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8: The ESJ23
- Wilfrid Laurier University Press
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The ESJ23 The solution of worker-employer conflicts by means of conciliation, harmony and dialogue is the most important fruit of the Escuela Social Juan XXIII. —Monseñor Román Arrieta Villalobos (statement frequently quoted in ESJ23 literature) The harmony of solidarismo is that of the dictator: everyone shuts up, nothing more. The harmony is that nobody complains. —Padre Jesús Doncel, priest in the banana plantation town of Río Frío T he Escuela Social Juan XXIII (ESJ23, John XXIII Social School) was established in 1963 by Monseñor Rodríguez (1960–79) as an official Church agency charged with the responsibility to “teach, defend and diffuse Catholic social doctrine and to coordinate all the works of Catholic Social Action in the Archdiocese [of San José].”1 The school floundered under its early directors and was plagued by funding shortages and internal ideological division until the appointment in 1971 of Padre Claudio Maria Solano Cerdas as director.2 Solano, who has continued as the school’s leader since then, revitalized the organization and transformed it into an affluent and influential wing of the Costa Rican Catholic Church. In this chapter, I discuss the expansion of the school under Padre Solano and document how the promotion of solidarismo came to be the raison d’être of the organization itself. Next, I analyze Solano’s statements and school materials to show how the particular expression of Catholic social teaching found within them is related to the web of economic, political , and Church alliances to which the ESJ23 belongs. Padre Solano and the Expansion of the ESJ23 Padre Solano began his work at the ESJ23 as a relatively well-educated but inexperienced young priest. Solano received his theological training in Costa Rica and France, earned a degree in philosophy from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, and completed postgraduate studies at the International Sociological Institute, also in Rome. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1969. Prior to arriving at the ESJ23 in August of 1971, Padre 8 Notes for chapter 8 start on page 227 141 08_sawchuk.qxd 2004/09/16 15:57 PM Page 141 Solano served briefly as an assistant priest in parishes in San Ignacio de Acosta and Heredia, Costa Rica, and also worked as an advisor to the National Scout Movement.3 Three decades later, however, this former Boy Scout leader is a powerful and controversial public figure whose name has become synonymous with the ESJ23 in Costa Rican society. Under Solano, the school’s mission and objectives have expanded considerably . No longer content with the 1963 mandate to “teach, defend, and diffuse” Catholic social teaching, the school’s mission is now to “promote , impel, coordinate, teach, diffuse, defend and apply the principles of Catholic Social Doctrine in the social, community, family and institutional realms and especially to develop action in the fields of labour and education.”4 Chief among the school’s objectives —and most relevant to the theme of this study —is the fostering of social peace, harmony, and good relations between workers and employers.5 For more than a quarter of a century, Padre Solano has sought to achieve these goals through the energetic promotion of solidarismo. A form of labour organization that renounces collective agreements and the right to strike, solidarismo emphasizes the common interests and collaboration of workers and owners. According to school lore, Solano began his term as the ESJ23’s director by attempting to find an appropriate channel through which to translate the theory of Catholic social teaching into practice. After considering and rejecting both cooperativismo and sindicalismo, he discovered solidarismo. Although the solidarity movement was strictly a secular phenomenon, Solano judged it to be fundamentally compatible with Christian principles of social justice. He felt that, once enriched by these same principles, the solidarity movement would be the ideal means to spread Catholic social teaching among Costa Rican workers.6 Thus, in the words of one school administrator, Solano began to use the solidarity movement as a “Trojan horse” to bring Catholic social teaching to the people .7 Since 1971, then, Solano and his staff have devoted most of their attention and resources to furthering the solidarista cause. For the first several years, the school concentrated its efforts in urban commercial and industrial sectors. However, after 1978, members began to focus more intensively on the country’s Atlantic banana plantations where, as I have noted, union organizing and deleterious working conditions had combined to make the workers particularly combative...