Guerrilla defector seems to bolster the Guatemalan government’s claims.

The following report from correspondent Stephen R. Sywulka in Guatemala generally coincides with the government version of events in the case. Roman Catholic sources take vigorous exception to his conclusions, insisting that Pellecer’s kidnapping could not have been prearranged since he was bleeding and unconscious when abducted, that the government denied all knowledge of his whereabouts over the months that followed, that he showed signs of brainwashing in his few stage-managed appearances, and that he is still a prisoner.

It hit like a bomb blast, sending shock waves rolling through the social and ecclesiastical structure of Guatemala. At a surprise news conference called by the government amid strict security measures, Jesuit priest Luis Eduardo Pellecer Faena admitted he had served actively with the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP), and asked forgiveness from the people of Guatemala.

Pellecer, 35, spoke with reporters, government officials, and diplomats for over two hours, recounting the steps that first led him to join the EGP, and then to his disillusionment and escape through a simulated kidnapping. “I ask your forgiveness, a thousand times forgiveness,” he said.

“I contributed to subversive actions which have sown violence in this country.”

It came as no surprise that members of the Catholic clergy have sympathized with the guerrillas. Pellecer charged that the Jesuits as a whole, members of several other orders, some prestigious schools, and the Catholic relief agency, Caritas, were implicated with the subversives. The priest singled out the theology of liberation as a major factor, saying it presented a new Jesus, a revolutionary rebel who opposed the capitalist system; a Jesus for the poor only, sent by God to establish a new kingdom on earth. “This kingdom which we Jesuits preach is a kingdom equivalent to socialism,” said Pellecer. “To arrive there, we obviously need to obtain power.” And power, he said, would be gained by hatred of the rich.

Along with the liberation theology was a strong Marxist orientation. Pellecer claimed that all the Jesuits “of my generation” were heavily exposed to Marxism-Leninism during the course of their studies.

He also said that in a meeting two years ago, the Jesuit order put first priority on work among the poorest levels of society. “It was decided that we should contribute toward the radicalization of Jesus for the poor,” he said. “We were able to get in with the people and give them the proper dose of Marxism appropriate to their low cultural and political level.”

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Sent first to El Salvador to work with a catechist group known as “Delegates of the Word of God,” Pellecer and his companions taught the peasants that they should defend themselves against the “oppressive” landowners and organize “self-defense committees.” “We handed these groups over to [the guerrillas] on a silver platter,” he said.

Transferred to Nicaragua, the young priest helped organize cooperatives that served to channel funds to the Sandinistas, who were then struggling against the Somoza regime.

Sent to his native Guatemala in 1977, Pellecer began working with an urban organization to “consciencitize” the inhabitants of slum and squatter settlements. He also served as adviser to the Belgian School, a well-known Catholic institution for girls, for their “Operation Uspantan.” In this program, upper level students were sent for one to two months during vacation to five with peasant families in Quiche province.

All of these efforts, explained Pellecer, were part of a first stage designed to raise the level of consciousness. It was understood that this was preparation for a “second story” that would involve political and/or military action.

Impressed by his work, the EGP approached the priest in the summer of 1978. At that time, he did not want to join, he said, partly because he was planning to marry a Nicaraguan girl. But the marriage fell through, and in late 1979 Pellecer sent word through his contact, an ex-Jesuit, that he was available.

Pellecer emphasized that he was a “sympathizer,” not a “militant.” As such, he kept on with his regular job in Guatemala City and did not have or use weapons. His specific assignment was with the “National Propaganda Commission,” an attempt by the four main guerrilla organizations in Guatemala to coordinate publicity, especially outside the country, against the government and its security forces. The priest claimed that much of the bad press, which the governments of Guatemala and El Salvador suffer around the world, was directly due to the church and that the Jesuits had a direct line to Amnesty International.

Pellecer’s disenchantment with the guerrillas came as he began to realize that it was impossible to separate theory and practice, and that the Marxist practice was producing violence and suffering. When he was pressured to undergo military training and take up arms, he decided to pull out of the EGP. The problem was how to do it. Through a friend, he contacted the security forces and a fake kidnapping was arranged. It took place on June 8. Four months later, he reappeared at the press conference.

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The priest insisted that he had been treated well and was telling his story voluntarily, though he predicted some people would claim he was talking under coercion. In fact, the archbishops of Panama and El Salvador reacted immediately to the news by saying Pellecer had been drugged and tortured, and by demanding his “release.” But observers in Guatemala noted that his presentation was unusually lucid and straightforward and he showed no signs of drugs.

Reporters were able to meet with Pellecer several times subsequent to the news conference, but otherwise he remained in seclusion. A government spokesman said that although he was being protected for his own safety within Guatemala, he was free to leave the country at any time.

Questioned by reporters, Pellecer said he estimated that 15 to 20 priests in Guatemala were collaborating with the subversives, including “all the Jesuits of my generation,” some Maryknollers, some from other orders, and a few seculars. There are currently 42 Jesuits in Guatemala. Only three are native born; the rest are Spanish. One of Pellecer’s most startling charges was that his superiors in the order were aware of what he was doing and had given tacit approval.

There was speculation that the government might expel the Jesuits, but Pellecer himself told the questioners he would not advise it as it would only heighten their sense of martyrdom. He advocated dialogue and stricter controls. (The Jesuit order has been thrown out twice in the history of the country: once in the colonial period, and again during the liberal reforms of President Justo Rufino Barrios in the 1880s.)

Another dramatic allegation made by Pellecer was that funds for the guerrillas were handled partially through European relief agencies, including Caritas.

The news conference, which was broadcast almost verbatim by the two major TV news programs and later rebroadcast on all radio and television stations in the country, sent the church hierarchy scurrying into closed-door consultations.

