CELAM - The Forgetting of Origins

Abstract

Any study of the Latin American Bishops' Conference (CELAM) is an initiation into the history of Latin American Catholicism over the past thirty years. Since 1956, CELAM has been closely involved with all the events of the religious and social life of the continent, and its development has been deeply influenced by all the great social movements. These movements, and the logic inherent in any institution which has to survive and continue in a particular society, are an integral part of CELAM. Thus, both its discourse and its action reflect the phases of the economic and political organisation of the continent, and the successive concepts of the Church over this period.