Ecumenical Dreams, Progressive Nightmares: Conservative Latin American Reactions to Vatican II

In the 1960s and 70s a specter haunted Catholicism—the specter of Progressive Christianity. Or so, at least, thought the conservative Catholic theologians and ideologues who are the subject of this paper, which follows the contested conversations over the Vatican II in Latin America.

This paper tracks the reactions of conservative and right-wing Latin American Catholics in Argentina and Chile to some of the thorniest theological questions raised by the Council, with a focus on the relation between ecclesiology and ecumenicism and political issues like national belonging and stability. In the eyes of these conservative Catholics there emerged from the ecumenical dreams of the 60s a progressive nightmare by the 70s, one that reflected and intersected with the secular right-wing narrative of the infiltration of the nation-state and nationalism by the left via modest reforms. Here the Catholic right’s fears of the transformation of the Church played the same structural role as, and were indeed directly connected to, secular fears of communism. The internal forces these Catholics warned of had a name: progressives. By pursuing the threads of their polemics against the progressive forces of the Church, this paper shows how these theological arguments set the stage for the more violent rhetoric and actions which would come from both state and non-state actors. Theological arguments over the outcome of the Second Vatican Council would set the stage for arguments over gender, national belonging, and the potential legitimacy of political violence,