At the end of their National Conference this summer, the bishops of the Philippines spoke out strongly against human rights abuses in their country. They recited a long list of the names of people killed in the past year, including priests, journalists, trade unionists and other community leaders. Such denunciations of violence and repression are now fairly standard parts of the conclusions of many bishops’ conferences, but the Philippine bishops’ statement is interesting because it singles out the use of ‘religious fanatics’ in the government agencies’ counter-insurgency campaigns. The bishops condemned this as an ‘unholy strategy’, and claim that it is only ‘conducive to the worst forms of terrorism’. The arming and training of fanatical religious groups to fight the New People’s Army had led the civilian Home Defence Force to become ‘instruments of terror rather than peace’.

Though the Philippine bishops’ conference was addressing itself to its own local situation, they are clearly aware that this use of certain groups of Christians by repressive governments is not peculiar to their own country. Other local Catholic hierarchies have spoken out strongly against various religious groups. In recent months Mexican Church leaders, together with labour leaders and others, have called for the expulsion of various evangelical, fundamentalist sects from Mexico. The enormous financial resources of these sects, together with their political and social impact, has led to accusations that they are an integral part of US foreign policy in the region, and even that they operate as a front for the CIA.