The Person and
Work of François Houtart
Based on Interviews conducted by Jerome Sabhandu in July
2005 at
François Houtart was born in
Hoping for a radical change in the Church,
Houtart was an optimistic and energetic facilitator for the Vatican II Council
on two fronts --firstin his capacity as the secretary of the sub-committee on
signs of the times, drafting the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the
Modern World (Gaudium et Spes), which
became a key instrument in 20th century Christian Social Teachings, and second
as an advisor to the Latin American Bishops during and after the Council.
In 1956, Houtart founded the Center for
Socio-Religious Research (CSRR) and in the same year became the secretary
general of the International Conference of Sociology of Religion. After 1958,
he directed various research projects and empirical studies for the
International Federation of Institutions for Socio-religious and Social Research
(FERES).
Responding to
Houtart has done socio-religious research in
various countries, such as Malta, Latin America, USA, India, Sri Lanka,
Vietnam, Tanzania, Nicaragua and has been consulted for socio-religious
research in South Africa, Korea, Philippines, Cuba, Russia, Hong Kong, Poland
and Italy. In addition, Houtart has been invited to be a facilitator at many
conferences and workshops around the world. He still keeps in touch with many
countries and contexts in which he worked.
Some of the theological colleges and institutes
in South India and
In 1996, at the twentieth anniversary of CETRI,
Houtart proposed a meeting that later became the “Other Davos”, with the view
of creating a counter movement to the dominant World Economic Forum in Davos in
1999. The World Forum for Alternatives
came into being, as a result and paved the way for the emergence of the World
Social Forum (WSF) in Port Alegre in 2002. Houtart was one of the co-founders
of the WSF.
Houtart was the Chief Editor of the international
journal Social Compass from
1960-1999. He served on the advisory council of the Catholic Journal Concilium while contributing to its
pages. A quarterly from
Houtart is actively involved in the Brussels
Tribunal against the war in
Q: What have been the most
important stages and turning points in your priestly and intellectual life?
A: In the late forties I was very conscious of the situation of
the working class community. My
experiences with the Young Christian Workers (YCW) challenged me a lot. Josef
Cardijn was an inspiration for me. He was the founder of the Young Christian
Workers Movement and later became a Cardinal. The situation of young workers at
that time was extremely difficult. The working class went through a very
difficult time during and after the Second World War.
After my ordination in 1949
I asked permission to proceed with studies in the social sciences. I
studied the religious situation of cities: in particular,
I did a similar kind of study in
This research work was an important turning point for me -
in order to better study the pastoral issues of the working class I opted for a
sociological approach.
The second turning point was my
travels in
My first visit in Latin America was in
In Brazil I had worked with Dom Helder Camara, who later
became the Vice-President of the Bishops’ Council of Latin America (CELAM), so
when the Council was announced he asked me to make a synopsis (résumé) of my
research in Latin America to distribute to all the Bishops at the beginning of
the Council so they might better understand the Latin American situation. I was
then appointed as an expert to the Latin American Bishops.
The third turning point was my
commitment against the war in Vietnam.
My work in
Of course, I had already been involved with the struggles in
It was my experience in Latin America, which led me to
discover the context of
Later, I became the Chairperson of the Belgium-Vietnam
Association and was invited to
Another important turning point has
been
Because my Latin American work had reached a certain stage,
after Vatican II, where I had also been involved with Gaudium et Spes, the secretary of the sub-commission of Latin
American bishops asked me to help them prepare the Medellin Conference of
1968.The conference was focused on the application of Vatican II in the context
of
Though it was a disappointment, I also thought that I had
completed a step of the work and I had trained many leaders in Latin America
(many of whom had studied in
Finally, I decided to do my PhD on
I had done some work on American Catholicism in
Finally, CETRI[9]
In Old Louvain I was responsible for the Research Centre for
the Sociology of Religion. The scientific studies took place throughout the
city of
Q: How do you connect your
priesthood and mission of the Church with being involved in larger world
issues?
