Cardinal Silva Henriquez and Castro“s 10,000 Bibles

     Cardinal Raśl Silva Henriquez has had a rare distinction: The Economist devoted a page-long obituary to him. He was a kind man with a kind face, and he tried to bridge the gap into which Chile“s democracy was falling. He used to invite Salvador Allende to dinner for a friendly disagreement about Marxism. Castro called on him when he came to Chile. The cardinal gave him 10,000 copies of the Bible; there is no record that Castro distributed them among Cubans. Can a Cuban specialist tell us what happened to them?
     The gesture was significant. The Catholic Church is adopting reforms long after the Protestant churches. George Borrow was jailed in Spain for distributing bibles in Spanish. The Bible in Spain (1843) is a fascinating record of his misadventures.
     More significantly, the Cardinal showed a certain beata simplicitas in believing that "the word of God" would move Castro. He courageously defended the victims of the junta, which complained to the Vatican: it refused to become involved. The Cardinal gathered information about the junta“s abuses which provided the basis for an official report when Chile returned to civilian rule in 1990. The Vatican recently intervened on behalf of Pinochet.
     Liberation theology led some young clergy to propose fighting the junta by arms if need be. He objected. There is now talk of a Chilean pro-junta group promoting a dictatorship. The Cardinal died too young, at 91.

Ronald Hilton - 05/01/99