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Katie Fairman

PVS 101

5/4/09

Learning from Latin America: Christian Base Communities

When walking through the streets of an urban area, it is common to encounter a person sleeping on the sidewalk or a disabled man asking for food. Likewise, driving through rural areas one will notice decrepit houses and unpaved, rugged roads. In the highly individualistic American culture, those without the resources they need to function in society can easily be isolated and forgotten. These are personal observations one can make about the occurrence of poverty in the United States. Statistical evidence hints at a lack of success or innovation in combating poverty; according to the U.S. Census Bureau, poverty rates “rose for four consecutive years, from 11.3 percent in 2000 to 12.7 percent in 2004.”[1] Although measurements of poverty go far beyond income level, there is widespread consensus that we are not making progress in overcoming it. Even with all of our resources and earnest attempts to reduce poverty in our country, we have not been successful.

Maybe it is time to try something different, to acknowledge that we do not have the answers and to look at how other cultures approach the problem. One example of people’s attempt to confront the issues arising from poverty is the creation of the Comunidades Ecclasiales de Base, abbreviated as CEBs, in Latin America. These CEBs, also called Christian Base Communities, have been in existence for about fifty years and have made significant impacts on the neighborhoods and regions in which they operate. American poverty advocates and public officials could learn a few lessons from examining the way in which these CEBs interact with their community and promote personal growth in their members.

While there is a significant amount of variation in the design and practice of Christian Base Communities, there are specific elements that one can expect most groups to have. CEBs usually consist of only ten to seventy members and meet in “homes, community centers, and local church facilities.”[2] The setting is informal and welcoming, in places familiar to the members. They start the meetings with Scripture, then move on to the social and political conditions in their neighborhood and throughout their country. They order the meetings according to the principles put forth by Freire’s pedagogy, which asserts that everyone must have equal participation and value in order to break through the learned oppressor-oppressed relationship. To make members realize that they can be active agents in the making of history, and can shape the direction of their own lives, group facilitators “elicit from the popular sectors their own ideas and strategies for action.”[3] Therefore, instead of the organizers setting the agenda and passing out duties for members to blindly complete, the ordinary people who come find their voice being listened to and their suggestions being followed. This method of participatory learning, as well as the critical and progressive energy they put toward social and political structures, distinguishes them from other religious and social groups.[4] CEB researcher Madeleine Cousineau Adriance describes their main purposes as increasing the participants’ awareness of their rights, supporting them in their struggles to obtain justice, and seeking out others who can help them in achieving their goals.[5] They connect the individual to the community, the impoverished to the powerful, and the spiritual to the political.

Taking a look at the formation of Christian Base Communities will also help to clarify their organization and function. They are a movement born out of the Catholic Church, yet stay at a distance from traditional doctrine and practice. Several factors led to the decision made by the hierarchy of the Church in Latin America to have the clergy members promote the creation of CEBs. Hardly any Catholics were actually attending church because of the minimal number of priests and churches available to minister to them, and Protestant sects were gaining membership in surprising numbers.[6] The first CEBs started in the 1960s in Brazil, spread to Chile, then all throughout Latin America. The Catholic hierarchy viewed these grassroots groups as the easiest, most immediate way to bring church to the people and maintain the Church’s presence among the poor, while also adhering to a newly accepted interpretation of the Bible, liberation theology. Liberation theology helps explain why a hierarchical institution started allowing lay people to lead others in faith. The theology can be described as faith that emphasizes the need of the poor and encourages them “to read the Scripture in a way that affirms their dignity and self-worth and their right to struggle together for a more decent life.”[7] It is a theology that believes that God wants His people to work toward building the kingdom of heaven right now, and it has inspired and sustained the development of CEBs throughout Latin America.

