In 98% Roman Catholic Colombia, President Gustavo Rojas Pinilla started out smoothly enough with the church. In his first inaugural address in 1954 he announced that "we are Catholics, just as other nations are Buddhist or Mohammedan. Protestant propaganda is not proper in a nation like Colombia." Since then
Rojas' relations with the church have cooled notably, but it still came as a shock last week when a leading Catholic archbishop pointedly endorsed the anti-Rojas presidential candidate of the united Liberal-Conservative opposition, Guillermo Leon Valencia (TIME, April 22).
The church first fell out with Rojas Pinilla in March last year...