Latin American Council of Bishops

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The Latin American Bishops Council ( CELAM , Spanish Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano ) is the union of the national bishops' conferences in South and Central America . All the Roman Catholic bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean are represented in it.

The General Secretariat is located in the Colombian capital Bogotá . At the head of the body is a president who is elected for four years. Since 2019 this has been the Archbishop of Trujillo , Héctor Miguel Cabrejos Vidarte OFM .

history

The first continental meeting of Latin American bishops in 1899 is considered the founding event of the papal Latin American policy. To this day, Latin American continental synods have taken place in Rome parallel to the general conferences of CELAM , at which the bishops from Latin America exchange ideas.

The establishment of CELAM was an expression of a more conscious awareness of social issues by individual circles of the Catholic Church in Latin America since the 1930s. Progressive bishops such as Hélder Câmara called for the strongly nationally oriented Latin American Church to grow together. This rethinking first manifested itself at the 1st General Conference of CELAM in 1955 in Rio de Janeiro , where it was officially founded. Individual bishops advocated social reforms there. This development was reinforced by the Second Vatican Council and the papal social encyclics . The main figures were Dom Hélder Câmara from Brazil, Bishop Manuel Larraín from Chile and Archbishop Antonio Samorè , Nuncio in Colombia .

The Second General Conference in Medellín in 1968 had a profound influence on the development of liberation theology . She was by Pope Paul VI. Opened personally on his trip to Colombia, the first intercontinental trip by a Pope in history. The final document of the conference was drafted by theologians such as Gustavo Gutiérrez and Lucio Gera , who acted as theological advisers to the assembled bishops. In it “the situation of the majority of the population in Latin America is described as the result of structures of dependence, injustice and oppression. (...) The priority and solidarity option for the poor is justified theologically (!) (...). The poor (...) are themselves described in their evangelistic potential, not as pastoral care, but as subjects of evangelization. And finally the basic ecclesiastical congregations are strengthened as the nucleus of the church (...). ”In the years after Medellín, CELAM, and in particular the affiliated Latin American pastoral institute IPLA (headed by Segundo Galilea ), was the center of liberation-theological Catholicism in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In 1972, with the election of Alfonso López Trujillo as General Secretary of CELAM, conservative bishops gained influence. López Trujillo tried to push back liberation theology by changing the statutes and restructuring the institutes of CELAM. With Bonaventura Kloppenburg he appointed a sharp critic of liberation theology to head the IPLA.

The III. General conference 1979 in Puebla , which Pope John Paul II opened, was already determined in the run-up to disputes between liberation theological and conservative bishops and theologians. In the final documents of Puebla a weakened liberation theological line prevailed; however, for the first time, the Latin American Church explicitly acknowledged the option for the poor .

While the IV General Conference in Santo Domingo in 1992 resulted in a departure from liberation theology, the Mexican Luis Robles Díaz , the first Vice-President of the, who himself came from Latin America, was appointed on the initiative of the Chilean Cardinal Schoenstatt and then General Secretary Javier Errázuriz Pontifical Commission for Latin America , significantly prepared V General Conference 2007 in Aparecida , by Pope Benedict XVI. was opened, tied again more closely to this theological line. Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio , who, together with the Honduran Salesian Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, headed the working group that drafted the final document was perceived as a defining figure of the meeting . The previously rejected liberation theological three-step see - judge - act and the option for the poor were taken up again.

Previous general conferences

  • I. General Conference 1955 in Rio de Janeiro , Brazil
  • II General Conference 1968 in Medellín , Colombia
  • III. General Conference 1979 in Puebla , Mexico
  • IV General Conference 1992 in Santo Domingo , Dominican Republic
  • V. General Conference 2007 in Aparecida , Brazil

List of presidents

organization

Members

Members of the council are the national bishops' conferences of the South and Central American states.

Current officials

Officials are (as of May 2015):

Other organizations

In July 2020 the Conferencia Eclesial de la Amazonia was founded. This transnational church conference for the Amazon region focuses in particular on the marginalization of the indigenous population and the destruction of the environment in the Amazon basin. It is currently administratively affiliated with CELAM; an autonomous status is planned. The chairman is Claudio Cardinal Hummes .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Guía Eclesiástica - Celam , accessed on May 25, 2019.
  2. ^ Bob Nardini: Issues in Vendor / Library Relations - "I Am the Only Bay of Pigs Librarian" , in: Against the Grain , Vol. 22, Issue 2, Article 39, pp. 80f. (Interview with Salvador Miranda , 2010).
  3. ↑ a b Ernesto Cavassa SJ : On the Trail of Aparecida Jorge Bergoglio and the Latin American ecclesial tradition. In: America Magazine , October 30, 2013, accessed on 10 June 2019 (English).
  4. ↑ Bruno Kern: Theologie der Befreiung , Verlag A. Francke, Tübingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-8252-4027-1 , p. 12
  5. ↑ Horst Goldstein : "Blessed you poor." Theology of liberation in Latin America ... and in Europe? Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1989, pp. 135ff.
  6. ^ Bruno Kern: Theologie der Befreiung , Verlag A. Francke, Tübingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-8252-4027-1 , pp. 136-137.
  7. ↑ Report on www.celam.org (Spanish), accessed on May 16, 2015
  8. ↑ André Przybyl: "The Catholic Church stands with Amazon Conference new on" new Ruhr word from 7 July 2020