A: That has been for me a fundamental question. First I wanted
to be a missionary and that was my dream always ever since I was ten years old.[10]
I had correspondence with missionaries in
The question became more difficult when I began to work
against war in
He was a very good person. But he said, “I ask you not to
use your title as professor of the Catholic University of Louvain for any
matter in connection with
Then came the issue of the struggle against continuing
colonialism, especially with the Portuguese colonies. [12]
On this issue I had to take a position against the local Church, which was
fully allied with the Portuguese government.[13]
I was invited to a solidarity meeting in
Another factor in the Roman Curia being against my
activities was that my sociological approach was based on Marxist analysis. I
was very close to the liberation theologians in Latin America and
This kind of analysis was the best instrument to understand
the major social problems of capitalist societies and that is why I do not do
see any contradiction with the Christian teachings .On the contrary. But it was
a move against the mainstream currents in the Church. Theologically there was
no fundamental objection for me, knowing, of course, that social reality,
social struggle and the struggle for liberation are never totally pure. We Christians agree in general with
revolutions for social justice, but with one condition, that is that they be
made by the angels! But no revolution is made by angels, and so we tend to
object to revolution. Of course, there are always ambiguities. Can we wait for
an unambiguous situation? No! The problem is whether to choose the ambiguities
of the rich or ambiguities of the poor. We have to choose and the Gospel tells
us to embrace the ambiguities of the poor. This means a critical commitment:
critical in fruition of the values of the Gospel and commitment because we live
in history, not beyond history. Being constructively critical –that is
something I have always tried to do!
Most people accept such position, but only if they know you are
committed. External criticism, they tend to believe, is in service of the
enemy.
Let us give an example: the resistance in
Q: Can you explain how you became a
Canon of the Roman Catholic Church?
A: It was a folkloric event. Actually, there are two types of
Canons in the Catholic Church: The true ones and the honorary ones. True ones
are the counsellors to the Bishops celebrating the offices in the cathedral.
Honorary ones are the priests who receive this title for their services. It is
like Monsignor in other countries. The rule was that when a priest is appointed
a professor of a Catholic university, he automatically receives the title of
Canon. That is how it happened.
I said to the Bishop that I did not want this title. But my
request was not listened to. The decision was taken in my absence and a
ceremony was planned for the installation. We were four to be installed. But
when the date approached, they could not reach me, because I was not in
Q: What was the historical context
when you entered the training for ministry?
A: The historical context was very specific because it was
still during the war. Five days after of
the commencement of the academic year, we had to leave the seminary and go home.
We were dispersed, because the Germans wanted to recruit us for work in the
German factories to take the place of young Germans who had been recruited for
the war. So we were sent back home. Courses were organised in different places,
like Catholic hospitals, high schools, etc.
During that period I spent several months with my
grandparents for security reason. That was very interesting for me as my
grandfather had been prime minister. He was the founder of the Christian
Democratic Party in the 19th century in
After that I went to the countryside for some time and there
I joined the guerrilla resistance to the German occupation and Nazism. This was
also very important for me as later I got involved in anti-war activities.
Q: What were the intellectual
currents at the time you were in postgraduate studies and who were the key
players who attracted you most?
A: During the seminary formation Marie-Dominique Chenu, Jean Danielou, and Henri de
Lubac were the most important French theologians; Canon Jacques
Leclercq, professor at the
I went to the
It was only in
Q: What about your participation in Gaudium et Spes?
A: There were commissions preparing the different documents of
the Council and there was a sub-commission for the Gaudium et Spes introduction. I had been invited to go to
To begin such a document with a new approach was not an easy
thing, because up to that point in the history of the Church, the approach of
conciliar documents had been a deductive one, which was characteristic of a
theological perspective. They start with the Word of God (revelations) and then
go to reality. The whole training of the clergy at that time in theology was
highly dogmatic. In this traditional approach the first thing is the Word of
God that must be understood and then communicated to the people.
In Gaudium et Spes
it was completely the other way around. We took an inductive approach and that
was not in line with the long ecclesiastical tradition of Church documents. So
some theologians were not at ease with that the kind of approach we had taken.
I remember one member of the Theological Commission, a French Cardinal, saying
after reading it, “This text seems to be written by a sociologist and not by a
human being.” So up until the end there was no assurance that the Council would
accept it and we had to do a lot of redaction. At least it was accepted in the
final plenary session.
Q: What is your relationship with
the Protestant churches?
A: I have been involved with the World Council of Churches
(WCC), before, and after the Vatican II Council. I participated in the Programme to Combat Racism. I often went
to
Q: Was
A: I had been in
The Missa Campesina
(the peasant mass) was rich with the songs taken from the Nicaraguan folklore.
