The Ironic Legacy of an Opus Dei Bishop: Native Priests and Andean Catholicism in Postconflict Apurímac, Peru

• Date: 01 September 2019
• Published date: 01 September 2019
• Author: Christine Lee
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X19854080
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X19854080

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 228, Vol. 46 No. 5, September 2019, 59–72

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X19854080

© 2019 Latin American Perspectives

59

The Ironic Legacy of an Opus Dei Bishop

Native Priests and Andean Catholicism in

Postconflict Apurímac, Peru

by

Christine Lee

Since the end of the civil war, the diocese of Abancay in the south-central Peruvian

Andes has produced a clergy made up entirely of men born and raised in the diocese where

they now work. Yet, ironically, this diocese was specifically criticized by the Truth and

Reconciliation Commission for its lack of engagement with local Andean populations.

Abancay is a politically and theologically conservative diocese strongly influenced by the

Opus Dei bishop who trained this generation of native clergy, but it is also a diocese in the

process of forging a new relationship between Andeanness and institutional Catholicism.

Desde el final de la guerra civil, la diócesis de Abancay, en los Andes peruanos del

centro-sur, ha producido un clero formado exclusivamente por hombres nacidos y criados

en la diócesis donde trabajan actualmente. Sin embargo, irónicamente, esta diócesis fue

criticada específicamente por la Comisión de la Verdad y la Reconciliación por su falta de

compromiso con las poblaciones andinas locales. Abancay es una diócesis política y teológi-

camente conservadora fuertemente influenciada por el obispo perteneciente al Opus Dei que

formó a esta generación de clérigos nativos, pero también es una diócesis en el proceso de

forjar una nueva relación entre la identidad andina y el catolicismo institucional.

Keywords: Catholicism, Andes, Priests, Peru, Ethnicity

For the first time in living memory, the diocese of Abancay, in Apurímac, in

the south-central Peruvian Andes, features a generation of native Andean

priests.1 Apart from the Spanish bishop, all of the nearly 50 priests working in

the diocese are themselves from the diocese. With the exception of two with

more middle-class backgrounds, all are native speakers of Quechua, men who

were born and raised in rural, agricultural Andean families. These priests are a

postconflict phenomenon, and, ironically, they have arisen in a diocese criti-

cized by Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission for its lack of engage-

ment with the local Andean population. Drawing from 16 months of

ethnographic fieldwork in the Catholic parish of Talavera in the diocese of

Abancay (encompassing the provinces of Chincheros, Andahuaylas, Aymaraes,

and Abancay in the Apurímac region), where, according to the 2017 census,

two-thirds of residents learned Quechua as their first language and nearly 80

percent of the population identify themselves as Catholic, this article examines

Christine Lee is an honorary research fellow in the Department of Social Anthropology at the

University of St. Andrews.

854080LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X19854080Latin American PerspectivesLee / Native Priests And Andean Catholicism In Apurímac

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