A statement released a couple of days later by the national bishops conference claimed that some of Pellecer’s allegations were “serious and false.” The bishops stated their “total support” for the insitutions mentioned by the priest, including Caritas, the Company of Jesus, and the Delegates of the Word of God.

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“We profoundly lament that a priest has opted for the path of violence and subversion to solve the pressing problems of the country in contradiction to the very clear norms of the church,” said the statement. The bishops also defended the Latin America Catholic conferences in Medellín and Puebla, which Pellecer had linked with liberation theology.

While Pellecer is the first priest to defect from the guerrilla ranks, two others were killed recently in a shootout with police and another is alleged to be fighting with subversives in the jungle.

On July 25, police surrounded a guerrilla hideout in a suburb of Guatemala city. After a four-hour gun battle, eight bodies were found in the house along with arms, bombs, and leftist propaganda. Two of the dead were later identified as Catholic missionaries: Raoul Joseph Leger, a Canadian, and Angel Martinez Rodrigo, from Spain. They were known respectively as Commandante Miguel and Pedro in the guerrilla organization.

A leftist Mexican magazine, Por Esto, recently published an interview with Donald McKennan, an Irish priest who was allegedly serving as chaplain with a guerrilla group in the Guatemalan jungles. Photos showed him in uniform with a submachine gun over his shoulder. McKennan had served as a priest in Quiche province, an area hit hard by the violence.

Evangelicals in Guatemala have been watching the latest developments carefully. Some see new opportunities for evangelism as many Catholics become disillusioned with their church. Others are wary that all religious workers and institutions, including evangelical missionaries and schools, may come under suspicion.

World Scene

The Salvation Army has a new general. Commissioner Jarl Wahlstrom, 63, will assume the post being vacated by General Arnold Brown in mid-December at the mandatory retirement age of 68. A Finn, Wahlstrom has served the army since 1938 in his own country and in administrative posts in Canada (with Bermuda) and Sweden. Brown, a Canadian, has served as the top officer in the army’s worldwide force of 25,000 officers (full-time staff) for four-and-a-half years.

Bible sales in Nicaragua are the highest ever this year, despite a very tight economy, according to Ignacio Hernandez, director of the Nicaraguan Bible Society. More than 200,000 popular language New Testaments were to arrive in the country last month. They will be distributed mostly in rural areas as part of the United Bible Societies project to give Bibles to the nation’s thousands of new literates.

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A backlash is developing in member churches over a World Council of Churches decision to boycott European banks that have business finks with South Africa, IDEA, the information service of the German Evangelical Alliance, reports that the Protestant (Lutheran) Church in Germany (EKD) issued a statement declaring that the WCC is “by no means a kind of Protestant Vatican,” and that it was not bound to abide by the WCC decision. The Swiss Council of Churches also registered opposition to the action, and the Protestant Reformed Church in the canton of Zurich served notice that it intends to cancel its $16,000 annual contribution to the WCC.

The largest printing job ever given to a single Swedish printing plant is under way there. It is a 500,000-copy edition of the first new translation of the Swedish New Testament to be made since World War I. Swedish Bibles have been financed by the government ever since the first version was printed in 1526. The 750-page Testaments are subsidized, and will cost buyers about $10. So far they have cost the government about $1.25 million.

Shades of Wittenberg! Five Greek Orthodox priests asked to discuss 40 theses with their superiors, and are being brought to trial by the Holy Synod of the Greek church. According to a Greek correspondent, the theses address such issues as electing archbishops by the priests instead of by the Synod of Bishops, allowing priests to marry, and adjusting their salaries. Two of the priests, Stavros Papachristos, 55, and Spiros Tsakalos, 40, who claim they speak for 8,000 priests, demonstrated in front of Athens University last summer to dramatize their cause. “Down with hierarchical dictatorship!” read one of their placards. Papachristos is under a five-month suspension of all priestly functions for having defended a deacon of “progressive persuasion.”

European evangelicals met to discuss and pray for revival in Haamstedt, The Netherlands, recently. In the September conference, 175 participants examined past revivals and learned about present-day movements in Scandinavia, Russia, and Czechoslovakia. Speakers included Philippe Decorvet and Claire-Lise de Benoit of Switzerland, and Peter Schneider of Germany. Western contributors included Richard Lovelace, J. Edwin Orr, and George Peters.

A reported apparition of the Virgin Mary is giving Communist officials in Yugoslavia fits. It all began in July when six girls from the mountain village of Citluk reported seeing a golden-haired Madonna floating over a remote meadow. Western diplomatic sources estimate that since then as many as 30,000 Yugoslav Catholics have flocked to the area. The state-controlled press began to ridicule the reported event as “scientifically impossible,” and Radovan Samardizic, secretary of the government’s Commission on Church Relations, saw it as “a publicity trick, an attempt to show strength.” Officials thereupon fenced off the meadow, barred journalists, and sentenced the local priest to three-and-one-half years in prison for spreading “hostile propaganda.”

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More fallout from the Sadat assassination: Alarmed at the high incidence of allegiance to the Islamic fundamentalist societies among Egypt’s youth, the Ministry of Education has announced a campaign to counter their teachings. It says new Islamic curricula will be introduced in all public schools next year to explain the basic tenets of the faith and the role it can play in facing the problems of the age.

Christians are alive and well in North Korea, according to a native of Korea who recently visited relatives in Pyongyang, the capital of the Democratic People’s Republic. A Presbyterian minister who has served a Korean-language church in Los Angeles for 22 years learned from leaders of the Christian League that there are about 5,000 believers in the country, perhaps the most austere in the Communist sphere. In the capital city, he was told, some 700 Christians worship in 100 house churches. Before Korea was partitioned, the percentage of Christians was higher in the North than in the South.

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