Abstract:
Before being rector of the Universidad Nacional de San Luis, Mauricio López held important positions in international Christian organizations. López was part of the progressive wing of the Latin-American Christianity which had as goal the achievement of a more fair society. Early in his political life, he learned that the United States wanted to use sectors of the Protestant churches as a form of ideological penetration (this fact was later confessed in the famous “Rockefeller Report” in 1969). To oppose this intention, he participated in the organization Church and Society in Latin America (ISAL) looking for a political and theological Latin-American reflection, and strengthened ties with European Christian organizations such as the World Council of Churches and Fundación México-Estados Unidos para la Ciencia, FUMEC. From 1955 to 1969, as part of his work with these organizations, López lived almost all the time abroad. Between 1955 and 1963, he was the Secretary for Latin America of FUMEC and he toured Latin America extensively, alternating with long stays in Mendoza, Argentina. Between 1963 and 1969, as Deputy Secretary of the Department of Church and Society of the World Council of Churches, he continued traveling and then settled permanently in Europe, first in Geneva (for five years) and a year in Paris. This historical account covers from 1955 to 1969.