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Oscar Bolioli returns as Methodist leader in Uruguay

2/27/2003 News media contact: Linda Bloom · (646) 369-3759 · New York

NOTE: A photograph is available.

By Linda Bloom*

NEW YORK (UMNS) - When the Rev. Oscar Bolioli first served as president of the Methodist Church of Uruguay in the 1970s, that country's military regime tried to expel him because of the church's support of families of political prisoners and outspokenness on human rights issues.

Eventually, as the end of his term neared, he moved to the United States, knowing that he would be in danger once he left the highly visible church post.

But now, after 22 years with the U.S. National Council of Churches, the 68-year-old pastor is returning to his roots. In March, he again becomes president of the Methodist Church of Uruguay, an unpaid position similar to that of bishop. This time, he brings along two decades worth of experience with churches and social issues in Central and Latin America and the Caribbean.

Bolioli was a teen-ager when he made his personal commitment to the church, later attending Union Theological Seminary in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was working in an ecumenical position when the 1973 military coup occurred in Uruguay. "We, as a country, had never had that experience, so we didn't know how to handle an abusive situation," he recalled.

With many Methodist pastors and lay people in prison, Bolioli found himself "in the middle of a critical situation" and did his best, as the denomination's president from 1974 to 1979, to lead the church in advocating for the religious care of political prisoners and for protection of their families. U.S. churches supported Uruguayan Methodists in their cause, he said, but the military government was resistant, and limited progress was made.

"During the time of oppression, we were the only church who dared to confront or disagree with the government," he added.

When he arrived in the United States, he thought he might take a congregation, but decided to work for the New York Council of Churches. After determining he could still not return to Uruguay, he became director of the Latin America and Caribbean department of the National Council of Churches and Church World Service, its humanitarian agency, in 1981. He remained in that position for 18 years before becoming the NCC's associate general secretary for international relations. He retired from the agency in February.

Bolioli said he quickly discovered that some counterpart programs in Latin America were operating "in the opposite direction" of the NCC and CWS. In Chile, for example, the CWS license for humanitarian goods was being used to import Volvos and color televisions for the officers of Augusto Pinochet, Chile's dictator.

So he spent five years dismantling all CWS offices across Latin America and beginning new programs, set up by locals, which allow program beneficiaries and donors to sit at the same table and decide jointly how money is used.

The impact of Bolioli's work during his NCC career has not gone unnoticed by church leaders across Latin America.

The Rev. Bruce Robbins, chief executive of the United Methodist Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, witnessed that appreciation when he attended a celebration of Bolioli's ministry by the Cuban Council of Churches in February.

"Person after person talked about the important role that Oscar serves, and served, beginning in 1964," he said. "Oscar began to build relationships that continue to unfold today."

Bolioli himself lists his top achievements with the NCC and CWS as creating a new model for relationships between the churches of the South and churches of the North; helping bring reconciliation in Latin America, such as working on a peace agreement for Guatemala; creating a Latin American network to address the issue of street children; and working for the return of Elian Gonzalez to Cuba.

And he has never forgotten Uruguay. Through his NCC office, Bolioli has assisted family members and others pressing the cases of 165 Uruguayans who disappeared between the 1973 military coup and the restoration of democracy in1985.

Although the dictatorship is over, he said he will face a new kind of tyranny in Uruguay: economic tyranny. The government doesn't shoot people, he explained, but kills them through hunger. Corruption and misuse of funds have "built a terrible sense of frustration in the people."

The government does not know how to deal with the economic crisis, according to Bolioli. A political leader told him recently that the only institution that the Uruguayan people trust is the church, he said.

Though small, with about 20 congregations, the Methodist Church has earned trust because of its outspoken presence in society. He hopes to build upon that trust by educating both lay people and the general public "in what we call faith and citizenship" and making sure they are fully informed about the economic crisis. With financial assistance from the World Council of Churches, the church plans to host five or six informational seminars this year.

On a more practical level, the Methodist Church, with the support of the United Methodist Committee on Relief, opened soup kitchens in Uruguay last summer after the collapse of the banking system. By the end of the summer, the kitchens were feeding 8,000 people, and Bolioli is talking with UMCOR about assisting with other economic-related programs.

Uruguay's economic situation also has caused serious psychological problems among its population. "Middle-class people have been made poor in less than three months, and they don't know how to be poor," he explained.

The pastor hopes the denomination can help fill the moral vacuum the economic crisis has created, and he has set a goal of 10 percent growth in membership each year.

Bolioli's wife, Stella, is also from Uruguay and expects to retire this year from the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries in New York. Married for almost 43 years, they have four children and seven grandchildren.

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*Bloom is United Methodist News Service's New York news director.

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