effects.
Increased violence goes hand-in-hand with an uptick in poverty and misery in the region in recent years, said Father de Roux. Whereas in 2014, 148 million Latin Americans were considered poor, today that number stands at 187 million. Fourteen million more were living in miserable conditions during the same period, according to U.N. statistics presented by the priest.
"The only way out of this will be when we truly focus on the pain of the victims," he said.
In its aim to broaden its focus on the poor, the church also faces the hurdle of a "dictatorship of the market," which has replaced the former authoritarian regimes of the 1960s, said Juan Louis Hernandez, a political scientist from the Autonomous University of Madrid. The region also must confront a set of governments "among the worst kind possible" and a class of elites that seek political power to increase their wealth, he said.
Hernandez used the case of the Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht, found to have paid millions in bribes across the region for influence, as an example of the deep-seeded corruption.
"Latin America needs the rule of law," he concluded.
Latin America needs the rule of law
The current pastoral and religious standing of the church in the region cannot be analyzed without highlighting the importance of the 1968 conference, panelists said.
In Medellin, the bishops found in the region's poor "the most important protagonists in the history of the continent," said Yolanda Cardenas, an author and lecturer who studies Catholicism.
"And Medellin showed us the necessity to renovate, to use more evangelization, including demanding a profound renovation of the catechist," she said.
But the church's religious standing in the Americas has been damaged by allegations of clergy sexual abuse and cover-ups from Pennsylvania to Chile, said Cardinal Pedro Barreto Jimeno of Huancayo, Peru.
Overcoming the scandals will first require "recognizing, as Pope Francis said, with pain and shame, the sexual abuse, abuse of power, and abuse of conscious that radiates in some," he said.
Cardinal Barreto called for a process of internal reflection, which he called a central theme of the original Medellin conference.
"When we reflect on ourselves, we remember what Pope Paul VI, walking through the Vatican halls, commented one day, 'I have seen the smoke of Satan come out of these Vatican halls,'" he said.
Attendees at the Aug. 23-26 congress were to participate in 22 working groups, each of which will produce a document. A final report from the congress will compile those documents and hopes to show in which areas the church has advanced on the principles established in Medellin and where progress has halted or receded.
What causes poverty? Poverty was the natural state of the world till the 1800's. In the early to mid 1700's something changed in a small,part of the world and prosperity began for the common person first in England, its North American colonies and Holland. It then spread to most of Europe. After WWII to many parts of east Asia. It is well documented why Latin America did not follow. Other regions haven't followed either but most are improving. The answer is freedom. The recent decline in Latin America is mainly due to Venezuela.
Just before his death, Voltaire, an avowed atheist was asked to bless Benjamin Franklin's grandson. He put his hands on him and said Freedom and God. The answer to poverty and the basis of a just society has been available for a couple hundred years, Catholic morality and freedom. Not politics or any option for the poor but freedom. Catholic morality will do the rest.