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The pivotal issue in the Pope's speech was one of tactics. John Paul believes more rights can be gained for the oppressed through moral education than by agitation and revolution. Said he: "Whatever the miseries or sufferings that afflict man, it is not through violence, the interplay of power, and political systems, but through the truth concerning man, that he journeys toward a better future."
The Puebla address drew careful limits on priestly activism. It emphasized that political work is largely the task of the laity. In other speeches, the Pope warned a meeting of nuns against secularizing their mission, and told a large gathering of the clergy, "Be priests, not social workers or political leaders or functionaries of a temporal power."
Many progressive Catholics found this approach unsatisfactory. Some Latin
American militants were upset that the Pope made only indirect attacks on right-wing regimes that have been harassing and murdering activist priests. One bishop told TIME that because of this omission, the speech had condemned him and others to possible martyrdom. Another bishop said that dictatorships will now use the Pope's words as an excuse to repress all social action by priests and nuns.
Other critics contended that the call for evangelism was naive. Wrote Manuel Stephens Garcia, noted Mexico City political columnist: "When you speak of revolution, the problem of hatred and violence immediately emerges. But Brother John Paul, do you believe that the rich and powerful, who now as a hundred years ago imagine Latin America as their own private property, are going to yield their privileged position, their businesses, by a pacific process of civil, moral and spiritual conviction?"
The key liberation-theology strategists who were observing the Puebla meeting assumed a low profile. They issued no public response to the Pope and pursued behind-the-scenes politicking among friendly bishops from Brazil and elsewhere. The bishops' meeting will run until Feb. 13, and the progressive bishops hope to wring from it an explicit condemnation of right-wing "national security" tactics and capitalist exploitation. They may succeed.
Liberation theologians also want endorsement for church latitude in their continued pursuit of activism and Marxist-influenced theologizing. Whatever the bishops decide, the topics are certain to be hotly debated, not merely at this meeting but for decades to come. -