Bishop Joseph L. Bernardin said the Church has a vital role to play in Latin America and her future depends in great measure on how she plays it.

The bishop, one of nine prelates form the United States, who met recently in Santiago, Chile with leaders of the Church in Latin America, made his comment on his return to Atlanta.

“After meeting with many bishops, priest and laymen in six countries, we began to understand a little more clearly the challenges which the Church faces there.

“While many of the problems are the same as those with which we are familiar in the United States, many are unique to Latin America.”

“As with all underdeveloped nations, the people of Latin America are struggling to catch up, economically and socially, with the more advances counties of North America and Western Europe. The next few years are crucial because what happens during this time will largely determine the direction in which they will go.”

Following is a report of the discussions:

Discussions centered on the major tasks of the Church in Latin America and the avenues to their fulfillment, with special reference to the cooperation that might come from abroad particularly from the United States.

The archdiocese of Santiago provided many examples of existing aid programs, but practically every U.S. bishop visited Church institutions in at least one other country in addition to Chile and some were able to make contacts in four or five.

Care was taken not to consider exclusively the major Sees built around Latin America’s national capitals.

The series of topics considered was deeply revealing in its portrayal to the North Americans of the problems of the Church in Latin America.

Raul Cardinal Silva Henriquez of Santiago reminded the group that the meeting of CELAM held near Rio de Janeiro in 1955 initiated a profound self-examination of the Church in Latin America that is still in process. He said that it aims at renewing and updating Church institutions in every area. It has uncovered many episcopal leaders of a high order genuinely tuned to the needs of the destitute masses, which number about 70 million. It has encouraged effective apostolic action by numerous clergy and able and resourceful sisters. Talented laymen, driven often by the scarcity of Religious, are guiding their fellow Catholics in relevant Christian programs.

Leading churchmen early recognized as one of their tasks the introduction of trained technicians for strengthening Christian life in their nations. They have used sociologists and researchers such as developed in various nations by the Jesuit network of offices of the Center for Research and Social Action (CIAS), Religious data is collected and processed by Latin American staff workers of the International Federation of Catholic Institute Research (FERES) in order to provide Church authorities with working information on current problems.

Possibly no phase of effort is quite so unique as the continental network set up by the Latin American Committee on the Faith (CLAD), an organization to advance the faith by religious education. It has established in Santiago, Chile, and in Manizlaes, Colombia, two regional centers for training top catechetical leaders to provide direction at the national and diocesan levels. It is, then, furnishing methods and teaching implements which are steadily gaining ground in thousands of parishes.

A task of many of Latin America’s bishops and leaders among the Religious and laity, working singly or together, consists in creating radically new efforts to meet the breakdown of the old social and economic structures, the movement of rural populations into the cities and suburbs, the growth of a proletariat, relieving the anguish of the depressed rural areas, meeting the heightening pressures of university students, countering the prevailing non-Christian and often Marxist inspiration of the continent’s intelligentsia.

Latin American Church leaders are keenly alive to the winds of change that blow on Christian education everywhere. They recognize that change does not represent wholesale destruction.

Christmas education first of all includes the schools, but it includes also religious teaching in the public schools, parish educational facilities, supplying the educational factor in social work, education in priestless parishes, proper employment of the instruments of social communication for education and the maintenance of numerous types of institutes for educational staff training.

Frank recognition must be made of the bad image of the Church which has resulted in some nations because of the many Church schools for the upper classes and its small number of schools for the poor.

In view of the problems posed within the orbit of Christian education, should U.S. religious men or women be encouraged to volunteer for school work in Latin America? The reply from the consensus of knowledgeable Latin American leaders is a resounding yes.

The explanation: Christian education among 220 million Latin Americans for the many vitally important portions of the program.

In an interview in El Mercurio, a Santiago daily, Archbishop John Dearden, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, said: “In Latin America 5,400 priests, Religious and lay volunteers from the United States are already at work and we are anxious to know how best to prepare this Catholic contingent for their labors.”

Top billing in the Latin American Church’s woeful litany of needs goes to the human factor. Nothing is so cruelly missed as apostolic workers. The Church in Latin America, explained Bishop Gabriel Lardrain, does not make even a remote pretense that it can serve all its people. He noted that if all the Catholics in Latin America suddenly decided to go to Mass on Sunday, the churches available would not be able to accommodate a third of them. Far less could priests be applied to provide the Masses.

The most blessed gift of all is a dedicated and competent Latin American man or woman, Religious or lay, who will give his or her life to the constructive Christian service of his fellow men.

Let it be clearly understood, that in Latin America—as in every other area of the world—the non-native-born religious worker is second best. This is the first lesson in the much needed training for Latin American service to which Archbishop Dearden made reference. In a score of ways, sometimes gently and subtly, sometimes otherwise, the able representatives of Latin America explained to our bishops that our workers must lose their identity, must make themselves one with the Latin American Church, must, after the pattern of John the Baptist, decrease in order that the local Church may increase.

“I think,” declared Archbishop Dearden on leaving, “we came with the candor of those who come to learn and we have learned much.

“We realize as never before how close are the bonds which unite the Americas. We have bonds with all peoples but we possess especially intimate bonds with Latin America.”

Bishop Bernardin said the meeting in Santiago with representatives of the Latin America hierarchy was fruitful because it gave the bishops of both continents a forum in which to exchange ideas.

“Besides a discussion of issues and problems which are common to all of us, we considered the specific ways in which the Church in the United States can assist the Church in Latin America more effectively. We sought and received from the bishops their views on how our assistance, both money and personnel, can be used to best advantage.”

Bishop Bernardin said the visiting bishops were cordially received. “As our dialogue progressed, we began to better understand the implications of collegiality as defined by the Second Vatican Council. We were all genuinely concerned in a very personal way for the entire people of God, not just the local Church for which we are directly and immediately responsible. In the future, these meetings will undoubtedly benefit the Church in the entire hemisphere.”

Bishop Coleman F. Carroll of Miami initiated the conference.