by CANDISS SHUMATE
The Catholic Church’s historical influence on authoritarian regimes in Latin America has been decidedly controversial, particularly in regards to its interactions with youth. The Catholic Welfare Bureau (CWB) in Miami, now known as Catholic Charities, played an active role in “saving children from communism” during the early years of the Cuban revolution through the covert Operation Pedro Pan, which consisted of a mass exodus of young people who were transported to Miami from December 1960 to October 1962. Similarly, during Argentina’s Dirty War, members of the Catholic Church conspired with the brutal military dictatorship led by the military junta head, General Jorge Rafael Videla (1976-1981). In an act of what they called good faith, Church members took away the young children and babies of leftist prisoners and found them “more suitable” parents. On February 28, 2011, a televised trial began in Buenos Aires which has focused on the cases of at least 34 children who were born to mothers being held as prisoners or that had been killed. Charges against the defendants include: “taking, retaining and hiding minors and changing their identities”. Recent testimonies of these covert adoptions’ victims have further hinted at the involvement of the Catholic Church in collaborating with the brutal authoritarian regime in relation to the “stolen” babies. Many people are beginning to ask whether or not the Catholic Church acted ethically in an attempt to protect children from the extreme leftist policies of the past.
During the Dirty War in Argentina (1976-1983), the military dictatorship carried out mass purges against political opponents of the regime. The government’s repressive actions, including torture and imprisonment, resulted in the disappearance of 30,000 Argentines, which left a large number of young babies and children unaccounted for. In cooperation with officials of the Catholic Church, President Videla coordinated 500 covert adoptions by who he deemed as more appropriate parents, which were usually military or police couples.
Over a decade earlier in Cuba, between December 1960 and October 1962, several anti-Castro Cuban dissidents worked with Father Bryan Walsh of the CWB in Miami to spirit away as many as 14,000 Cuban children to Miami as part of Operation Pedro Pan. The evacuation was implemented in response to the fear that children would be subjected to communist indoctrination by the newly established Castro regime. These irrational fears felt by a number of Cuban parents were made possible because of the widely influential use of propaganda instilled by the looming presence of the CIA on the island that coordinated efforts to arrange for the children to be sent to Florida.
Pedro Pans Reflect on CIA Propaganda
María de los Ángeles Torres, a professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago, is one of the many children (known as Pedro Pans) who were exiled to the U.S. during this period of covert warfare against Havana. She describes the CIA’s role in the operation in her book The Lost Apple: Operation Pedro Pan, Cuban Children in the U.S., and the Promise of a Better Future. She explains that the CIA operated a radio station known as “Radio Swan,” which effectively manipulated the notion of patria potestad[1], a “Roman legal concept regarding the authority to make decisions for children.” This notion of patria potestad introduced in Torres’ book, successfully convinced Cuban parents to send their children to the U.S. This type of CIA operation allowed for the U.S. Church, in conjunction with the Catholic Church, to play a major role in swaying well-intentioned parents to send their children to the mainland. On the other hand, the CWB has claimed it made every attempt to avoid making use of the propaganda and that these activities merely fulfilled the wishes of the children’s parents in sending them to the safe haven of Miami.
Council on Hemispheric Affairs for more