Rolando Concatti, Testimonio cristiano y resistencia en las dictaduras argentinas.

El
movimiento ecuménico en Mendoza 1963-1983 (Buenos Aires: Centro Nueva Tierra, 2009)

A modo de prologo

p.9

Two caveats:
1) Though the title might imply a certain heroism of the Christian resistance, but this is
just a recognition that many of the people who did resist did so in order to be loyal
to the message of the Gospel – many others also resisted without religious reference
2) This case is limited to Mendoza and Cuyo

p.10

but is not a local case but ‘the form with which a little studied phenomenon, the
resistance to the dictatorships, was undertaken amongst us’ – something that
occurred in many other parts, e.g. Córdoba, Rosario, Santa Fe, La Plata, Tucumán,
some localities of Bs As

What is most notable for us is the “ecumenical” component of the experience

 ‘the confluence of people and militants of different Christian communities, which
traditionally tolerate and respect each other but which almost never collaborate’
 1963-1983 – a close collaboration between Protestant and Catholics, ‘principally at
the service of aggrieved [agredidos], persecuted and marginalized groups’
 this ecumenism had never happened among us before and has not been repeated
since in the same way
 ‘in some way the ‘60s initiated in the world an exceptional period of dialogue and
exchange in all terrains, particularly the ideological and political – in other words,
there is a “virtual ecumenism” that impregnates societies – and the availability of
believers has to do with that general climate of the rupture of borders and
generational opening’

p.11

Importance of Vat2 and WCC – both converged in many aspects, accentuating the
possibilities for ecumenism in many parts of the world

Final note: while it is unacceptable to exaggerate Christian participation, it is also unjust to

silence it – a dangerous dualism has been advanced in recent times
 between “guilty” and “innocent” – ends up depicting the immense majority as guilty:
‘coward, resigned, virtually complicit’ etc
Reasonably, there is a stigma attached to those most responsible, such as the churches and
especially the Catholic Church – nobody can deny its responsibility and in many cases its
complicity
 ‘But the absolute generalization of all Christians is a great injustice and a totalitarian
gesture’

Introduction

p.13

[reflection on memory – memory of an ecumenical dialogue, which has not been fully
reconstructed since the transition to democracy]

p.14

Recovery of memory ‘must not be triumphalist […] It should be profoundly self-critical’

Many compañeros are no longer in Mendoza, have died or have become incapacitated with
illness
 Alieda Verhoeven e.g. is incapacitated – she was a fundamental actor

Issue with studying this topic is lack of documentation

p.15

 Media censorship, destruction of documents etc

‘When a tragedy like the ’76-’83 dictatorship overwhelms a people, silence, an irreparable
silence, is what remains as one of its major costs’

A work by CEDIP (Centro de Información Popular) about the Mendozazo was accidentally
discovered in 1997 in a family library
 Audiovisual production undertaken by Concatti and others has been lost definitively