Historia de la Arquidiócesis de Bogotá: Su itinerario evangelizador, 1564-1993 by Luis Carlos Mantilla R., O.F.M. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS743 courts from actuaUy dictating pubUc poUcy? WiU the Supreme Court, like its American «????ßfß?,take an expressly activist turn and re-configure the Canadian poUtical landscape with newfound rights and freedoms? And furthermore, suggests Morton, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms seems to have brought Canada one perilous step closer to full Americanization. Can Canadians now expect interest groups of every imaginable ideological stripe to pursue thetf goals through Utigation radier than legislation? And with their own Supreme Court now thoroughly poUticized, can they expect to be treated—whenever a vacancy occurs—to the sort of unhinged lunacy that attended the recent norninations of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas to the American court? These are enormously important questions, and F. L. Morton is thus far only one of a handful of Canadian scholars to give them the attention diey deserve. His discussion is shaf and provocative, and, Ui the spirit of George Grant and other prominent Canadian cultural conservatives, he counsels against too ready an embracement of distinctly American solutions to unsettling social and ethical problems. His book would be a valuable addition to any course concerned with the complex ???ef^ of religion, poUtics, and ideology Ui the contemporary world. Michael W Cuneo Fordham University Latin American Historia de la Arquidiócesis de Bogotá: Su itinerario evangelizador, 15641993 - By Luis Carlos Mantüla R., O.F.M. (Bogotá: PubUcación de la Arquidi ócesis de Bogotá. 1994. Pp. xx, 353.) This study considers several themes in tracing the evolution of the Bogotá Archdiocese over the last four hundred years. Father Mantilla's earUer scholarship includes monographs describing Franciscan missionary activities Ui the colonial territories of modern-day Colombia. His more general survey emphasizes changing as weU as persistent ecclesiastical issues from the sixteendi century to the present. WhUe quoting extensively from unpubUshed materials in Colombian, Spanish, and the Vatican archives, he draws his narrative largely from secondary sources. He has reUed especiaUy on the voluminous writings of die late Colombian church historian, MonsignorJosé Restrepo Posada. As Mant üla explains, the Bogotá upheaval in AprU, 1948, which destroyed much of die archbishop's archives, has served to make Restrepo Posada's pubUcations, such as his monumental Arquidiócesis de Bogotá: datos y biográficos de sus prelates, essential for research on Colombian ecclesiastical development. 744BOOK REVIEWS Delineating obstacles to Christianization during the first century of Spanish settlement Ui the vast expanses of what would become Colombia, MantUla summarizes various problems confronting the early Bogotá prelates. These included common impediments to evangeUzation throughout the Andes, such as linguistic barriers, the persistence of indigenous rituals and social customs, and the emergence of syncretism. The bad example of many early missionaries and colonists, poor preaching, which MantUla suggests was not appropriately addressed until afterVatican CouncU II, and the Spanish mistreatment of the vanquished natives further slowed the growth of Christianity. He contends that jurisdictional disputes between church and civU authorities, especiaUy during the eighteenth century, contributed not only to disciplinary decline among the clergy but to many problems the hierarchy would face foUowing independence. In summarizing nineteenth-century trends, MantUla provides no significant analysis of the frequently troubled relations between the Bogotá archbishops and poUtical leaders in the new nation. He attributes the church reform laws of the mid-nineteenth century, which preceded those in most other Latin American nations by at least a decade, almost entirely to the baneful influences offoreign ideologies. The embattled archbishops,ManuelJosé Mosquera andAntonio Herrán, are presented as persecuted victims of impious and raging anticlerics. He adds nothing to die ???efGe??????? of the church conflicts beyond what appears UiJuan Pablo Restrepo's 1885 comprelrensive but polemical La Iglesia y el estate en Colombia. The eventual efforts of President Rafael Nunez Ui normaUzing church-state relations are not even mentioned. ???e discussion of twentieth-century social questions is Ukewis8 superficial. MantUla focuses more on the catechetical concerns of archbishops than their responses to social inequaUty. His emphasis of communist manipulations during the 1948 Bogotá tumult, which brought new attacks on the Church, serves to nünimize popular sociopolitical factors Ui the disorders.WhUe detailing archdiocesan preparations for the papal visits ofPaulVI andJohn Paul II in 1968 and...