In the first chapter, it was noted that autonomous Christian groups – that is, outside the authority of the Catholic Church institution – helped to shape the emergence of liberationist Christianity, along with priests and lay sectors under direct episcopal authority. Many of these challenged the traditional political articulations of the ecclesial leadership. Moreover, the previous chapter demonstrated that the formation of the Movement of Priests for the Third World (MSTM), along with lay supporters, found itself at the heart of acute confrontations with members of the episcopal hierarchy. This resulted in the distancing, and in many cases the abandonment, of many clergymen from the ecclesial institution. As these tensions mounted between liberationist Christians on the one hand and the ecclesial institution and political authorities on the other, an increasingly radicalised conception of the Church and a solidification of new forms of organisation were produced. Continuing the analysis of the formation of the liberationist Christian movement, this chapter looks at the construction and internal differences of liberationist Christian movement identity. In particular, it looks at how a conception of the Church – central to any Christian identity – was generated by those independent of institutional authority or in conflict with members of the hierarchy. At the heart of liberationist Christianity lay a synthesis of a dialectical perspective that identified social conflicts between oppressors and oppressed and an interpretation of el pueblo (the people) originating from the Christian tradition as well as from Peronist discourse. This contrasted with the traditionalist approach that had long prevailed in the Argentine Church, based on an understanding of an organic society as made up of functioning bodies and institutions.

In the first part of this chapter, the process of construction and constitution of the movement's identity around the notion of the people is analysed. It particularly explores the notion of a popular church discussed in outlets like Cristianismo y Revolución, as well as the apparent ambivalence towards the ecclesial institution among MSTM members and their fellow travellers. On the one hand, there was an apparent tension between containment within ecclesial institutional structures and transgression of them; and, on the other, between vertical and horizontal ecclesiologies and political outlooks. The chapter then follows the internal tensions that embedded in the MSTM, which related strongly to its popular identity and its ecclesiological tensions.