ARGENTINA: Ecclesiastical Tempest

Santiago Luis Cardinal Copello, Primate of Argentina, last week gave Catholic Argentines some advice on the forthcoming (February) elections.

No Catholic, said the Cardinal in a pastoral letter, should support parties or candidates who would reverse Argentine law by: 1) separating the church from the state, 2) taking religious teaching out of the public schools, 3) legalizing civil divorce.

Cardinal Copello said not a word for or against the candidacy of Juan Domingo Peron. But it was notable that Peron's military government had decreed religious instruction in all Argentine public schools.

The Communist, Socialist, and Progressive Democrat parties, which make up a strong sector of the democratic united front against Peron, would take religion out of both school and state, permit divorce.

The Copello letter, and the subsequent row over just what it meant, fanned a smoldering feud between Argentine liberals and the church. The liberals, mostly good Catholics themselves, think the church too powerful, too meddlesome and too expensive. The church, which still enjoys medieval prerogatives in Argentina, is loth to give an inch.

Copello was supported by the many pro-Franco Spanish priests who have emigrated to Argentina since the Spanish Civil War. But there were dissidents, even within the church. One was famed Bishop Miguel de Andrea, who did not sign the pastoral letter. Instead, he took a slap at Peron demagoguery. To a group of graduating nurses, the Bishop gave a solemn warning: "It is a tragic error to sell liberty for a few social and economic advantages."