Abstract:

This article examines the Roman Catholic concepts, rhetoric, and images that have helped shape histories of progress in postwar Guatemala. The specific interest here is in the Roman Catholic Church’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission report and the progress narratives that this report helps to perpetuate. Titled Never Again (1998), the report documents Guatemala’s genocidal civil war by paralleling Guatemala’s passion to Christ’s passion. And while much of this article contributes to an ever-growing critique of progress narratives, of modernity itself, most compelling for this reflection are the spatial politics that appear as the Church’s progressive history proves increasingly uninformed (at best) and irrelevant (at worst).

Author: Kevin Lewis O'Neill