In terms of the CEBs’ organization, there is a complex interaction between the popular movement and the official Church. “Normally, base communities have developed only where priests or sisters have worked to set them up.”[8] These radical priests and sisters were affirmed by the new movement towards liberation theology and motivated to see steps toward liberation happening in their parishes. For example, “The CEBs in Mexico often started with a radical, liberation theology-minded Jesuit deciding to live in solidarity with the poor, therefore helping to organize them and have them take the lead.”[9] The clergy serves as a catalyst to the grassroots, bottom-up leadership that forms after their initial involvement. Therefore, they are not simply “a spontaneous effort on the part of the poor, but the result of an initiative by the church’s pastoral agents.”[10]

It is important to note that the goals of these pastoral agents were not to be in charge of a new group, but rather plant the seeds that would then grow on their own. After clergy found people to coordinate and organize the groups, the “lay leadership was encouraged to take over as early as possible.”[11] Once there is a sufficient number of people committed to developing the CEB, the pastoral agents only serve the roles of “trainer, facilitator, and spiritual guide.”[12] They keep in touch with the coordinators and provide support and ideas, while also ensuring that the CEB stays grounded in Catholic beliefs. Often, they establish training centers for lay people to provide examples of methodology that they could use in teaching members.[13] These centers will be run by a set group of lay people whose sole responsibility is to train CEB members, who will then return to their groups or help start new ones. This design leads to more uniformity among the groups and increases their ability to work together.

Despite the significant clerical involvement, and that general membership is composed of Catholics, CEBs do not need church support in order to be influential in their communities. They are distinguished from the institutional Church because of their “emphasis on Bible reading and discussion (over and above ritual experiences) and in many cases, their espousal of the ideas of liberation theology.”[14] Over the past few decades the Church’s position has shifted away from a focus on the poor and social sin and more towards traditional doctrine and personal faithfulness. Often times those in the hierarchy are antagonistic and even persecute these groups, which they have increasingly viewed as agitators. Therefore, they have become more independent of the Church and have a more resistant image. However, there is no evidence that CEBs are fading out.

There is a general process that CEBs go through once they are established. First, coordinators start meetings that reflect on the Bible and the current obstacles that members or their neighbors face. Then, using the input of everyone present, they develop an agenda for dealing with those problems. In addition to problem-solving, the groups focus on providing a support network that increases cooperation amongst community members. This way, they can rely less on profit-driven businesses or corrupt, inadequate government services. An example is the creation of cooperatives that both provide jobs and meet immediate needs in areas such as construction, savings, and special skills.[15] As they become more established, they start partnering with political movements, activist organizations, and nearby CEBs to become more effective and influential.

Christian Base Communities make an impact both on the individual and the social level. At the individual level, one of the ways that they promote personal growth is through making their members more engaged citizens, able to fight for their rights. CEBs also play the role of empowering its members. In Latin America, this is seen primarily through promoting gender equality.[16] First, it gives women an excuse to leave the home and engage in something productive. Second, it provides a supportive network that gives courage, promotes initiative, and teaches new skills to build confidence in women. Third, it acts as a medium through which women can act and see results of their efforts. In addition to increasing self-efficacy, CEBs help develop leadership skills in its members by promoting equal participation and allowing anyone to set the agenda and lead projects. With the guidance that members receive in the CEB and at the training centers, they often go on to lead other popular organizations, multiplying the effectiveness and reach of CEBs and providing an opportunity for vocational living and class mobility.[17] On a deeper, emotional level, the CEBs contribute to a feeling of belonging, where people can spend time with others like them, who understand them and share similar stories and desires. It is a place they can go to share burdens and be filled with hope. In short, the CEB is designed to “build solidarity”, and through that, empower people to make positive changes for their own life and others’ lives.[18]

On a broader, social level, one of the main focuses of Christian Base Communities is politics. CEBs generally use the “see-judge-act method.”[19] Through a facilitator informing participants or personal testimonies, members become aware of an issue. Qualified people will offer “political education programs” to teach participants how to get involved in the political process and what other systems exist or should exist to make improvements, as well as encourage engaged learning through “supporting direct forms of political participation.”[20] They then judge it, determining who and what is contributing to the problem and what would be the right situation, basically discerning where justice lies. Then, with the help of everyone present, they create a plan of action to address that issue.

What does this look like in practice? In order to make active responses more feasible and lasting, some CEBs have created other partnering groups with specific activist purposes, such as a group to lobby the government for better services.[21] They will also join other organizations or do what they can to support their causes. Another example is creating or taking over workers’ unions. Adriance observed that in Brazil, twelve of the fifteen unions she studied were either started by CEB members or taken over by them.[22] Unions in Latin America are not limited to large industries, but rather are for anyone in the working class, including peasant farmers. If there is a movement or cause being taken up by someone, it is likely that there will be CEB members involved with it. Cavendish notes that they are a part of “a variety of community work projects, ranging from organized efforts to obtain education, health care, and running water, to the formation of cooperatives.”[23]