People participated with great enthusiasm and faith. It meant a renewal in the
life of the Church. Though the Missa
Campesina was later forbidden by the Church authorities, many continued to
practise it. There was also a new approach to the Bible.[18]
From the point of view of the faith, it was a very important spiritual
experience. I was happy to witness it. I founded a social research centre
affiliated with the UCA (Central American Universities) and also worked with
the Sandinistas on different aspects of social research. Whenever I went to
Our message was: If you are Marxists you cannot look at
reality in a dogmatic way. You have first to look at the reality. Is religion
is necessarily the opiate of the people? Let us study the facts. The course
studied historical situations and various religions, including Christianity.
The conclusion was that some times religion is the opiate of the people and
sometimes it is not. It can be the inspiration for social commitment and
liberation. They agreed and a year after the clause in the rules of the
Communist Party saying that it was forbidden for a believer to be a member of
the Party was suppressed. The contents
of the course were published under the title The Sociology of Religion. All this happened thanks to
Q: Would you comment on the impact
of your seminars [19] in Southern India and in
A: In fact,
Genevieve Lemercinier and I had conducted many social analysis courses in the
That is why a year later when I came back to the
At the Manila airport the head of police told me “I cannot
wait any more; I am ready to send you to
Q: Who were the leading figures in
the
A: Carlos Abesamis and
Bishop Xavier Labayen.
Q: How do you explain the move in
the sociology of religion from a confessional approach to a professional
approach?
A: When I came back from
The same thing happened with Social Compass,[21]
the international journal of the sociology of religion. It was originally a
Dutch journal[22], which
was instituted in the service of the Catholic Church. When I became the editor
of the journal[23] my
position was that it should become a scientific journal. The same controversy
took place at the Catholic University of Louvain where the research centre I
was in charge of was part of the Faculty of Economic, Social and Political
Sciences, but the research was conducted for the purposes of pastoral work.
That led to a conflict with the Rector of the University, who was a Monsignor.
He wanted the centre to be under the Faculty of Theology and told me that
sociology of religion is at the service of the Church. My position was that it
should remain a scientific activity within the social sciences at the
University. Later, when a layman became Rector, there were no more problems. As
the editor of the journal I first opened it to non-Catholic Christians and then
to people of other faiths and finally to all those who present their research
in a scientific manner. So this was how we moved from a confessional to a
professional approach.
Q: Tell something about your
association with the journal Concilium
and the COELI Bulletin.
A: Concilium[24]: I have
been with the council of Concilium since the beginning. I have written several
articles. Now I do not have much time, but continue to receive their
programmes. Initially I was associated with the Flemish theologian Edward
Schillebeckx.
COELI Bulletin[25]: I have been on the board since the beginning.
They have meetings in
Q: What was your motivation for
starting CETRI (Tricontinental Centre)?
A: The kind of work that CETRI is doing now had already
existed when I was in
I had some inheritance from my father, but that was not
enough and my mother and some friends came forward and CETRI was founded in
1975. It was built with enough space for accommodation for postgraduate
students from Asia, Africa and
We also thought of having a journal of our own. It began as the South-South Bulletin in English, Spanish and French. For two years
we focused on the resistance movements in Southern countries. Finally I decided
to begin Alternative Sud[27]
to give an opportunity for the voicing of the ideas and critical thinking of
the South. This goes together with our concern to share the Southern views with
the North.
So CETRI could be a meeting ground for the three continents
of the South and also a place to continue with the common work of thinking and
research.
Q: In what directions is CETRI
currently moving? In other words, how would you describe CETRI in 2005?
A: CETRI continues to disseminate the critical thinking of the
South by way of the documentation centre and the journal Alternative Sud, which has been translated into various languages,
such as Spanish, Italian and Arabic. A new focus is on the convergence of
social movements and the globalisation of resistance. This all began with the
organisation of the meeting that came to be known as the Other Davos (
Now actually CETRI has been somewhat institutionalised with
its documentation centre, the journal (Alternative
Sud), and with other publications on resistance. So currently CETRI is at
the service of globalisation of resistance.
On of the main issues is finance, because there is
practically no structural financing. The danger is to be absorbed in
fundraising and realising contracts. My hope is that CETRI will not be forced
to become reformist because of this. I do not want to leave a place that we
have built through the years for more radical positions, shifted to less clear
commitments. Of course, CETRI has built up a partnership network throughout the
world. This is a great hope. But, again, to maintain partnerships we need
funds. You need to communicate and meet; so, for the moment, I keep those
contacts because I do not have to be paid. But others just remain here and
sometimes they do not even have money to go to the Social Forums. There are
real needs but you do not have finances, so the system is killing you! This is
an important question we have to face.
