Collections : [Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary]

The M.I.A.U. news service began in 1970 as a Roman Catholic effort to promote the spread of uncensored information on events in Latin America, founded by attendees of the seventh annual Catholic Inter-American Cooperation Program (CICOP). Its acronym stands for the Movimiento de Información y Acció́n Urgente, and deliberately evokes the sound a cat makes when its tail is being stepped on. In 1971, the group's name was changed to LAB Services, and it became affiliated with the National Catholic Welfare Council's Latin American Bureau. This collection contains articles, essays, reports, and minutes collected by the organization and covering topics including a Roman Catholic bishops conference in Puerto Rico in 1970, early lectures on liberation theology, articles on the church's struggle against compulsory military service in Puerto Rico, and snapshots of torture cases in Colombia, Brazil, and El Salvador. The majority of the documents are in Spanish.

The Primer Encuentro Latinoamericano de Cristianos por el Socialismo was a conference organized by a group of 80 Chilean priests (known as "Las Ochenta" and later as "Cristianos por el Socialismo"). The primary goals of the conference were to unite Latin American Christian groups across the church's hierarchical and denominational divides and to foster the integration of Christian and socialist ideologies. The PELCS records consist of reports, correspondence, publications, and other materials relating to the conference, including essays on the conference's 10 themes: 1. Underdevelopment, dependence and the transition to socialism in Latin America; 2. Mobilization of the masses; 3. Conditions for a strategic alliance between Christians and Marxists; 4. Ideology and religion, cultural revolution and the Christian faith; 5. Class struggle, ethical positions and obstacles for Christians; 6. Christian institutions and ideology, a critical evaluation; 7. Political action and faith, liberation theology; 8. Popular parties, unions, and pragmatic Christianity; 9. Field-labor movements and church initiatives; 10. The middle class, women in the revolution, and the Christian factor.