wfn.org | UMNS# 06008-Methodist sees hope in new Uruguay ruler

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Methodist sees hope in new Uruguay ruler

Jan. 6, 2005	 News media contact:   Linda  Bloom * (646) 3693759*  New
York {06008}

NOTE: Editors using this story must keep the ENI credit. A photograph of
the Rev. Oscar Bolioli is available at http://umns.umc.org.

By Manuel Quintero*

QUITO, Uruguay (ENI) - The year 2004 was notable for the emerging of
left-wing governments in Latin America, and a Protestant leader believes
that in Uruguay, this could lead to a change in the privileged position
the dominant Roman Catholic Church has held.

In Uruguay, voters participating in October elections - the first since
a severe economic crisis two years earlier - chose the country's first
leftist president, Tabare Vazquez, who will take over leadership of the
country in March.

"One thing is for sure: Uruguay will not change drastically," said the
Rev. Oscar Bolioli, president of the Methodist Church in Uruguay,
commenting on the left-wing victory.

But the election result represented a key step forward for a
historically fragmented left, as it "acted together," he acknowledged.

"Most people in the country live a feeling of relief mixed up with hope.
Hope that hunger will end; that children will go back to school rather
than working to earn their living at the traffic lights; that our youth
won't need to emigrate; that parents don't have to search in other
people's garbage to find crumbs of food," noted Bolioli, who worked for
many years with the U.S. National Council of Churches.

The new leftist government could also bring about changes in the
situation of the churches, starting with the Roman Catholic Church. The
Catholic Church has had a privileged relationship with the ruling
parties for more than 200 years in the country of
some 3.4 million people, of whom about 66 percent are Catholics and
fewer than 5 percent Protestants.

The Catholic Bishops Conference had requested a dialogue with the new
left-wing coalition government, Bolioli said. But the government was
slow to respond to the requests, "despite the fact that most leaders in
the elected government are Roman Catholics."

Protestant churches were historically close to the left-wing forces when
it came to defending human rights, said the Uruguayan Methodist leader.
The key issue now, he said, was "to deepen a relationship which is not
politically opportunist" but one that
can "help the country to move forward, and heal the deep wounds that
still exist in the social fabric."

But Bolioli asserted that evangelical churches - which, he said, had
remained silent during the military dictatorship that ended in 1985 -
had started using old arguments about the "dangers of a leftist regime."


"We have already seen some of these arguments that were used in the
1960s, at the time of the Cuban Revolution, saying that the government
will 'close churches' and Christians will have serious difficulties to
preach the Gospel," Bolioli said.

"Of course, nobody expects a miracle," the Methodist leader noted. "But
as a friend told me, if this government doesn't steal, or practice
nepotism, we shall see the difference."

# # #

*Quintero is a writer for Ecumenical News International.

News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or
newsdesk@umcom.org.


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United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org