Q: Please describe your emphases in
the different periods from 1950s.
A: In the fifties the main emphasis was on the fact that the
working class in continental
At the end of the fifties my interest was
After that came the Vatican II Council. In 1962 the Council
was announced. I was involved with it and in the sixties I had the hope that a
real transformation would happen in the life of the Church from all points of
view: theological, liturgical, pastoral and social. That was a unique opportunity
to realise necessary transformations to meet the expectations and the needs of
the modern world. I invested substantial
time in that and participated in many conferences and meetings. I continued the
work of the Research Centre with the same preoccupation so that research was
not a just a scientific activity but applied research in order to give a better
instrument to action, social and pastoral and to contribute to a better
realisation of the role of the Church in the modern world. I also was involved
with the WCC at that time regarding these issues.
At the end of the sixties and the beginning of the
seventies, though I continued doing the same kind of work, my main
preoccupation was international affairs-the war in Vietnam, the liberation
struggles in the Portuguese colonies, the struggles of Africa and Namibia I
gave many talks on those issues in a great number of countries and to a wide
variety of audiences. I was involved with the leaders of those movements. Some
of them became very good friends. I was also preoccupied with the way that the
Church was reacting or responding to those events, and denounced the fact that,
for a while, the American Churches defended the American role in Vietnam, and
that the Portuguese Catholic Church supported colonialism as a part of the
struggle against communism in Africa. That was in the seventies.
I founded CETRI. In 1976 my preoccupation was to have an
instrument with a sociological approach in order to realise solidarity with the
Third World countries and also to bring about a more scientific basis for the
In the seventies and eighties, I also had quite a lot of
contact with the socialist world. That was also one of my preoccupations after
my contact with
I had been to
My feeling was that one of the failures of the socialist
system was its anti-religious position. To force very believing masses
of people, like those in Latin America or
In the eighties my main preoccupation was
In the nineties [31]
the preoccupation was the question of globalisation, because the neo-liberal
model was imposing itself more and more and socialist countries in
It was also in 1996 that Genevieve Lemercinier died. She had
been my collaborator at the Socio-Religious Centre in
How can we build another force to transform the main orientation
of thinking and of practices in the economic and political fields? How can we
as Christians contribute to that? These are the concerns of the journal Alternative Sud and also of recent
publications in Globalising Resistances in
collaboration with Samir Amin. This has been for me extremely important for the
general approach of the work, as everyone knows that Samir Amin is a Marxist
and an atheist. We are able to collaborate and to create a united front in all
that we are trying to achieve. His theoretical
approach is one of the most profound and brilliant of the moment and has great
importance for the development of the resistance to global capitalism.
Recently, I have also been impressed by another
issue, the fact that many revolutionaries, in the new situation where
revolution is not at the door, have changed and adapted their ways of thinking.
I do not speak here of those who have abandoned the struggle, but those who are
discovering the spiritual dimension of life. After having encountered many
deceptions in their own struggles they see a way to continue rather than
abandon this quest. Such an approach is religiously plural, but a new dimension
of the Christian faith is part of it.
The only way to meet the challenge of capitalist
globalisation is to join forces to de-legitimise it and to organise the popular
movements and organisations to propose and bring about alternatives. The Social
Forum does a lot on this path, but a great deal remains to be done.
Q: What is the relationship between
the globalisation of capitalism and the question of culture today?
A: Globalisation today is not only a technical problem. The
type of globalisation we have today is the globalisation of the accumulation of
capital, which is orienting and influencing all the decisions of the
international economy, and also political and military fields. Culture is at
stake because human beings are transformed into producers or consumers. It is
only as a producer or a consumer that you are useful for capital accumulation.
And that transforms attitudes and mentalities, in other words, culture.
The consuming culture is important because if you do not
consume you do not contribute to the accumulation of capital and you are
useless. That is why, for example, the continent of
Q: Please describe the path that led you to
the Marxist approach to the sociology of religion.
A: For me the main problem was to explain the social functions
of religion in society. Therefore I had to use an ontological instrument. I
found that the sociology proposed by Marx was the best tool for understanding
societies and so for understanding the role of religion in society. Of course,
it is a tool and not a dogma. The reasons for this are four:
First, the totality of the approach, in the sense that when you study one element of society you have
to put that within the context of whole of society in order to understand it.
