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Methodist sees hope in new Uruguay ruler

 


Methodist sees hope in new Uruguay ruler

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Photo courtesy of Oscar Bolioli

The Rev. Oscar Bolioli (left) is president of the Methodist Church in Uruguay.
Jan. 5, 2005

By Manuel Quintero*

QUITO, Uruguay (ENI) — The year 2004 was notable for the emerging of left-wing governments in Latin America, and a Protestant leader believes that in Uruguay, this could lead to a change in the privileged position the dominant Roman Catholic Church has held.

In Uruguay, voters participating in October elections — the first since a severe economic crisis two years earlier — chose the country’s first leftist president, Tabare Vazquez, who will take over leadership of the country in March.

"One thing is for sure: Uruguay will not change drastically," said the Rev. Oscar Bolioli, president of the Methodist Church in Uruguay, commenting on the left-wing victory.

But the election result represented a key step forward for a historically fragmented left, as it "acted together," he acknowledged.

"Most people in the country live a feeling of relief mixed up with hope. Hope that hunger will end; that children will go back to school rather than working to earn their living at the traffic lights; that our youth won’t need to emigrate; that parents don’t have to search in other people’s garbage to find crumbs of food," noted Bolioli, who worked for many years with the U.S. National Council of Churches.

The new leftist government could also bring about changes in the situation of the churches, starting with the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic Church has had a privileged relationship with the ruling parties for more than 200 years in the country of some 3.4 million people, of whom about 66 percent are Catholics and fewer than 5 percent Protestants.

The Catholic Bishops Conference had requested a dialogue with the new left-wing coalition government, Bolioli said. But the government was slow to respond to the requests, "despite the fact that most leaders in the elected government are Roman Catholics."

Protestant churches were historically close to the left-wing forces when it came to defending human rights, said the Uruguayan Methodist leader. The key issue now, he said, was "to deepen a relationship which is not politically opportunist" but one that can "help the country to move forward, and heal the deep wounds that still exist in the social fabric."

But Bolioli asserted that evangelical churches — which, he said, had remained silent during the military dictatorship that ended in 1985 — had started using old arguments about the "dangers of a leftist regime."

"We have already seen some of these arguments that were used in the 1960s, at the time of the Cuban Revolution, saying that the government will ‘close churches’ and Christians will have serious difficulties to preach the Gospel," Bolioli said.

"Of course, nobody expects a miracle," the Methodist leader noted. "But as a friend told me, if this government doesn’t steal, or practice nepotism, we shall see the difference."

*Quintero is a writer for Ecumenical News International.

News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

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