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Catholic Action, The Second Vatican Council, and The Emergence of The New Left in El Salvador (1950–1975)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2015

Joaqun M. Chvez
Joaqun M. Chvez*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois,ChicagoChicago, Illinois
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In 1958, Roque Dalton, a young poet affiliated with the Communist Party of El Salvador (PCS), won the first prize in a poetry contest at the University of El Salvador. A few days later, members of Salvadoran Catholic University Action, a student organization known as ACUS or simply Catholic Action, published a demolishing but carelessly written critique of Dalton. The anonymous writer of an article titled Under the Empire of Vulgarity turned his disgust with the poem written by Dalton into a diatribe against Dalton's political persona. Dalton's raw allusions to double standards in the sexual morality of priests and his remarks about the Catholic practice of fasting seem to have especially upset the leaders of ACUS. A month later, ACUS published a rejoinder written by Dalton, along with excerpts of the controversial poem. In his retort, Dalton stated that ACUS dodged debates on substantial political and aesthetic issues by engaging in insults, quick and facile judgments, and rude pigeon-holing that closes all means of intellectual comprehension.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 70 , Issue 3 , January 2014 , pp. 459 - 487
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2014 

References

I am deeply thankful to former members of ACUS-JEC, CRAC, the PDC, the PCS, the ERP, and the FPL for sharing their memories of these crucial events in conversations we held in El Salvador during the past eight years. Thanks to Eric Zolov and the outside reviewer for their insightful editorial contributions to this article. I am grateful to Rafael Flores and Rubn Ortiz from the Historical Archive of the Archbishopric of San Salvador, who granted me access to sources on ACUS-JEC, to Vernica Guerrero and Jacqueline Morales de Colocho from the Biblioteca P. Florentino Idoate, SJ. of the Central American University Jos Simen Caas in San Salvador and to Manuel Sorto for facilitating images for this article, to Vijay Prashad, Zayde Gordon Antrim, Seth Markle, and Dario Euraque, my former colleagues at the International Studies Program at Trinity College, and to Laura Hostetler, Kevin Schultz, Chris Boyer, Ralph Keen, and other colleagues at the Department of History at the University of Illinois at Chicago for their institutional support, which enabled my to write this article.

1. In 1949, Catholic students founded La Agrupacin Cultural Universitaria Salvadorea (The Sal-vadoran Cultural University Association), which was renamed Salvadoran Catholic University Action (ACUS) in 1954. Letter of the Junta Directiva of ACUS to Monseor Luis Chvez y Gonzlez, San Salvador, circa 1954.

2. Bajo el imperio de la vulgaridad, ACUS Pax Christi in Regno Christi, July 23, 1958.

3. ACUS Pax Christi in Regno Christi, August 31, 1958.

4. Comentando una nota: carta de Roque Dalton a los editores de ACUS, ACUS Pax Christi in Regno Christi, August 31, 1958.

5. Editorial, ACUS Pax Christi in Regno Christi, August 31, 1958.

6. The term New Left, in this context, designates a set of emerging social and political movements that played major roles in the mobilizations of the 1960s and 1970s, some of which led to the founding of insurgent organizations like the ERP and the FPL. Leaders of social movements, Catholic intellectuals as well as Communist Party dissidents became key figures of the New Left. The concept New Left is particularly useful to differentiate this generation of activists from academics, working-class intellectuals, and activists associated with the Communist Party of El Salvador (PCS) who generally embraced electoral politics until 1977.

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49. Ante un nuevo peligro, ACUS Pax Christi in Regni Christi, circa March 1961.

50. Revolucin o evolucin, ACUS mimeograph, circa March 1961.

51. See Alas, Jos Inocencio, Iglesia, tierra y lacha campesina: Suchitoto, El Salvador, 1968–1977 (San Salvador: Asociacin Equipo Maz, 2003), pp. 41–45.Google Scholar

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55. Orientacin., Reunin para preparar Da de Accin Catlica, July, 1, 1967.

56. Fray Fuentes Castellanos es inexacto en sus crticas a Monseor McGrath: carta de Monseor McGrath a Monseor Luis Chvez y Gonzlez, Orientacin, May 26, 1968.

