Text Supplement: Latin American Perspectives

            The writings of Bartolome de las Casas chronicle the brutalization and decimation of native American peoples at the hands of the Spanish conquerors. In one of his writings, In Defense of the Indians (originally written in 1552, published in 1992 by the Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb, IL), he addresses misconceptions about the native Americans. He points out that they are not lower beings and cannot have so-called “civilization” forced upon them. He argues that the Church does not have jurisdiction over the native Americans and cannot make war against them to uproot their alleged idolatry. He contends that the preaching of the faith does not begin with the punishment of sins. Las Casas refutes those who interpret the biblical books of Deuteronomy and Joshua as claiming that God commands that all who are engaged in idolatry must be killed or warred against.

            Liberation philosophy in Latin America today has called for opposition to oppressive policies of military governments. In the name of national security, these policies justify a range of practices—censorship and the shutdown of publications and radio stations, harassment, illegal break-ins, exile, imprisonment without the right of habeas corpus, torture, and the disappearance of citizens (Chapter 6 in E. L. Cleary, Crisis and Change: The Church in Latin America Today, Orbis Books, 1985). The Catholic Church has expressed a “preferential option for the poor,” a concept that Gustavo Gutierrez interprets as requiring that the Catholic hierarchy oppose the brutal practices inflicted on the poor and indigenous people by military regimes.