ABSTRACT
Scholarship about Argentina’s state terrorism usually portrays the church as supporting the military authorities, and a small minority of individuals as opposing the atrocities. In this chapter, I argue that the reality was more complex. The Catholic field was undergoing global transformations (mostly because of the Second Vatican Council) that triggered a discussion about the role and identity of a Catholic person in modern society. It is in that context that regular Catholic social actors took stances for and against state terrorism. The dictatorship altered the perception of secularization among Catholics, leading to different response. Anti-modern Catholics justified the massacre to defend Catholicism, while institutional Catholics were more concerned about preserving the church as a neutral space. Committed Catholics were victimized because they believed that Catholicism should engage in the defense of human rights. In this chapter, these different positions are illustrated with a case study: the kidnapping of a group of seminarians that took place in Córdoba, Argentina, in August 1976.
