Rebel Priest in the Time of Tyrants: Mission to Haiti, Ecuador and Chile.

Laverdure, Paul

Rebel Priest in the Time of Tyrants: Mission to Haiti, Ecuador and Chile. Claude Lacaille. Foreword by Miguel D'Escoto, M.M. Trans, by Casey Roberts. Montreal: Baraka Books, 2015. 230 pages

This memoir by Claude Lacaille, a priest with the Quebec Foreign Missions Society currently living in semi-retirement in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, contains personal anecdotes about his experiences as a missionary in Haiti, Ecuador, and Chile. It has made an impact in French Canada, with sales following positive reviews in several French-language newspapers and magazines. This translation is now offered to readers in English Canada. Why?

The book's appeal in French Canada is its constant criticism of the Church and its supposed complicity with any of the powers-that-be, whether political or economic. The author presents a prophetic stance as he castigates everything and everyone and paints everything as either black or white, despite presenting evidence of some of those powers navigating ambiguous situations. Despite his unrelenting critique of capitalism, neoliberal economics, the United States government, the complicity of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in general, almost every bishop and many priests he met, and Pope John Paul II in particular, he stayed within the institution. Lacaille's commitment to Jesus and to solidarity with all who are poor and oppressed is present on almost every page. Many of his descriptions of human rights violations, the murders of fellow priests, nuns, and lay Catholics, are compelling and harrowing.

The foreword by Miguel D'Escoto, one of the Nicaraguan priests suspended by Pope John Paul II and recently reinstated by Pope Francis, boldly states one of the recurrent theses of the book: "The pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict ... were primarily committed to undoing Vatican II, to closing the windows that John XXIII had opened to let fresh air in." Lacaille devotes his first chapter to his famous 2007 open letter to Benedict XVI in which he stated that the Pope did not understand Liberation Theology and base communities, and that his and Pope John Paul's opposition to it and their filling of episcopal sees with conservative and compliant pastors all but destroyed the Catholic Church in Latin America, creating "an immense vacuum that the evangelical and Pentecostal churches have filled." (21)

Still, Pope John Paul II was hardly ignorant of the martyrdom of so many in Latin America. It is also difficult to believe that those subtle politicians and theologians, Joseph Ratzinger and Karol Wojtyla, were ignorant of Liberation Theology. Indeed, the book provides no coherent description of Liberation Theology, of how the author integrated dialectical analysis or Marxism into his thinking, or any sociological analysis to support any of his claims. Lacaille seems to have considered the Gospel as a means of liberation. His work as a popularizer of biblical studies, using the Bible as a prophetic tool to point to a better world began in Haiti; his prophetic stance was sharpened in Latin America. He simply identifies the struggle of the poor with the Gospel message and declares that those who opposed Liberation Theology were ignorant of the Gospel. Perhaps Lacaille did not understand Liberation Theology? The rest is a memoir, too personal and too specific to help readers understand much of what happened in the countries he visited.

Lacaille begins with his early training in Quebec, which he describes as priest-ridden and oppressive. His brief anecdotes about his childhood, his time among the Innu, and his work in Quebec, all in less than a hundred pages, are incidental. Lacaille's burn-out, his return to Quebec and his new missionary zeal for French Canada, beset by consumerism after the failure of sovereignty, is an interesting postscript. His escape to a missionary society was not unusual, but his experiences in oppressive dictatorships were extraordinary His commentaries about Haiti and Ecuador are superficial at best, sometimes mere caricatures. The more than hundred pages on Pinochet's Chile are much the strongest part of the memoir. Lacaille's anecdotes about his drive to become a missionary, about secretly studying Spanish and Marx, his supposed cleverness in leaving Chile to visit the Soviet Union, are evidence of his child-like naivete. While he protests that he was not naive (21), how could no one know that he was studying Spanish? How could no one know that he was reading Marx? Obviously, authorities knew he had visited the Soviet Union. Many of his anecdotes about his attempts to dissemble and circumvent rules only show his naivete. His religious superiors knew what he was doing.

The book, at most, contains raw material for a future historian. Conversations reported word for word decades after they occurred are not reliable. Anecdotes are piled on each other, often out of order, in an impressionistic almost kaleidoscopic way. Events from last year and recent google searches to search for old friends, for example, are mixed with anecdotes of thirty years ago. Family names are almost entirely absent, perhaps wisely so, given the underground nature of many of the stories and the possible repercussions to those involved. The book resembles a scrapbook of photographs, newspaper clippings, and drawings, some sharp, but most faded, and almost all undated and unidentified. For friends and family, a valuable document; for the rest of us, less so.

The brief epilogue is the most beautiful part of the book, where Lacaille sums up his experiences and expresses his faith. While many French (and English) Canadian clergy renounced their clerical status during and after the Second Vatican Council, he and some other missionaries did not. Were Canadian missionaries who served abroad more likely to remain in religious life than those who stayed home? For those interested in one Canadian priest's personal experiences, it is an easy read. For those seeking a more comprehensive understanding of what really happened, it is too narrow to be of much help.

Paul Laverdure

University of Sudbury