Defiant Faith

In loyalty to their faith, a vast crowd of Roman Catholics gathered in Buenos Aires last week and victoriously defied Strongman Juan Peron. While a special Corpus Christi procession was held inside the packed cathedral on the Plaza de Mayo, 100,000 Catholics knelt outside under the afternoon sky. After the ceremonies, the crowd formed into a broad river and flowed, slowly and silently at first, toward the federal Congress building.

A Rumble of Prayers. The marchers expected the police of President Peron, who has been feuding with the Catholic Church since last October, to attack. Not a police car came within sight. The pace of the march quickened, and silence gave way to a rumble of prayers and hymns.

Halting before the Congressional Palace, the crowd watched as leaders raised a blue-and-white Argentine flag and a yellow-and-white Vatican flag on the building's flagpole. Several agile demonstrators clambered up the scaffolding of a huge Peronista Party billboard and draped it with the Argentine and Vatican colors.

As they kept up their march, unmolested by the police, the Catholics sensed that they had won the day; they were so numerous and so united that Peron & Co. did not dare to try force against them.

What had started out as a grim march of defiance turned into a victory parade, cheered on by watchers from windows and balconies. Until the thinned-out procession finally broke up, the Catholic marchers--and not the police--ruled the streets of the nation's capital.

A Charge of Vandalism. The procession in the cathedral actually took place two days after Corpus Christi Day. Because Peron had cut that feast day from the list of national holidays, the archdiocese of Buenos Aires postponed the traditional Corpus Christi procession from Thursday to Saturday so that more workingmen could attend. In an attempt to divert Catholics from the Plaza de Mayo, Peron & Co. timed Boxer Pascual Perez homecoming from Japan (where he had defended his world flyweight championship) to coincide with the Corpus Christi ceremonies. At midweek the government invoked the law, passed after the church feud broke out, banning outdoor religious gatherings without police permission.

Announced Interior Minister Angel Gabriel Borlenghi: "The prelates had erred in assuming that a procession could be held on Saturday after permission had been given for Corpus Christi Day proper." On Saturday, the Peronista press and radio announced that the ceremonies had been called off. The government drastically slowed down service on streetcar, bus and subway lines leading toward the Plaza de Mayo, but the Catholics came anyway, some of them walking miles from their homes in the suburbs.

Sunday a mob attacked the Metropolitan Cathedral in downtown Buenos Aires hurling stones and fruit while it chanted "Long live Peron, down with the Pope." As a priest sang a Mass inside, a crowd gathered on the steps of the cathedral while opponents hurled stones and rotten fruit and fired a few shots. The crowd answered, "Long live Christ the King." When the faithful were at last driven from the steps, the mob stoned the win dows of the Episcopal Palace. Peron rushed to his office, ordered all outdoor religious activities suspended.

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