The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America - autonomous ...

62 Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America
in the very men who have fomented it in satisfaction of their vengeances,
forgetting that it is not given to any agitator to contain the
revolutionary movement once he impressed it upon the misled multitude"
(Gilmore, 1967:206).
In 1850 the official journal of the Archdiocese, El Catolicismo,
warned in a leading article "The Communism of the Gospel and the
Communism of Proudhon" that anarchists had misused the gospels
to persuade the people that "communism is the fundamental principle
of Jesus Christ." It denounced a radical politician as an enemy
of property "who proclaims communism as a law of God" and asserted,
"The Liberals profoundly reverence the sacred rights of communism,
the sacred doctrines of Proudhon" (Gilmore, 1967:207-8).
The radical Liberals, who at mid-century propounded a confusing
form of libertarian socialism, acquired the name of "Golgotas" from
the habit of their orators of referring to Jesus as the martyr of Golgotha.
"Socialism is nothing else than the tear fallen from the Saviour
on the hills of Golgotha," declared one of their spokesmen, Jose
Maria Samper (Gilmore, 1967:202). Liberal populism had firm roots
in a fervent anticlericalism, heir to the ideology of the French Revolution
and the Wars of Independence (Gimenez Fernandez, 1947).
United States diplomats in Colombia had no doubt that the civil
wars were basically religious. The Conservative party was the
Church party, and Church control of civil affairs provided "the only
vital internal political issue among the Colombian people" (Shaw,
1941:598).
The revolution of 1860 culminated in the complete separation
of the Church from the government and the disfranchisement of
the clergy. Many priests were banned from the country. More than
three-quarters of the Church property was confiscated. Education
fell under government control, although the bishops of Cauca, aware
of growing divisions among the Liberals, defiantly organized their
own schools. The church made attendance at public schools and
nonadherence to its political principles punishable by excommunication.
The government then forcibly closed the Catholic Society of
Popayan, and similar societies in the Cauca Valley were closed by
groups independent of the government. Led by Sergio Arboleda, the
most popular figure in his party, the Cauca Conservatives, "in defense
of our religious beliefs," began the war of 1876. To the battle
cries of "Viva la religion. Viva el padre Holguin y el partido conservador,"
and with vivas to the Santisima Trinidad, the bishop of
Popayan, and Pope Pius XI, who had condemned liberalism in 1864,
they attacked the town of Palmira. Priests armed only with cross
and rosary led insurgent battalions named "Bishop of Popayan," and