Religion or family is not something in itself; it is always a part of the
totality of society. Second, it is also an historical approach, you do not
understand the situation of today if you do not know its genesis, and how it
has been constructed. Third, it is dialectical approach. Sociology is not a
natural science, rather it is about interactions between acting people. When
one social group acts another group reacts. Reality is proceeding not in a linear
way but in a dialectical way. That is very fundamental in Marxism. Finally, the
theory of historical materialism is central in the sense that if you do not go
into the way that people are organising themselves, to produce their means of
existence, you are unable to understand the constitution of a society. It is
not dogma. It is the result of empirical research. We find that everywhere.
So the idea is not that religion comes from the economy.
That is stupid! But definitely the great religions like Buddhism, Christianity,
Judaism, etc., have appeared when the people were able to produce some surplus
which gave the possibility that a priestly or a religious group would appear,
not being required by necessity to work to produce material goods. It is only
when society is producing enough means of existence, so that some people are
not obliged to work with their own hands, that you can have a religious
institution. The same can be said about artists or philosophers. Religious
beliefs and practices exist of course, but it was part of the group and not an
institutionalised matter as such. All the great religions are based on a
philosophical approach to life, but they only become institutions when society
has produced enough means of subsistence.
Q: Where do you stand in relation to Otto
Maduro, Anthony Mansueto and Antonio Gramsci[32] ?
A: The great contribution of Gramsci was to introduce into
Marxist thinking aspects which had been neglected by the Marxist tradition,
especially culture, the role of intellectuals, role of religion and certain
aspects of the political dimension. That has been very important for Gramsci.
That is why his approach was also rejected by some of the most Orthodox
Marxists at that time.
As far as the others are concerned the preoccupation of
Maduro and Mansueto is more of a religious preoccupation and they worked quite
a bit along that line. Maduro was attracted by the psychological aspects of
religion but Mansueto is more a philosopher but both are quite preoccupied by
the Christian basis of their thinking, so their contribution is interesting.
Sometimes, though I do not agree with them as a whole, it was very important to
see people coming from a Catholic background and a keeping religious
preoccupation while adopting a Marxist approach and try to work on certain
coherence in both approaches.
Q: What do you see as the
relationship between a Marxist analysis of society and a Marxist analysis of
religion?
A: For Marx there was no difference, because he came to the
idea that religion is part of society and if you analyse society you have to
analyse religion. He was preoccupied not only by scientific analysis but by
constructing the tools for action. He said very clearly that when religion
plays a role against the emancipation of human beings you have to fight against
it. This is an empirical position Marx developed when he became primarily
interested in the socio-economic analysis of capitalist and pre-capitalist
societies.
In the first part of his writings, when he was more a philosopher
than a social analyst, he influenced by the views of Feuerbach, whose
philosophical approach was that religion had to be rejected and destroyed, as a
matter of principle. Marx later changed his views quite radically and was
involved in a controversy with the disciples of Feuerbach. They were called fundamental atheists,
whereas Marx came out with the view that it was useless fight against religion
as an abstraction. He said doing so was employing theological discourse in
reverse. He wanted to observe the role of religion in different types of
societies because religion is part of society and if we want to change society
we have to look at its foundations. That is why when he analysed the role of
religion in
In sum our message to Marxists is to take religion seriously
and our message to theologians or religionists is to take society seriously.
Q: What is the current
context of this Marxist approach?
A: Since the fall of the
It is easier now because during the time of the communist
regimes in Europe there was a “reduced type” of Marxism that was intellectually
difficult to accept and was associated with the politics of the
Q: What about your Utopology?
A: The struggle for Utopia is a struggle for hope, and that
means that it is not a struggle for something impossible to attain. Capitalist
logic is killing all Utopias. That is why Mrs. Thatcher said –TINA[34]
and Francis Fukuyama speaks about the end of history. That means that any
utopia is impossible! What can you hope for in a world of inequalities and
oppression?
Struggle against the type of globalisation that we have
today is fundamental for the definition of Utopia and the struggle for Utopia
is also fundamental for the opposition to the present day globalisation. It is
the search for another type of globalisation.
Q: What sources
inspire you most in this Utopian thinking?
A: The struggle for Utopia is a struggle for hope, and that
means it is not a struggle for something impossible to get, but with the idea
that “something which does not exist today could exist tomorrow”. So that is
the way that I define Utopia. A French Protestant philosopher --Paul Ricoeur--
talks about the necessity of Utopia because of the fact that globalisation of
capitalist logic is killing all Utopias. There are alternatives possible.
