The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) changed many things. He came to legitimize progressive Christianity, a current that, in its most radical versions, opted for revolution and even armed struggle. If in countries like Spain the most leftist Christians tried to make their religious faith compatible with Marxism, in Argentina this same debate arose between Christianity and Peronism. In part, this leftist drift, a worldwide phenomenon, can be interpreted as a generational conflict of the children of the middle and upper class against their privileged and conservative parents.
The most politically aware young people allowed themselves to be manipulated by General Juan Domingo Perón, the old leader whom they admired so much, in whom they mistakenly saw a revolutionary figure. Perón consciously encouraged this misunderstanding because, exiled in Spain, he was desperately seeking support that would allow him to return to his country and occupy power again. Hence he told everyone what everyone wanted to hear.
Thus, from a distance, Perón praised the “wonderful youth,” seducing them with the revolutionary phraseology then in fashion: terms such as “imperialism,” “Argentine socialism,” “revolutionary war,” or references to Mao. This speech had a notable impact on a public accustomed to the military being, by nature, conservative.
The Movement of Third World Priests was the most representative organization of the rise of the Catholic left, capable of posing the most serious challenge to ecclesiastical authority. In 1968, its members held their first national meeting and inaugurated a dynamic of growth. There were, according to some calculations, up to eight hundred members. This sector of priests will exert an influence that will go far beyond the clerical sphere to extend to popular neighborhoods, factories or unions. Not to mention the Catholic Action movements in which many carried out tasks of accompaniment to militants.
From a Christian vision, Priests for the Third World categorically rejected capitalism and opted for Latin American socialism. If Jesus had come into the world to free all people from bondage, the Church had to fight for “an urgent and radical change in existing structures.”
It was not about settling for mere equality at the polls, advocated by political democracy, but about advocating a social democracy where equality was present in all areas of life: political, economic, cultural… The revolution, therefore , was equivalent to a duty for the believer, forced to work for the arrival of the “New Man.”
Carried away by their anti-capitalist sentiments, the Third Worldists, against all evidence, saw in Peronism “the highest level of consciousness and combativity reached by the Argentine working class.” In his opinion, in the particular conditions of Argentina, it was not possible to take sides with the workers and in favor of the revolution from anti-Peronism, because this represented the privileged class, the anti-people, against the majority of the dispossessed, who had seen There is hope in Evita’s husband. They recognized that Justicialism had defects, but they did not believe that they were inherent to it.
Without a doubt, in Third Worldism the figure of Carlos Mugica (1930-1974) stands out, in whom the media profile is mixed with the intense dedication to the evangelization of the humble. Attractive in appearance, with a certain air of a Hollywood rebel, understanding and demanding at the same time, he attracted many Christians with concerns, to whom he instilled his deep idealism (“he who is not an idealist is a living corpse”) with a vehemence that sometimes Sometimes it bordered on aggressiveness.
In the political field, Mugica advocated a rapprochement between Peronism and Christianity. The convergence between both doctrines, in his opinion, constituted the only way to insert himself into the Argentine people. He rejected, however, “dogmatic socialism.” His book Peronism and Christianity was an attempt to justify his positions.
Enthusiastic about Justicialism, considering it genuinely popular, Mugica defended it to the point of appearing on the list of Perón’s companions during his first return to Argentina, in 1972. He was under the illusion that the charismatic leader was only acting to fulfill his will. of the Argentines, a pious conviction that demonstrates their notable political innocence.
His well-intentioned behavior responds to the feeling of inferiority that came from knowing he was part of a Church that the poor identified with the ruling class. All of this led him to confront the upper class from which he came, as the son of a family with very good relations with political and economic power.
His grandfather was Minister of Agriculture between 1914 and 1916, in the cabinet of the conservative Victorino de la Plaza, while his father held the Foreign Affairs portfolio in 1961 with President Arturo Frondizi, of the Radical Civic Union. On her mother’s side, her origins were equally privileged, descending from rich landowners among whom was a governor of the province of Buenos Aires.
It is said that, when he entered his parents’ house, where he had his own room, he entered through the service door to express his identification with the humble. The anecdote may be authentic or apocryphal, but it is clear that it perfectly reflects the mentality of a man who had to deal with powerful complexes. For belonging to the class of oligarchs, but also for not living his option for the poor with sufficient purity.
In the elitist circles where his people moved, Mugica was nothing more than a traitor to his class. This explains why the members of the exclusive Argentine Tennis Club, on one occasion, did not hesitate to boo him. However, his sister Marta qualified this image of being declassed by pointing out that “he related very well with the people in his environment.” He was convinced that he should make known, among people of his social class, the circumstances suffered by the poor.
Mugica rejected the possibility of running for a seat for the Justicialist movement, convinced that he would be more useful to the cause by doing grassroots work. Shortly thereafter he accepted a position as an advisor in the Ministry of Social Welfare, on the condition that his position would be unpaid.
On May 11, 1974, he was murdered after celebrating mass in the church of San Francisco Solano, after being approached by an unknown person who would be picked up in a Chevrolet once the crime was completed. There are those who claim that the culprits belonged to the Montonero guerrilla and that the victim himself hoped that they would come after him. The Superior Council of Justicialism did not hesitate to attack the leftist sector of its movement, those “upstarts in Peronism” who dared to question their leader based on foreign ideological schemes.
There were, without a doubt, deep differences between the Montoneros and Mugica, who had harshly criticized their violent methods. For example, the murder of José Antonio Rucci, general secretary of the CGT (General Confederation of Labor). On one occasion, he harshly reproached Mario Firmenich, the guerrilla leader, for his defense of terrorism.
The Montoneros, however, were quick to condemn the crime. Despite the differences that separated them from the victim, they recognized that he was “part of the popular camp.” The murder sought, precisely, to make the disagreements between progressives insurmountable.
Some years later it would be confirmed that the murder had been the work of Triple A, the Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance. One of his hitmen, Juan Carlos Juncos, admitted his involvement in the crime.
Shortly after Mugica Perón died. After flattering the progressive Christians and regaining the presidency, he had not hesitated to leave his former allies in the lurch. When he no longer needed Third World priests, he claimed that they should leave politics and limit themselves to preaching the Gospel: “If priests want to do politics, let them take off their cassocks.”
The Justicialist leader’s strategy had been skillfully aimed at constituting a transversal movement, adding as much support as possible. But, once he was in Argentina, he supported the most conservative Peronists and left the revolutionaries out of the game.
Many Third World priests, upon getting to know their former idol up close, suffered bitter disappointment. Instead of the revolutionary they expected, they found an old man incapable of getting involved in favor of socialism and utopia. That would not prevent, many years later, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, with a Peronist tendency, from praising the memory of Carlos Mugica. The memory of martyrs is usually not very compatible with uncomfortable nuances.