57. Orientacin, Camilo Torres Restrepo: quinto aniversario de su muerte (febrero 1929–15 de febrero de 1966, asesinado brutalmente), February 1971.

58. See Orientacin, El progreso de los pueblos y la universidad, October 23–29, 1967.

59. Ignacio Paniagua, interview by Joaqun Chvez (July 20, 2007).

60. See FLACSO El Salvador and Fundacin Dr. Manuel Gallardo, Prensa clandestina: El Salvador 1970–1975 (San Salvador: FLACSO El Salvador and Fundacin Dr. Manuel Gallardo, 2011), p.109.

61. Escamilla, Manuel Luis, La reforma universitaria de El Salvador: breve discusin doctrinaria (San Salvador: Universidad de El Salvador, 1967), p. 37.Google Scholar

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63. Rafael Velsquez, interview by Joaqun Chvez (March 22, 2007).

64. See Diagnstico global de la Universidad, Tomo I (San Salvador: Universidad de El Salvador, 1972), pp. 119, 120, and 125.

65. Rafael Velsquez, interview by Joaqun Chvez (March 22, 2007); Victoria Ramrez, interview by Joaqun Chvez (October 10, 2006).

66. Francisco Jovel, interview by Joaqun Chvez (April 18, 2007).

67. Ibid.

68. Probably Luis Felipe Quezada.

69. Francisco Jovel, interview by Joaqun Chvez (April 18, 2007).

70. Jorge Vargas Mndez and J. A. Morasan, Literatura salvadorea 1960–2000: homenaje (San Salvador: Ediciones Venado del Bosque, 2008), p. 63

71. See Manuel Sorto, El Planeta de los Cerdos, ContraPunto: Noticias de El Salvador, October 31, 2009, accessed October 30, 2013.

72. Ibid.

73. Ibid.

74. Abraham Rodrguez, interview by Joaqun Chvez (December 27, 2006).

75. Sonia Aginada, interview by Joaqun Chvez (November 24, 2006); Ana Sonia Medina, interview by Joaqun Chvez (November 24, 2006).

76. Ibid.

77. See Diagnstico global de la universidad, Tomo I, pp. 119–120, 125.

78. Rafael Velsquez, interview by Joaqun Chvez (March 22, 2007); Sonia Aginada, interview by Joaqun Chvez (November 24, 2006).

79. See FLACSO El Salvador and Fundacin Dr. Manuel Gallardo, Prensa clandestina, pp. 19–45.

80. Atilio Montalvo, interview by Joaquin Chavez (November 6, 2006); and Marta Harnecker, Con la mirada en alto: historia de las FPL Farabundo Marti a traves de sus dirigentes (San Salvador: UCA Editores, 1993), p. 15.

81. See Cabarrus, Carlos Rafael, Gnesis de una revolucin: anlisis del surgimiento y desarrollo de la Organizacin Campesina en El Salvador (Mexico: Ediciones de la Casa Chata, 1983), pp.141–163.Google Scholar

82. Chvez, The Pedagogy of Revolution, pp. 163–183.

83. Popular Liberation Forces—FPL Farabundo Mart, Estrella Roja 2, February 11, 1975, pp. 2130.

84. Ibid., p. 1.

85. Ibid., pp. 9–12.

86. Ibid, pp. 9–10.

87. Joaqun Villalobos, Homenaje a Rafael Antonio Arce Zablah, El Diario de Hoy, September 28, 2005.

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90. According to Grenier, the New Left insurgency provoked the escalation of state terror in El Salvador. See Yvon Grenier, The Emergence of Insurgency in El Salvador, pp. 2, 35–66, and 160–161.

91. See Chvez, Joaqun M. The Construction of the Internal Enemy: Pondering the Legacies of U.S. Anticommunism, Counterinsurgency, and Authoritarianism in El Salvador, 1952–1981 in Hearts and Minds: A Peoples History of Counterinsurgency, Gurman, Hannah, ed. (New York: The New Press, 2013).Google Scholar

92. Shafik Jorge Handal, Reflexiones sobre los problemas de la Revolucin Latinoamericana, mimeographed (San Salvador, 1968), p. 3.

93. Ibid., pp. 1–4.

94. Ibid., pp. 11–17.