Otherwise it is pointless to talk about Utopias. In the World Social Forum we
have discovered that alternatives exist in all sectors of the collective human
life. That is extremely important. We can talk about three levels of alternatives,
the long-range, middle-range and short-range. There are alternatives and there
are people working for alternatives. That means that the Utopia is possible and
it is not just a dream.
We must also find enough motivating force to struggle in order
to realise Utopia. There may be various types of sources of such force. One
would be the humanist perspective that we find in many people committed to
struggling for justice. This is a very fundamental basis for Utopia. Marxist
militants, people who believe that it is possible to transform society, find
motivation for commitment from this humanist conviction.
If we take the believing community, for example,
in Christianity, it is clear that the Bible reflects a process of liberation,
and that the prophets speak about a possible future. In the Gospel we see the
struggle against injustice and the hope in the
Q: What is the relationship between
resistance and the alternatives at the ground level?
A: This is of course a very concrete question raised also at
the World Social Forum. It is all right to protest, but what do you propose instead?
What do you bring about with your protest? And I must say that we are very
conscious of that in the Forum. The fact that such forums exist is already
progress, and all the things happening during the forums and surrounding the
forums are important steps forward. But it is true that the relation between
resistance and what has to be accomplished is not an easy matter. It is easier
to protest than to construct, than to build the Utopia. The protest is
necessary to de-legitimise the system, because if you are not convinced that
the system is not just and has to be changed, how will you mobilise people to
change it? Here also we can talk about three levels, the economic, the social
and the ethical protest. Such a step is necessary, but it is only one step in
the building of alternatives. We also have to show that it is possible to
organise the economy, social relations, political life and culture on another
basis. So that is the relationship between resistance and alternatives and for
me it is impossible to separate them.
Q: In your recent thinking you have
given emphasis to human solidarity and respect for nature in the context of
primal religions. Could you elaborate on this?
A: Having worked with indigenous peoples at different meetings
and also having been involved in research into the autonomy of the primal
peoples in
1. The symbiosis between human beings and nature. Of course, this is expressed with a
non-analytic culture and way of thinking, so immediately we tend to link them
with witchcraft. But for me this is
secondary and it is normal in the kind of culture in which indigenous people
live. They express such a fundamental value in their own language with their
experience, and we have to express this in our language with another type of
thinking.
With modernity, we have separated human beings totally from
nature. Man has to dominate and exploit nature, in function of its necessities.
We see the result of that kind of attitude that does not hesitate, for to
experience immediate necessity is to forget about the future. This the first
pillar in all the traditional religions: the symbiosis between nature and man
is fundamental; man is part of nature and is not separated from nature. So to
destroy nature means to a certain extent to destroy humanity. Think of the way
that we treat animals. Each year seven
hundred thousand animals are killed for scientific purposes in
2. The second pillar is human solidarity. That means that
man is not just an individual but he is part of a group, of a community.
Capitalism has developed an extreme individualist vision of the world. On the
contrary, human solidarity is quite central in indigenous religions. This
functions as a criticism of individualism and puts emphasis on the collective
necessities of mankind and the social dimension of human life. That is why the
rediscovery of primal traditions is quite important.
The difficulty is that they express these views in their own
culture and we have our own culture, which has been deformed by capitalist
logic and thinking, but which is also a step forward. We are interpreting
reality not in function of myths, but using knowledge of the functioning of
nature and society. But that does not mean that we have to use this knowledge
for the exploitation of nature and human beings. That is why the valorisation
of traditional religions has meaning.
Q: How do you look at the question
of terrorism?
A: Terrorism is the use of blind violence to kill innocent
people. In ethical terms it has to be condemned. I told you of my conversations
on the matter with Fidel Castro, who said that terrorism, have to be condemned
in any case. He also said, “I can say that during the war to re-conquer
But the fact that terrorism is a concept so connected with
ethics makes it subject to manipulation. That is what political leaders from
the
I remember during the war when I was involved in the resistance
myself, at the end of the war I was with a small commando of two or three
others on a farm where German soldiers were sleeping, exhausted from the long
retreat from Normandy. The first word that they said was terrorists! And we
said, “No, we are not here to kill you!” But that was their reaction and they
believed that any person in the resistance was a terrorist.
Now there are two things to add, politically speaking.
