At the end of the 1970s, the military in charge of El Salvador adopted a horrific slogan: “Be a patriot, kill a priest.” The country was hostage to poverty and dictatorship. In the absence of free opposition, the task of defending the most vulnerable groups fell to the Catholic Church.
The Archbishop of San Salvador, Dom Oscar Romero, was the public face of the resistance. He was called “a spokesman for those who have no voice” and was known for criticizing the violence of the regime and defending a church in solidarity with the poor. In March 1980, he was killed in a crowd of people by an army sniper.
Dom Romero is one of the central figures in “The Gospel of Revolution,” the new documentary by Frenchman François-Xavier Drouet. The film tells the story of liberation theology, the movement that shook Latin America by bringing the church closer to popular struggles.
The director conducted interviews and collected archival material in three other countries: Brazil, Mexico and Nicaragua. Persecuted by Brazilian generals, Dom Helder Camara emerges as a champion of the excluded. He said: “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.”
The film saves an interview on French television in which the Archbishop of Recife and Olinda presents himself as a revolutionary. He says: “If revolution means deep, radical and rapid change, then I love revolution.” Dom Helder explained that he only defends peaceful movements. However, he was treated as a dangerous subversive, and his name could not even be mentioned in the press.
By depicting the Church’s involvement in the struggle for land and in the creation of the MST, Drouet reveals a far from tolerant view of PTism, which was also born under the influence of the Progressive clergy. “There was no real land reform with Labor in power,” he criticizes, “and the left has not been able to correct inequality, despite all the hopes placed on it.”
Two icons of the Catholic left speak in the documentary. Fray Beto, who fought the dictatorship and spent four years in prison, says every Christian is a disciple of a political prisoner. Leonardo Boff claims that Jesus died on the cross and was not run over by a camel. The theologian recalls the persecution he suffered from the Vatican during the papacy of John Paul II, when he was condemned to “servile silence.”
The Polish pope promoted a relentless repression of bishops and cardinals linked to the protest movements. In one of the film’s best scenes, he expresses his anger at the clergy who participated in the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua. In front of the cameras, Father Ernesto Cardenal, then Minister of Culture, felt embarrassed. Later, Nicaraguans were punished by banning the celebration of Masses.
After the Korea suffocated, liberation theology shrank until it left the scene. Evangelical sects took advantage of the vacuum to advance on the outskirts of the continent. At the end of the documentary, Father Giulio Lancellotti defends the preferential option for the poor, but realizes that today there is little room for those who think like him. “In this system we will lose. My battle is the battle of a defeated person,” he resigns.