Indigenous Peoples Pastorals, with the Indigenous Missionary Coun-
cil (Conselho Indigenista Missionário, CIMI). It also created Grassroots
Ecclesiastical Communities, beginning in the mid-1960s in some dio-
ceses, and soon spreading over all of Brazil.^7 Grassroots Ecclesiastical
Communities(GECs) are small groups of neighbouring families,
mainly residents of rural zones and peripheral areas of cities, that
meet regularly to discuss the teachings of the Bible and reflect on their
lives in light of a biblical text. Their faith led them to become involved
in transformational struggles, at local as well as national levels. GECs
were in general directed by laypeople from within the groups, and co-
ordinated by the diocese or parish. We should observe here that, at
least at the beginning, the Church thought GECs might take over tra-
ditional parishes. With the passing of time, however, we see that the
Grassroots Ecclesiastical Communities did not bring about the end of
parishes but actually revitalised them. The two structures are not
mutually exclusive and can be combined.^8
In order to better understand the pastoral experience of the GECs
and the popular leadership that emerged from them, we should con-
sider that this is a consequence of the work of aggiornamentobrought
to term by the Vatican Council II (1962-1965). One of the most fun-
damental points of this Council was the emphasis on a logic that
valued the local Church and plurality, as well as diversity of ministries
and vocations. This view re-situated the role of the laypeople and
their responsibilities, not only in the world but also inside the Church.
A strong outcome of the Council was a growing commitment to the
poor, assumed above all by a group of bishops who wanted to identify
with the dispossessed. In the years that followed the Council, numer-
ous religious followers left comfortable and traditional homes and
schools to work with communities in the popular context. In the same
way, many secular priests sought to live and work amongst the poor,
trading the parish houses for modest homes in the peripheries and in
rural areas.
- Contextual Theology of Liberation
With these changes, pastoral practice began to be based on analy-
ses of local problems, and was no longer imported from other latitudes
and longitudes. This led to the creation of a more independent theol-
ogy that reflected on local questions. This brotherhood with the poor,
together with political repression by the military dictatorship begin-
ning in Brazil in 1964, placed as a central question for theology the
very significance of being Christian in a continent of poor people.
This same question presupposes a certain interpretation of the causes
A Latin American Liberation Perspective 327