The U.S. Catholic Press On Central America

The U.S. Catholic Press on Central America traces the remarkable transformation in reports on Central America by popular Catholic periodicals in the second half of the twentieth century. In the 1950s writers for these periodicals vigorously opposed the Arbenz government in Guatemala. Influenced by McCarthyism, secular media coverage, and reports from the archdiocese of Guatemala City, they called on the U.S. government to overthrow the Arbenz regime before its “communism” infected the Americas. Just fifteen years later, these same writers were lamenting the collapse of the “reformist” Arbenz government and calling for the U.S. to reassess its policies toward the entire Central American isthmus.

What caused such a dramatic shift? In the first half of his compelling study, Edward T. Brett emphasizes the importance of U.S. missionaries in this evolutionary process. He carefully explains the effect of the murders of Archbishop Romero, the four U.S. churchwomen, and the six Jesuits and their housekeepers in El Salvador on reporting in Catholic journals. The second half of the book details the responses of the transformed U.S. Catholic press to the crises arising in Central America in the late 1970s and 80s.

Brett also devotes considerable attention to the methods of a small group of conservative Catholic publications, which, unlike the majority of Catholic periodicals, championed the policies of the Reagan administration on Central America. He concludes by placing the Catholic critique of U.S. Central American policy within the larger context of U.S. Catholic history. In so doing, he demonstrates that the American Catholic response to its government’s isthmian policy marks the first time in history that the U.S. Catholic Church publicly opposed its government on an issue of foreign policy.