University of Guyana

Faculty of Social Sciences

Department of Govt. and International Affairs

Course Code: IRL 4104

Course Name: Introduction to Latin American Politics
Topic: Compare the roles of Latin America colonial catholic church with the roles
of the church today, Emphasizing the factors responsible for these changes.
Lecturer: Ms. Q. Cameron
Students Name: Osei Browne
USI Number: Private

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 Introduction

The Spanish introduced a different moral code, baptism, the Mass, new concepts of good

and evil, the idea of Heaven and Hell, the Virgin and saints, a new constitution of the family and

the concept of the crucified Christ. The arrival of the Church in the New World terminated

human sacrifice and cannibalism. Christian concepts suffused native art, Indians were forced to

occupy a secondary position in the social structure and eventually became servants of the

Spanish king and members of the Church’s “flock.” In this research I will be comparing the

roles of Latin America colonial catholic church with the roles of the church today, Emphasizing

the factors responsible for these changes.

The role of the Catholic Church in the 'New World' was of the upmost importance to both

the colonizer and the colonized. However, too often it has been seen in a generalized role where

the church and state acted hand in hand, without differentiation between areas, religious orders,

and ecclesiastical authority. On closer inspection it can be seen that the church was often at odds

with the state, local elites, and even those they sought to convert. In addition, there were battles

between the different orders, between bishops and laity, and between the secular church and

missionaries. History shows that the first extensive shipment of black Africans that would later become

known as the Transatlantic slave trade, was initiated at the request of Bishop Las Casas and authorized by

Charles V in 1517. Ironically, Catholic missionaries such as the Jesuits, who also owned slaves, worked

to alleviate the suffering of Native American slaves in the New World.

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 The Roles of Colonial Catholic Church

At various points the Catholic church would appease its followers and their conscience by trying

to find a middle ground. Because Catholics considered baptized slaves in full communion with

the Church, as opposed to some non-Catholic colonies, masters could not kill a slave without

facing murder charges. If able, slaves had a right to purchase their freedom, referred to as an act

of manumission. Slaves could not be worked on Sundays or on the thirty Catholic feast days,

guaranteeing some days of leisure. Slaves could also join lay Catholic fraternal organizations

alongside free blacks. All of these protections, perhaps, provided slaves in Catholic territories

with a degree of protection from the harshness of the dehumanizing experience of slavery.

Amazingly, Catholic Bishops would publicly condemn slavery but privately allowed it to

continue in colonies that economically enriched the church.

The Roman Catholic Church was a very powerful institution that endorses slavery during

the colonial period. The church used scriptures from the bible to keep the slaves submissive to

their masters. The most important aspect of Christianity for the enslaved was the promise of

heaven – a promise made by plantation owners. The idea preached the notion that for all

suffering that is done in the physical world, your soul will be preserved and you will experience

a hardship-free spiritual life according to slave resistance, A Caribbean Study. What this did for

enslaved black people was give them hope for the future. Converted enslaved people’s belief in

heaven allowed some to passively resist their plantation owners and focus on the afterlife. With

that belief, all of the beatings and lashings meant nothing because in heaven the enslaved person

would be rewarded and the master would be punished. This kind of teaching was not only

thought in Latin America but in every continent that participated in business of slavery.

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 Slave master appointed Black preachers to churches to play a critical role in relieving the
burden and the oppression of slavery.

 First, the Roman Catholic Church was the only church at this time.  As such, it was felt to

have a monopoly on religious knowledge and on the relationship between Europeans and

God.  In other words, the Church could control who went to Heaven and who went to

Hell.  This gave it tremendous power over people’s lives.  The Church did much to

determine how people would live since it said what was permissible and what was not.

 Second, the Church was a major political force during this time.  Kings and queens

wanted and needed papal approval, particularly when they were somewhat weak (as in

times of conflict over succession).  This, among other things, allowed the Church to

exercise political power as it could help to determine which claimants to a throne would

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 be deemed acceptable.  There was a long history of tension between the church and

secular authority over this and other political issues.

 Finally, the Church was deeply involved in economic life.  The Church controlled a great

deal of land (the main source of wealth at this time), largely because it owned

monasteries and slaves. By owning all the land connected to the monasteries and had

slaves working these lands, the Church was a major economic power.

 At various points the Catholic church would appease its followers and their conscience

by trying to find a middle ground. Because Catholics considered baptized slaves in full

communion with the Church, as opposed to some non-Catholic colonies, masters could

not kill a slave without facing murder charges.

 If able, slaves had a right to purchase their freedom, referred to as an act of manumission.

Slaves could not be worked on Sundays or on the thirty Catholic feast days, guaranteeing

some days of leisure.

 Slaves could also join lay Catholic fraternal organizations alongside free blacks. All of

these protections, perhaps, provided slaves in Catholic territories with a degree of

protection from the harshness of the dehumanizing experience of slavery. Amazingly,

Catholic Bishops would publicly condemn slavery but privately allowed it to continue in

colonies that economically enriched the church.

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 Map showing the slave trade to Latin America.

