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Literacy Through Penance. A Marxist revolution can hardly represent the Christian ideal. Just as obviously, inertia is no answer to Catholicism's chal lenges today. A sensible middle way would see the church lending its weight to nonviolent reform—as Chilean Theo logian Hernan Larrain puts it, "Christianizing the inevitable revolution." In a few areas, Catholicism has had the time and talent to do so. In Venezuela, for example, the clergy has helped cut illiteracy from 50% to 12% in the past decade. One shrewd but practical way of accomplishing this was to require penitents to teach illiterates how to read and write as penance for their sins. In Panama, a popular American priest, Father Leo Mahon, has successfully combined Peace Corps techniques with preaching to help convert a slum named San Miguelito into a neat and hygienic community. The church in Ecuador is distributing 120,000 acres of its own land to peasants.
In his major address in Bogota, Pope Paul is expected to urge the church to support moderate economic and political reforms, in the spirit of his social encyclical Populorum Progressio. The unanswered question is whether that sound and humane advice will be too late in coming. Latin America's reactionary clerics, who enthusiastically endorsed his decree on birth control, are not likely to change their ways overnight. Nor are the rebel Catholics, who are already committed to support of violence as man's only hope. To some observers, Latin American Catholicism is heading toward something very like a schism—based not on dogma or theology, but on commitment to social principle.
*Thomas Melville later married Sister Marian Peter.