Saints & Sinners

AA Marketing the book “Saints and Sinners” is a fascinating study of a couple of dozen Third World leaders, presidents and peasants, clerics and communists, by a faux foreign correspondent who traveled the world on his own dime and vacation time in a quest for enlightenment, justice and peace. The author spent more than 40 years as reporter and editor of mid-size, Midwestern newspapers, yearning for a world view. He settled for a couple of weeks each year with a press pass in a foreign land. It all started in 1963 when he signed on as a lay missionary in Antofagasta, Chile, an outpost in the Atacama Desert. It was there he met both Salvador Allende and Augusto Pinochet and lots of communists. The world was a-changing back in the 1960s, with the specter of Cuban communism about to spread throughout Latin America, especially in the Banana Republics. Most of the nations were ruled by ruthless dictators, installed and maintained by the U.S. But they were ripe for revolutions. Cuba’s Fulgencio Batista had just been set packing by Fidel Castro, and Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic was next. Haiti’s despots, Francois “Doc” Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier together reigned for almost three decades. Efrain Rios Montt ruled Guatemala for 32 years and Nicaragua’s Anastacio Somoza and sons raped the nation’s treasury over the course of 43 years. The United States looked the other way as the dictators filled their family coffers. “He may be a son-of-a-bitch,” President Roosevelt said of Somoza, “but he’s our son-of-bitch.” Ever since the Monroe Doctrine declared in 1823 that Latin America was off limits to European powers so the United States could exert its own influence undisturbed, the U.S. has had it say, especially in Central America and the Caribbean. The U.S. sent troops to control sovereign Latin nations 56 times since 1890. They stayed in Cuba for 16 years, in Nicaragua for 20 years, in Haiti for 20 years and the Marines stayed in the Dominican Republic for eight years back in the early 1900s. The major beneficiaries of the Marine presence have been professional baseball players. Since 1960, U.S. troops, advisors and the C.I.A. were activated 16 times in Latin America. Guatemala has hosted U.S. command operations since 1952. Since 1988, the author made multiple excursions to Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti on reporting assignments, attempting to understand the U.S. role in Latin America. He was in Cuba under Soviet control and again after the fall of the Berlin Wall. He was in Nicaragua during the Contra War and returned as an election observer to record the Sandinista upset. He was in Haiti under the military takeover after President Aristide was ousted and again when the United Nations’ peacemakers failed. Haiti was a troublesome assignment. He believed peace, if not prosperity, was doable, and wondered why it was the poorest country in the hemisphere when it once was among the richest, and why it was ruled by corrupt dictators for 200 years, never electing a leader until a priest by the name of Jean-Bertrand Aristide came along. He made 24 trips to all parts of Mexico, some to seaside resorts but most to the borders and the interior, interviewing “Red” Bishop Samuel Ruiz on the eve of the NAFTA-Zapatista showdown. He also participated in a border pilgrimage that stretched from Matamoros to Tijuana, and he trekked the migrant trail across the Sonoran Desert from Sásabe to Tucson. Readers will discover that the Catholic Church played a leading role – for better and for worse -- in the series of stories about Latin America. Early on, the hierarchy sided with the ruling class, dictators, military and wealthy. But in 1968, at Medellin, Colombia, the Latin American bishops dramatically declared a “preferential option for the poor.” They later endorsed “liberation theology” which underscored justice for all. This caused a schism in the ranks of missionaries and it also targeted priests and nuns who worked with the poor and oppressed. They were labeled radicals and communists and too many were executed by military death squads as the civil wars raged throughout Central America. The heroes in Saints & Sinners who subscribed to “liberation theology” included seven priests and two bishops. The Vatican, however, was cool to the movement, and Pope John Paul II even went so far as to consecrate as bishops only those who were critical of the movement. However, Pope Francis, who was a slum priest in his native Argentina, reversed that and cordially invited Father Gustavo Gutiérrez, the author of “liberation theology,” to Rome. While most of the book relates to Latin America, the author traveled on assignment and wrote extensively about happenings in Israel, India, Nepal, Cambodia and Vietnam. Here’s a list of characters in Saints & Sinners. Most will be familiar to readers. They can decide who’s a saint and who’s a sinner. Ivan Illich, Ted Hesburgh, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Leo Mahon, St. Alberto Hurtado and Lawrence Bohnen, all priests, and bishops Samuel Ruiz and Oscar Romero. Salvador Allende, Augusto Pinochet, Daniel Ortega, Fidel Castro, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Yitzhak Rabin, Ivan Demjamjuk and Mordechai Vanunu.. “Sikh” Pat Pyette, Gail Phares, Lavaud Cheristin, Evans Orelein, Sant Keshavedas, Dalia Lama, Ferdinand Mahfood, Hoa Truong, Alejandra and José Luis, an “illegal alien.”