Roles of the church today

Being a relatively unified body, committed to theologically and politically conservative

positions, the Church has become a divided and, in many instances, a radicalized institution.1

Since the colonization of the continent, the Catholic Church has been one of the most influential

institutions, exercising control over the spheres of education, birth registry, marriage etc. and

being the major land owner. For more than four centuries the Roman Catholic Church lent its

support to the prevailing political order and identified itself with political and socio-economic

elites in order to achieve its goals which were not only aimed at the salvation of all, but also at

institutional preservation and ensuring influence and resources for ecclesiastical projects. It

1
MEDHURST, Kenneth N.: op. cit., p. 1

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established itself as a legitimator of imperial authority, due to the fact that, by the virtue of

special papal dispensations, the imperial power exercised direct control over the Church. In

exchange, the Church was officially protected against possible competitors, acquired the control

over the educational system and great economic assets. New, independent republics tried to

assert the same control over it. In the mind nineteenth century, a series of Church-State conflicts

began, starting primarily with attacks on the Church by upper-class politicians, who were

determined to deprive it of its property to expand their plantations, continuing with the disputes

over the churches proper social role in the established order. This resulted (in the majority of

Latin American countries, with exception of Mexico) in consolidation, and the Church remained

socially conservative, although an economically diminished institution, forced to confine itself

primarily to religious missions, leaving economic matters to entrepreneurs and political ones to

civil authorities. Its secure position depended on alliances with economically and politically

dominant groups, who were only practicing orthodox and regular forms of devotion. A majority

of Latin Americans, however, subscribed to some form of popular religions, often of syncretic

variety, mingling Christian symbols with pre-Columbian or African beliefs and cults, and

operating largely on the official Churches margins, which revealed that the churches missionary

task was far from complete. Thus the Church emerged from colonial rule and persisted through

most of the post-independence period as an overwhelmingly conservative institution, united in

support of established social hierarchies and in defense of the existing highly uneven

distributions of wealth and power.2 Such tactics tended to distance the Church from the largely

poor majority of Latin Americans. In their own defense, church leaders argued that they had no

choice since their earthly mission was clearly a spiritual and not a materialistic one.3
2
MEDHURST, Kenneth N.: op. cit., pp. 12.
3
WYNIA, Gary W.: The Politics of Latin American Development. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990,
p. 87; CRAHAN, Margaret E.: ‘Bridge or Barrier? The Catholic Church and the Central American Crisis’ in
PALMA, Giuseppe di and WHITEHEAD, Laurence (eds.): The Central American Impasse. Croom Helm, London,

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 However, in the past three decades, the Church began to disengage itself from such

alliances with the elites which were accompanied by fragmentation of the Church’s once

relatively homogenous posture vis-a-vis political domain. Within the present Church there are

the groups ranging from exponents of authoritarian rule to exponents of radical or even

revolutionary political involvement. Between them are those who have abandoned traditional

alliances and have pursued a general reformist line or have sought to assume an apparently

apolitical position.4 This results from the fact that since the 1960s onwards, some of national

hierarchies in Latin American countries started to pursue more progressive tendencies and

adopted reformist strategies. Though this was not unanimous either within national clergy, or in

the whole Latin American Church, which was represented by CELAM (The Episcopal Council

of Latin America). The Catholic Church today becomes a champion for the poor and needy and

against all form of injustice against humanity.

A Chronology Slavery in Latin America

1442 Portugal starts slave trade when Antón Gonsalves brings 10 black slaves from Gold Coast
(Rio d'Ouro) to Lisbon in exchange for Muslim Moorish prisoners.

1986, p. 130.
4
MEDHURST, Kenneth N.: op. cit., p. 2.

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1446-1498 Portugal establishes trading posts and slaving forts on the coasts of Africa.

1502 Spain starts importing black African slaves to Hispaniola (La Española: Haiti and
Dominican Republic) when the Catholic Monarchs (los Reyes Católicos) give slaving
contract to Nicolás de Ovando.

1517 Bartolomé de Las Casas gets permission from Spanish emperor Carlos V to use African
slaves to replace the exterminated natives in the island's mines and sugar plantations.

1531 Portugal begins colonizing Brazil.

1562-1618 England and Netherlands begin slaving activities between Africa and the Antilles.

1619 England introduces African slaves in Virginia.

1625 France seizes Haiti.

1637 France constructs slaving fort of Saint Louis in Sénégal, Africa. France sends slaves to
Martinique (Caribbean) in 1642.

1645 Sweden begins African slave trade.

1655 England seizes Jamaica from Spain; continues Spanish slave activities.

1663-1711 Italians, French, and England land Spanish contracts to import African slaves to
Spanish colonies in Latin America.

1715 Ricardo O'Farril establishes first slave "factory" in La

1720-1730 Portugal transports huge shipments of African slaves to Minas Gerais, Brazil

1787 Granville Sharp forms first abolitionist society in England.

1789 Spain opens Latin America to slave traders from any and all slaving nations.

1792 Denmark outlaws slave trade.

1801 Saint Domingue (La Hispaniola: Haiti and Santo Domingo) outlaws all slavery in
Haitian war of independence led by Toussaint Louverture et al: making it the first anti-
slavery nation in the world.

