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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, MAY 21, 1982
PAGE 8'
In terms of great-power geopolitics, the most embarrassingly
threatened actor in the drama is the United States. At risk,
even if sometimes only by implication, are: ...
--In this hemisphere, the relationship--sometimes strained-
between Latins and the English-speaking U.S.
--In the world, the modus vivendi between the two main religious
cultures of European origin. These are the till-� globally
dominant English-speaking Protestant camp and the Hispanic Roman
Catholic camp, which has had to play second fiddle since the
defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 and the subsequent European
settlement of pacesetting North America by English-speakers.
This religious issue is such a sensitive one that there is an
understandable tendency to avoid meeting it head-on. But reli
gion--above all, fundamentalism within the world's three great
monotheistic faiths--is in fact playing an increasing role in
global politics in this last quarter of the 20th century.
DAEDALUS, the quarter journal of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, devoted its entire winter 1982 issue to this. In it,
George Armstrong Kelly of John Hopkins University writes: "When
I speak of the United States, I am referring to what in my judg
ment is a Protestant•••culture.•.•Although Roman Catholics are,
by far, our largest single church and have an average per capita
income slightly higher than that of the Protestants, few who have
lived their lives in the United States would doubt that dissent
ing Protestantism is the wellspring of our ethos. Both Catholi
cism and Judaism,
.2Y
multiplying and prospering in America, have
become partly Protestantized••••"
In this context, it is not surprising that most Americans are
instinctively drawn to support Protestant Britain over the Falk
lands, while Argentina draws instinctive support (although of
varying degree) from virtually all lands of Catholic Latin
America and from such governments as those of Catholic Spain and
Ireland.
This traps the government of the U.S. in a crossfire, since
foreign-policy planners in Washington are aware of the dangers
for long-term U.S. interests in the hemisphere if Latin America
as a whole is driven into active anti-Yankee hostility by U.S.
acquiescence or participation in humiliation of the Argentine
junta.
"Siding With Britain Will Cost Uncle Sam Dearly," headlines an article in
the "International Outlook" section of the May 17, 1982 BUSINESS WEEK:
Washington will pay a heavy price in Latin America for supporting
[London) ••••Buenos Aires has the sympathy of the continent. The
Venezuelan delegate to the Organization of American States
reflected the typical attitude at an early session on the Falk
lands when he recounted the long list of British interventions in
Latin America that have left almost as much bitterness as U.S.
attempts to create order. In an effort to exacerbate anti-U.S.