On a tour of Canada to help the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace launch its Lenten campaign, Barreto sat down to discuss economics, urban life, ecological justice and charity with The Catholic Register. Like many in Europe and Latin America, Barreto uses the word “neoliberal” to describe unbridled capitalism driven by an ideology of markets. But he has a simple Spanish word to sum up the economics he sees in Peru — “salvaje,” or savage in English.
Perhaps that’s because he’s seen poor farmers killed for speaking against expanded mining in Peru’s central highlands. Perhaps it’s because last year he and his team received anonymous death threats for their opposition to reopening a giant smelter complex in the small city of Oroya, Peru.
Barreto sees the god of markets behind a deepening gulf between rich and poor, rising violence throughout the continent and a deteriorating environment.
“It is true there is economic growth in our countries, but the development the Church is looking for is integral,” said Barreto. “What good does it do to gain the world and lose dignity.”
A new middle class is rising in the big cities of Latin America — from Sao Paulo to Lima, Mexico City to Buenos Aires. But as the campesinos (poor, subsistence farmers deeply attached to the land) move to cities they find themselves more marginalized and more desperately poor than ever. The barrios and favelas on the edges of Latin American cities can make rural poverty look pretty good.
The Church in Latin America has seen these expanding urban populations abandon the faith for either simplistic, emotionally expressive Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism or a despairing atheism.
“Atheism doesn’t come from Latin America,” said Barreto. “It is that culture of death and violence which is very closely related to economic developments. Latin America is a land that is deeply religious. It is true that we have to purify that way of belief. What we really want is our religion to promote justice and faith and peace. This is the big challenge of the Church in Latin America.”
The culture of death and violence came in for serious condemnation at the last general meeting of Latin American bishops in Aparecida, Brazil, in 2007. The bishops called resource exploitation in the region “irrational” and blamed “the current economic model, which emphasizes the unbridled desire for wealth over human life and rational respect for nature.”
Barreto is president of the Justice and Solidarity department of the Latin American Bishops’ Conference (CELAM for its Spanish initials) and the former president of the Peruvian Bishops’ Social Action Commission — an organization D&P supports.
“What we really want from the point of view of Aparaceda is that the Catholics who remain are authentic from the point of view of justice,” Barreto said.
“We cannot continue living by the rhythm of consumerism.”
The Church in South America has turned to the Church in North America for an ally in the fight for a different kind of economic development.
“When we talk about a savage neoliberalism, it is because we feel Latin America is a slave of the system,” he said.
Half the world’s mining companies are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Barreto’s message to Canadians is that they shouldn’t blindly pursue profit with their investments.
“The stock market doesn’t have a face,” he said. “When you put money in the stock market, you cannot see the faces of the people suffering this destruction. The good news is that there are some good Catholic business people in the stock market and people of good will who do not want to participate in the injustice and the violence going on in mining… It is very important to evangelize the economy. The economy that doesn’t promote social justice and solidarity is not a real economy.”
In North America and Western Europe, industry and mining are regulated to protect the environment and vulnerable populations in ways they weren’t 50 years ago.
“My question is, what is happening 50 years later in Latin America?”
Barreto goes back to the Latin roots of the word economics to find the conjoined words “nomos” meaning law and “eco” meaning home. If economics is the law of the home, it should be remembered that the Earth, our environment, is our home. An economy that destroys its home is lawless.
“In the Church the first thing we stand for is the dignity of the human person, and every person without exception. It has been created in the image of God,” Barreto said.
“The fact is that the natural resources are for everybody, not just for people with privileges. We have to take care of our land not only for us, but for future generations.”