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1808 Great Britain and the United States prohibit the introduction of new slaves into their
respective nations.

1814-1820 The Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, Spain, and France outlaw slave trade (but not
slavery itself).

1821 In England, William Wilberforce (1759-1833) leads the Society for the Mitigation and
Gradual Abolition of Slavery (later the Anti-Slavery Society. The same year, The
American Colonization Society returns free blacks to Africa thus creating the nation of
Liberia.

1824 Guatemala becomes the first Latin American nation after Haiti to outlaw slavery;
Argentina, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay and Mexico follow suit in 1825-1829.

1826-1830 Portugal outlaws slave trade to Brazil, but Brazil continues slavery in its territory.

1840-1845 Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador outlaw slavery.

1849 France outlaws slavery.

1863 The Netherlands outlaw slavery.

1865 Slavery outlawed in the United States.

1873 Slavery outlawed in Puerto Rico (a Spanish colony until 1898).

1878 Portugal outlaws slavery in its African colonies.

1886 Slavery outlaws slavery in Cuba (a Spanish colony until 1898).

1888 Brazil outlaws’ slavery.

Conclusion

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In pursuing this assignment, I found it extremely difficult to find much information about the ills

of Colonial Roman Catholic Church in Latin America, it appears as though their history is being

rewritten to state that the Colonial catholic church was against Slavery and the ills of the

Colonial era in Latin America. Based on my limited research I have come to realize that the

church was at one time the most powerful and influential organization not only in Latin America

but also in England. The roles of the roman catholic church have changed considerably taking

into account that they are losing members to the evangelical and Pentecostal churches and other

denominations.

Today the Church takes a seat in the shadows of Lain American Politics, e.g. Over the

last two decades, the Catholic Church has come to occupy a unique space within Cuban society

and has developed a growing dialogue with the Cuban state. Actively interested in the ongoing

economic reform process, the Archdiocese of Havana promotes debate regarding the role of the

state and citizens in the economy and facilitates graduate training in business studies. The

Church is now facing to a new challenge. Its mission of defending human rights has run out of

steam. The Church is looking for a different definition in the midst of a society which is still

suffering. Instead of giving the Church great opportunities for organizing itself on the popular

level, the process of democratization has rather led to the weakening of its base among the

people, due to the Church’s criticism of base communities and liberation theology, supported by

the official policy of Vatican.

In this context, many base communities have gone into crisis, like the popular

movements, realizing that they are unable to reach or influence the masses. The poor are

increasingly turning to Pentecostal Protestantism, African religions or Indian traditions, which

are able to fill the void (in expressions of spirituality, community and solidarity). a void that the

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Catholic Church determined on institutional rigidity is producing in Latin America. The Catholic

Church is losing the masses almost without realizing it and without doing anything about it. It is

unwilling and unable to change its dated structures, so it only looks on passively while its bases

disintegrate. The Vatican’s conservativism and centralism is paralyzing the clergy at the time

they most need creativity and freedom.

All together the church still participates in politics to defend its interest, although in most cases its

wealth is no longer in land. Certain church interest are still in the traditional ones: giving religious

instructions in schools and universities – the cost of which has traditionally made higher education

possible only for the people of middle income or higher – and occasionally attempting to prevent divorce

legislation and make purely civil marriage difficult. At time the church has been a major proponent of

human rights, especially when military government deny them.

References

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CLEARY, E. L. (1985). Crisis and Change: The Church in Latin America Today. New York:

Maryknoll, Orbiss Books. Retrieved September 16, 2016

DUSSEL, E., & CEHILA, T. (Eds.). (1992). The Church in Latin America 1492–1992. New

York: Orbis Books.

GILL, A. J. (1994, May). Rendering unto Ceasar? Religious Competition and Catholic Political

1962-69'. Journal of Political Science, 38(2).

KEOGH, D. (Ed.). (1990). Church and Politics in Latin America. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press.

LEVINE, D. H. (1980). Churches and Politics in Latin America. Beverly Hills, London: Sage

Publication. Retrieved 09 13, 2016

LOWDEN, P. (1993). ‘The Ecumenical Commitee for Peace in Chile (1973–1975): the

Foundation of Moral Opposition to Authoritarian Rule in Chile. Bulletin of Latin

American Research, 12(2).

MEDHURST, K. N. (1991). The Latin American Church. Euro-Latin Research Papers. Research

Unit on European-Latin American Relations at the University of Bradford. Retrieved

September 16, 2016

PALMA, G. d. (1986). The Central American Impasse. (L. WHITEHEAD, Ed.) London: Croom

Helm. Retrieved September 13, 2006

Slavery in Latin America: a Chronology. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://dept.sfcollege.edu/hfl/hum2461/pdfs/Slavery%20Latin%20America

%20Chronology.pdf

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WAIRDA, H. J., & KLINE, H. F. (Eds.). (2011). Latin American Politics and Development.

Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Walvin, J. (1983). Slavery and the slave trade, A short illustrated history. The University Press.

Retrieved September 16, 2016

WYNIA, G. W. (1990). The Politics of Latin American Development. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press. Retrieved September 16, 2016

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