Terrorism used by people who are really oppressed, not knowing what to do, is completely
different from the kind of terrorism used by the state. State terrorism is used
systematically and scientifically by states or by political organisations. This
is not the same thing. As Monsignor
Romero, the Archbishop of El Salvador said: “The violence of the dominant class
to defend their privileges is not the same as the violence used by the victims
even if you condemn violence.” As I said at the anti-terrorism meeting
in La Havana in 2005, of course we have to condemn terrorism, but at the same
time we cannot abandon political judgment. This is precisely what we are
discovering at the tribunal on
Q: What about your work on people’s
tribunals?
A: Opinion tribunals have moral and ethical force instead of
juridical force. I remember that I assisted the
The other purpose of the tribunals is to help the evolution
of international law. Therefore, it is important to have international jurists
who can really speak from the juridical point of view. So those are the two
major functions of tribunals: to de-legitimise a specific situation and to
promote some kind new orientation in the field of international law.
Q: What is your reaction to the
concept of democracy?
A: Democracy is a very fundamental issue and it should not be
a long-term aim only but something, which is also used within the struggle and
in the functioning of social movements. The concept of democracy as it is used
today by Western society is totally insufficient. There is only democracy in
those countries in formal political life, but not in economics. We must add
that an electoral democracy is not a participatory democracy and so we have to
enlarge the concept.
Q: What is your response to the
idea of reconciliation?
A: Is the love of neighbour compatible with class struggle? I
have written a text on this topic[35]:
There exists a concept of reconciliation, a concept that is used by the
dominant classes. In
Q: What is the relationship between
reconciliation and liberation from a socio-political and a theological point of
view?
A: From a political point of view, in order to have real
reconciliation and reconstruction, which is a social process, there have to be
conditions. Otherwise it does not work. One of the main conditions is the
recognition of the wrong done, as I have said. If this does not happen, after
one or two generations the matter will come up again. We see this, for example,
in
From the ethical point of view and even the theological
point of view, this is all the more true. Because there is also, you see, an
ethical aspect; reconciliation is a value recognised in the Gospel and is found
in other religions as well. Such an ethical value has a special meaning for
Christians in the work of constructing the reign of God. So it has a very
fundamental dimension. But, again, this dimension is possible on the condition
that the party who has been guilty has an ethical attitude. For example, the
military in
The victims can eventually renounce material compensation if
they want to, but they have to decide, not the ones who were responsible in the
past or the state. Of course, from the Christian perspective, pardon is very
fundamental and very important and it is only possible when the wrongdoing has
been recognised.
Q: What is your critique of the
“common good” approach?
A: Theoretically, the “common good” is a positive concept, but
we have to see how it is applied in practice. It has been used by the social
doctrine of the Church, at least the Catholic Church, as the main fundamental
concept for the organisation of society. However, it very often remains
abstract, without taking into consideration the real existence of the social relationships
which are structural ones and not simply a superimposition of different types
of social status without structural links. In this way, the general vision is
that the different social strata in society have to collaborate for the common
good. Each one of them has its place and a role to play within that place. But
the problem is that in fact, in industrialised society, there is a bourgeoisie
and there is a proletariat. Today we
have a capitalist North absorbing the riches of the South. To create a common
good is not just a matter of superimposing different strata in social life but
to recognise that society is structural: the bourgeoisie cannot live without the proletariat. World
capitalism cannot exist without the mechanism to absorb the riches produced by
others. In most instances, the churches just call for raising consciousness:
“Be aware and be preoccupied with the poor,” but they do not challenge the
organisation of society to any great extent. In this sense the concept of
achieving common good by asking each stratum of society to collaborate on moral
grounds for the construction of a better society is an illusion, if you do not
say at the same time that you have to transform the structures of society.
Society is not just a superimposition of social strata, but a structural
organisation of classes, and classes are structurally related. That is why I am
critical of the type of analysis of society in terms of strata and not in terms
of class. Such a position is not necessarily conscious. There is always an
implicit analysis of society; you cannot elaborate a social doctrine without
it. This is not only true for the Catholic Church or the Christian churches,
but for all religions. That leads to a call for a moral attitude but not to a
structural change of society and this has political consequences. For example,
Christian democracy asks everyone to collaborate for the common good without
challenging the place of different social groups. In
Q: Do you view ethics as a social
construct?
A: Ethics in a tribal society is not the same as ethics in an
industrial society. In this sense it is a social construction because it has to
be adapted to the concrete situations, otherwise it remains just an abstract.
