Maryknoll Catholic Mission in Peru, 1943-1989: Transnational Faith and Transformations

3. The Transformative Power of Tradition, 1954–1967

CHAPTER 3 The Transformative Power of Tradition, 1954–1967 Within a decade of their arrival in Puno, Maryknoll turned the image of priests upside down by taking a pro-indigenous approach to mission, initiating a range of socioreligious programs and acting as models of integrity. Sister Maria Rubina, a Peruvian sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet who grew up in Puno in the 1950s, was among those influenced by Maryknoll. Sister Maria described the missionaries as “super priests,”“revolutionary priests” who transformed everything.The priests before Maryknoll, she recounted, were “too much like us,” too involved in community competition and conflict. Maryknollers, by contrast, “with their blond hair and blue eyes did not even look like us!” Perhaps most dramatically, in Sister Rubina’s view, Maryknoll priests did not recognize social distinctions. She remembered that although the priests looked down a bit on everyone in Puno, they did not understand the distinctions between and among people. They could not tell the difference between Quechua and Aymara speakers, or between elites who lived in town and their supposed social inferiors who lived in parcialidades (independent indigenous communities) or distritos outside of Puno. According to Sister Maria, Maryknoll priests’ 81 disregard for social distinctions turned the local hierarchy on its head. She remembered a dramatic moment in her public school when the Maryknollers showed a film about an Indian boy from the countryside who entered the seminary and became a priest. At the time the idea of an Indian priest was revolutionary.1 While the missionaries’ personal example and egalitarian outlook transformed priests’ image, their economic resources and energy allowed them to introduce a plethora of social programs that helped to transform Puno. In 1957 the Peruvian church and government gave Maryknoll control of Juli, a newly created prelature in Puno. An agreement between the Peruvian government and the papal nuncio allowed foreign clergy to direct religious jurisdictions.2 The creation of the Juli prelature, which followed the shoreline of Lake Titicaca from the southern to the northern border of Bolivia, allowed Maryknoll to escape the authority of Puno’s local hierarchy. Maryknoll Father Edward Fedders, who served as the first prelate of Juli, oversaw an immediate and dramatic transformation of the region. In addition to building more structures, Maryknoll introduced extensive social and religious programs focused on the region’s Aymara and Quechua speakers.The prelature offered Maryknoll a unique opportunity to develop an innovative mission program, but it contributed to a sense of mission as enclave. Simultaneously Maryknoll extended its mission to the middle class in urban Puno and to urban Lima and Arequipa. Just as the Maryknoll mission to Puno was divided between the rural, indigenous poor and the urban, mestizo middle class, mission to urban centers was divided between the urban middle class and the poor in urban peripheries. In the 1950s indigenous people began migrating en masse to Lima and other cities, where they encountered a devastating shortage of housing . Some responded by “invading” unoccupied public lands on the outskirts of cities, forming barriadas.3 In 1960 Maryknoll established a parish in the first recognized barriada, Lima’s Ciudad de Dios (City of God).4 Just as the Maryknoll mission was divided among social classes, the character of its missions was divided. Among the rural indigenous poor Maryknoll introduced basic spiritual and material aid. Among 82 The Maryknoll Catholic Mission in Peru, 1943–1989 the urban middle class Maryknoll directed parishes, provided formal education, and established credit and housing cooperatives. Among the urban poor Maryknoll directed parishes, created infrastructure, facilitated organizing, and provided basic aid. Thus even as Maryknoll missionaries disregarded Peru’s social distinctions, they reinforced existing divisions based on ethnicity, class, and geography by distributing spiritual and material resources that reinforced people’s “place” in Peruvian society. While Maryknoll missionaries may have been revolutionary in their approach to mission, they did not promote revolution . Instead, by serving the poor and middle class in rural and urban Peru during a period of dramatic economic, political, and social change, Maryknoll helped to ensure stability and to prevent revolution. Maryknoll missionaries indirectly helped to resolve some of the most pressing problems the Peruvian government confronted during the crucial period from 1954 to 1968 when industrialization, urbanization, and modernization together caused dramatic social transformation.5 Maryknoll in the Context of the Peruvian Church and Society During the 1950s and 1960s the Peruvian government gradually distanced...