The Priest of Paraguay: Fernando Lugo and The Making of a Nation
by Hugh O’Shaughnessy and Edgar Venerando Ruiz Díaz
Zed Books, £16.99
Despite the vicious propaganda war being waged against the left in Latin America today, the region has become a fountain of hope and inspiration for millions around the world. The march of radical social democracy in Latin America is well underway and making significant progress in the fields of economic and social justice. Consequently, much has been written about the recent victories of left-of-centre governments in Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Argentina, Guatemala and Uruguay, but the seismic political shift in Paraguay last year that led to the victory of Fernando Armindo Lugo Mendez is a story that has escaped telling.
Despite the compression into a slim volume, Hugh O’Shaughnessy, the outstanding journalist, writer and activist on Latin America, in conjunction with co-author Edgar Venerando Ruiz Diaz, has now written a wonderfully lucid exposition of Paraguay’s complex history and the place of Fernando Lugo within it. Armed with his conscience and tremendous courage O’Shaughnessy has plied his trade at the coal face of Latin American politics for decades. In this new book he writes with unparalleled clarity and brings to light the dark realities of a country for so long mired in extreme poverty, corruption and brutal violence.
Lugo, a former Divine Word missionary and bishop, was elected President of Paraguay with 41 per cent of the vote on a platform of land reform and help for the poor. His election ended more than 60 years of rule by the Colorado party, whose candidate Blanca Ovelar received 31 per cent of the vote. Lugo brought together leftist trade unions, indigenous people and poor farmers into a coalition to form the centre-left Patriotic Alliance for Change. Nevertheless, his declaration of openness to all sectors of the community are as genuine as they are necessary and he made this clear when he told supporters after his victory: “I invite Paraguayans of all political types, even the ones who don’t share our ideals, to help this country that was once great to be great again.”
Lugo was ordained in 1977, and served as a missionary in Ecuador for five years. In 1992 he was appointed head of the Divine Word order in Paraguay, and was ordained a bishop in 1994 by Pope John Paul II. He served for a decade as Bishop of San Pedro, an economically starved region, where his support for landless peasants earned him the nickname of Bishop of the Poor. As O’Shaughnessy notes, he only came to national prominence in March 2006 when he helped to organise and lead an opposition rally in Paraguay’s capital Asuncion. He resigned from the priesthood nine months later. But the Vatican refused to accept his resignation, arguing that serving as a priest is a “freely accepted lifetime commitment”. Instead the Vatican suspended him from his duties “a divinis”, meaning that he could no longer say mass or carry out other priestly functions such as administering the sacraments. This was enough to enable him to stand in the presidential elections, but his victory presented the Vatican with a dilemma over whether to “reduce him to lay status”.
Lugo’s decision to enter politics also aroused fears in the Vatican of a return to liberation theology in Latin America. This is the belief, popular in parts of Central and South America, but not shared by conservatives in the Roman Catholic church, that it is their duty to fight injustice and poverty. Some priests who subscribe to liberation theology have promulgated the argument that poverty is inextricably linked to the capitalist system. O’Shaughnessy’s vast knowledge of this branch of theology is exemplary and his powerful writing makes the narrative really come alive. He is also one of the few journalists who can seamlessly inject wit into a sombre subject.
This is illustrated here in his retelling of Pope John XXIII being asked how many people work in the Vatican? He replied: “Oh, about half, I think.” And readers with a thirst for historical knowledge won’t be disappointed. O’Shaughnessy brilliantly navigates a route through the turmoil with a wealth of wonderful literary sources, ancient and modern, including great quips from forgotten writers such as RB Cunninghame Graham, Henri Pitaud, Saro Vera, Ronald Preston and many others that make this a delicious literary feast as well as an engaging political text.
The research is meticulous and reveals an incredible amount of fresh information. This is most evident when O’Shaughnessy covers and contextualises the inhumanity of the dirty war conducted by the right-wing generals of the southern cone countries during the 1970s and early 1980s. He shines light on the case of Monica Beatriz Bustos who was abducted by the Argentinian state in 1976 and tortured so severely she fell into a coma for three days. Saved by one of the few liberal Catholic leaders in Argentina at that time, Jorge Kemerer, Bishop of Posadas, she was one of the lucky ones. During this period of right-wing military dictatorship, which involved the illegal arrest, torture, murder and forced disappearance of anyone who opposed their regime (real, suspected or imagined), around 30,000 Argentinians were slaughtered by the state.
This is O’Shaughnessy at his best: carefully researched, meticulously documented, tightly argued, and thoroughly gripping. Jam-packed with optimism, The Priest of Paraguay offers hope to all those struggling for social and economic change. As Lugo himself says: “Who was going to imagine… that the struggle of social movements, of young people, of indigenes, of women, of workers was going to yield such fruit.”
This book is a necessary antidote to the powerful and insidious propaganda that is currently masquerading as news and misrepresenting the revival of democratic socialist politics in Latin America today. And, for those who think there is no alternative to neo-liberal capitalism, this book proves it ain’t necessarily so, Joe. A must read, not only for those with an interest in Latin America, but for those who want to know what makes people give up everything and fight for justice. l
Enrico Tortolano