You can elaborate all the great principles of ethics, but if they are not
applied then they are just useless. I do not say that a theoretical approach is
not necessary; I do not say that the fundamental issues like respect and the
dignity of every human being as the basis of the construction of ethics are
unimportant, but the concept of ethics, in the concrete sense of human life and
in the history of humanity, is a social construction, because it must
constantly be adapted according to place and time.
Q: Is this approach different from
the traditional Roman Catholic natural law approach?
A: Absolutely. Of course the whole idea of natural law has
been very greatly developed in
Q: What is your response to
eco-justice concerns?
A: Of course, the problem of ecology is the destruction of
nature and the climate, etc., but it is also a social issue. It is not just a
natural issue, because that situation is the result of a certain economic and
social system and a certain vision of development. This has to do with our type
of human relationship with nature, and, of course, it goes together with the
exploitation of human beings. Ecology is not something in itself. We have to defend
nature with a consciousness of the social conditions at the origins of its
destruction. It is the logic of the type of development brought by capitalism
(which has also been assumed to a certain extent by real socialism) that has
brought such fundamental contradictions. So eco-justice is a part of the whole
vision that we have to develop by introducing a social approach.
Q: What was your relationship with
Ernesto Cardenal?
A: I met him in 1982 after the Sandinista revolution. Ernesto
was the Minister of Culture and I proposed to him some work on the cultural
aspects of the revolution. He was interested and we had many discussions. We
became very good friends. He left the Ministry ten years later after the fall
of the Sandinistas. He went back to writing and sculpture. For the 20th
anniversary of CETRI I asked him to make a sculpture for us and he created the Sanatio.
It is a black bird found in
Q: What was your relationship with
Paulo Freire?
A: I know Paulo very well and of course I was very impressed
by his methodological approach. To a certain extent he was also coming from the
same tradition as the YCW. He was further influenced by Cardijn’s approach of
See, Judge and Act. I met him several times and adopted some aspects of his
thinking on social analysis. Finally, he had to leave
[1] The first
of the interview series. This interview was held in Louvain-la-Nouva
respectively on 6th 10th
and 11th .July 2005 at CETRI.
[2] Houtart calls this phenomenon: De-Christianization of the working class (my correspondence with Houtart on 23 February 2005).
[3] Houtart maintained a journal when he was in
[4] Francois Houtart. The Meaning of Camillo Torres’ Choice,
Unpublished article in CETRI archives, Louvain-la-Neuve (Ref: FH Doc 3.Bis/36)
[5]
Houtart François and Geneviève Lemercinier , Hai Van: Life in a
Vietnamese Commune
(London: Zed Books, 1984).
[6] Tissa Balasuriya is an Asian Liberation Theologian based in
[7] The YCS Movement was also inspired by Cardinal Cardijn.
[8] François Houtart. Religion
and Ideology in
[9] CETRI (The Tricontinental Centre) is situated in the city of
[10] Referring to the year 1935.
[12] For an overview on
Houtart’s relationship to colonialism see: François Houtart, Colonialism (written in the form of a
dictionary article for WCC, 1990.) 1-9.
[13] For an analysis of the religious justification of Portuguese
colonialism see: François Houtart. Religion
and Ideology in
[14] For a description of Fr. Kappen’s work, especially regarding the
development of a counter-culture, see Bastiaan Wielenga. Liberation
Theology in
[16] See http://www.brusselstribunal.org/ and
http://www.worldtribunal-nyc.org/world_tribunal_sessions.htm
[17] Gurwitch was a French sociologist of Russian origin.
[18] Houtart refers to the type of approach as presented by
Ernesto Cardenal in The Gospel in Solentiname, Orbis, 1985. (in 4 Vols.)
[19]
The first of seminar this kind was held in 1973 in
[22] Social Compass was founded in 1953 by George Zeeger, director of the Catholic Social-Ecclesiastical Institute (KSKI), the official research centre of the Dutch Catholic Church.
[23] Houtart served as its Editor for forty years (1960-1999). See Social Compass 47(1), 2000, 5-6.
[25] COELI is published by Liaisons Internationales in
[29] Houtart was attracted by American Functionalist school at that time
[30] Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.
[31] The context was the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 198) and the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992.
[32] Neo-Marxist thinkers.
[34] There is No Alternative
[35] Francois Houtart. “Compassion
Love of Neighbour and Social Predicament”, in Encounters with the Word: Essays to Honour Aloysius Pieris s.j.
Ed.Robert Crusz et al.
EISD,