Loss of Support Among Latin Poor Evident During Pope’s Tour : Activism: In a region of economic misery, the fundamentalist Protestant movement has made gains.

During a six-day swing through this region, Pope John Paul II left behind a mixture of hope, confusion and anger over the future of the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America.

“The question,” said a ranking Brazilian theologian here to attend a conference of Latin American Catholic leaders, “is whether his approach meets the needs of the people rather than promoting his own views within the church.”

It is a crucial question in a region of increasing poverty, exploding birth rates and continued political instability. It comes at a time when the Catholic Church’s hold on the people is being weakened by the encroachment of an aggressive fundamentalist Protestant evangelical movement.

During his visit here, which coincided with a two-week conference of Latin American bishops, John Paul spoke of his sympathy for the continent’s poor and the conditions of its indigenous and black populations. “One must feel the poverty of others,” he said at one point, “as if it were one’s own and must convince oneself that the poor cannot wait.”

Unlike his two previous trips to the Dominican Republic, when millions attended his Masses and speeches, the Pope this time was greeted by small, largely indifferent crowds, including one outdoor Mass attended by only 10,000.

“It is a combination of things,” said the Brazilian priest. “He is familiar here and, I think, his message just isn’t popular among the poor of this region.”

Whatever the reason, the Pope did not modify his approach, whether speaking to the people or the bishops. He emphasized an increasingly conservative view for dealing with the economic misery of the area, and, in the minds of liberals, has all but repudiated the progressive doctrines outlined in past church conferences.

In speeches and private conferences, the Pope called for priests to concentrate on pastoral work and to forgo grass-roots political activity that had been encouraged with great fanfare in the past.

The Pope said the main responsibility for helping the embattled economies of the region rests not with the church but depends on the developed world and with greater regional integration to create jobs. He deplored capital flight and called for more foreign investment and a reduction in efforts to collect the region’s multibillion-dollar foreign debt.

The church’s direct role is “to practice Christian values” by dispensing medical care and education. “This is the way to express true love for the poor,” he told bishops.

Calling the use of Marxist economic analysis outdated and discredited, he said the church “can’t in any measure be carried away by any ideology or faddish political flag.” This referred to “liberation theology,” a concept of political activism that relies in part on Marxist economic analysis and at times has accepted the use of violence to promote social justice.

Liberation theology received high-level Vatican backing after an earlier bishops’ conference in Medellin, Colombia, and was reinforced at another meeting in Puebla, Mexico. The movement assumed special strength in Latin America, particularly in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Brazil, with priests in those countries organizing popularly based groups to challenge existing political and military establishments.

But the Pope has steadily undermined this approach, attacking the idea of Marxism even as an intellectual tool, denouncing the use of force and promoting conservative priests at the expense of liberals. He has criticized Catholic cardinals who support liberation theology even in nonviolent forms.

It was not until he arrived here, however, that his attack on liberal attitudes became so direct. “The genuine praxis of liberation,” he told the opening session of the conference, “has to always be inspired by church doctrine, according to the instructions” of the Vatican. Any other approach, he told the 300 bishops and other leaders here, is “mere human invention.”

The Pope also renewed his attacks on abortion, contraception and the growing efforts of Protestant evangelical movements, taking particular aim at liberal-based dissent in the church.

“Don’t let yourself be blinded by the idea that everything can be resolved by denouncing the ills that block or impede social development,” he told the bishops. Dissent, he said, is unacceptable “pluralism, theology tending toward relativism . . . in opposition to and a rivalry to the authentic” teaching of the church.

As if to underline this view, delegates to the conference, including some bishops, said they feared speaking on the record in opposition to the Pope. A Brazilian bishop, a leading exponent of liberation theology from Sao Paulo, gave an interview on the condition of keeping his name private. “I was told it would be inappropriate to criticize (the Pope’s) views in public,” he said.

Similar statements came from priests from Haiti and Peru. “Liberation theology is no longer acceptable,” said a Peruvian priest, a follower of Gustavo Guttieriez, widely acknowledged as the major exponent of the doctrine.

A notable example of John Paul’s conservative attitude came when he publicly sided with Haiti’s conservative bishops in their support for the military-backed regime that overthrew the elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a priest who advocated a radical form of liberation theology. Haiti, the Pope said in a statement released to the press, “should put an end to the sterile divisions” and rally “united around its bishops.”

At the same time, he ordered the one pro-Aristide bishop here, the Most Rev. Willy Romelus, not to discuss the contents of their private meeting.

Beyond his attack on dissent and liberal doctrine, the Pope’s major concern is the steady even spectacular growth of Protestant evangelism.

“Guard your flock against (the) hungry wolves” of the evangelicals, he told the conference. “The cause of the division and discord within your ecclesiastical communities, as you well know, are the sects or pseudo-spiritual aggressiveness” of Protestant churches.

Aggressive they have been. In 1967, only about 4 million Latin Americans belonged to such denominations. By 1985, the figure had grown to 30 million. Now experts put the figure at more than 50 million. In Guatemala alone, 30% of the population belongs to fundamentalist churches.

At one point in the prepared version of his speech, the Pope accused the United States of promoting the fundamentalist sects, saying it was an attempt to weaken the unity of Catholic Latin America. While he dropped this reference when he spoke, John Paul’s press spokesman said the Pope stood by the statement.

Another priest from Brazil, a country with a fast-growing fundamentalist movement, said the Pope’s complaints about evangelicals “are well grounded. But one of the main reasons has been our failure to meet the political and economic needs of our people.”