A common activity of Christian Base Communities is to organize protests to reclaim their rights. In the rural areas, CEBs often engage in land occupations to bring awareness of violations and demand concessions from landowners.[24] Other examples that can be done in urban areas as well are sit-ins and strikes. Because they are in a grassroots organization, members know the reality of the problems, how they are affecting people, and what needs to be done to tackle them. Because their commitment is to their neighbor and not political units, and they operate with ground level vision, their “concern with justice and the quality of life at local levels, addresses the everyday requirements of the poor more than the instrumentalism of party politics.”[25]

On the more local level, Christian Base Communities work to increase the level of peace and cooperation in their neighborhood. They serve to bring people together and allow neighbors to become more trusting of each other. It can lower “previously existing barriers” because they have constant interaction with each both through meetings and through projects, and because facilitators work on settling local disputes or rivalries.[26] For example, one of the CEBs Guzman and Martin observed in Mexico dealt with a dispute between neighbors over land boundaries by organizing a “vigil of reconciliation” where other members publicly and patiently waited for a resolution, and then used dramatic theatre to show the lessons learned from the dispute.[27] As a result, the CEB solved the problem without getting authorities involved, bringing the community closer together and likely preventing the problem from being repeated.

The most foundational and essential level of operation in the CEBs, however, is their everyday activities planned by the general members. They make the community safer by offering “employment training, combating drug trafficking and addiction, and public security.”[28] Because they get together for discussions on a regular basis, neighbors know what to look out for and where they can help, providing a greater sense of stability in the community, and once again, not having to rely on the authorities. They also directly contribute to the improvement of living conditions through activities such as going “out to fix a road so buses and trucks can get to the village.”[29] This allows for the flow of commerce and jobs into the community.

In addition, CEBs provide food through soup kitchens and pool their own money to offer credit directly to members through cooperatives.[30] Cooperatives cut out the profit aspect of production, and by providing loans members have access to funds without excessive interest rates that can ruin the borrowers’ budgets. Furthermore, CEBs work toward personal growth and development by “teaching literacy and basic health care, providing workshops on sewing and baking, and cultural programs with dance, theatre, and music.”[31] Such activities have a wide-ranging impact, from cultivating job skills, to increasing quality of life, to reducing costs of raising a family and providing alternative sources of income. Likewise, incorporating the arts into their programs give youth an outlet for their energy and boosts confidence in their abilities and self-worth.

Citing examples of specific Christian Base Communities will help clarify how they practically function and contribute to society. Though the examples I provide from the research I have read draw mainly from urban areas, they have an even stronger presence in the countryside. Adriance observes that “A large rural parish may have as many as fifty such groups.”[32] Nevertheless, looking at urban CEBs is more useful for determining how to incorporate aspects of these groups into plans for combating poverty in the United States.

Eric Canin provides a valuable illustration through his observations of about twenty-five CEBs in Managua, the capital city of Nicaragua. The city’s groups were composed of 10 to 15 people, 78 percent of whom were women and 63 percent of whom were older than 45, who met every week to discuss and plan, while two to three times this number would contribute to the activities when they had the time.[33] This is very common to have a core group that is considered the coordinators, and then a fluid group of other people who participate when they can. Every once in a while, “progressive priests will drop by, engage in informal banter, and respectfully listen to the proceedings, trying to interfere as little as possible.”[34] The priests are there for support, but stay on the periphery.

In terms of outreach, the Managua CEBs have adjusted their activity according to what is appropriate to the needs of the time. During the 1980s, when Nicaraguans were fighting each other in a civil war, the CEBs were integral in making the country’s history as they provided sanctuary for leaders of the revolutionary army.[35] In times of peace and relative governmental stability, the CEBs have tunneled their energies toward improving the health and financial situation of their communities, such as with food. Although it is a basic staple, food is costly and healthy food is scarce. One CEB started a soy project where they grew their own beans, then made several types of soy-based foods for sale.[36] Not only did it provide jobs and more affordable meals, but it contributed to a healthier diet. Alongside the soy project was also an “alternative medicine program using natural herbs and acupuncture.”[37] Such a program was extremely useful because it provided care to those who normally could not afford it, created jobs, and eased the burden of the local health clinic as too many people were requesting services and they had too few supplies. Many of these activities are only possible because of the funding and technical support offered by the international community, usually through the establishment of partner churches in wealthier countries that send resources or missionary teams.