Billy in Catholic Country: He Collides with Clergy

Over the main entrance of the red brick bullring, on the western edge of Lima, hung a sign: “Jesús dijo: yo soy el camino y la verdad y la vida” (Jesus said: I am the way and the truth and the light). Within the ring, 12,000 Peruvians chewed on anticuchos (chunks of grilled beef heart) or sipped chicha (a beer made of corn). There was a hymn, a collection; then a Peruvian missionary announced that they would hear from “the man known all the world over as the Human Bible.” In this setting, Baptist Preacher Billy Graham brought his “Crusade for Christ” to the Roman Catholic heartland of South America. No city on the continent trumpets its devotion to Catholicism more than Lima (pop. 1,200,000).

A Step on an Anthill. Graham got to Peru after barnstorming through Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador on the first of two 1962 crusades to 91% Catholic South America (this fall he is scheduled to preach in Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay). By the standards of the past, it has not so far been an effective tour.

Catholic bishops warned their flocks away from his sermons, and though many Catholics (including some priests) disobeyed the orders of their hierarchy and attended, the crowds were small and the reaction cool. Billy’s 13 sermons in the four countries drew only 150,000 people, mostly slum dwellers, produced 4,567 “decisions for Christ.” On his 1960 crusade through Africa, Billy spoke to 600,000 people, brought about 35,000 conversions.

Ironically, Billy has seldom been in better form. Since he speaks no Spanish, he departed from his usual flowing eloquence, used short, sharp phrases that could be translated quickly. Far from attacking Catholicism, he spoke of the need of more cooperation between the churches. He brought home his points with parable-like simplicity.

In Lima he took as one of his texts the familiar “God so loved the world that he gave to it his only begotten son.” Billy illustrated it with an incident from his own life. Several years ago, he said, while walking in the country with his son, he had accidentally stepped on an anthill, killing many of the ants. When his distressed son asked him if he could not help the insects, Billy had said no, they were too small; only if he were to become an ant himself could he help—and he could not do that because he was not God. “But when God decided that he wanted to help man,” cried Billy, his voice rising, “he became man himself. That man we know and worship as the Lord Jesus, who was crucified to save us.” Said one listening Catholic: “This is the most beautiful explanation of the Incarnation that I’ve ever heard.”

“Ignorant Farm Boy.” Throughout the tour, Graham met steady and effective opposition from the Catholic clergy. Items:

In VENEZUELA, Jesuits called Billy “an ignorant farm boy unworthy of being given a hearing.” an “ex-door-to-door salesman” (which he was, for Fuller brushes). But Venezuela is less devoutly Catholic than its neighbors. In Caracas and Maracaibo, Billy drew the largest crowds of his trip; his final sermon was broadcast by eleven radio stations.

In COLOMBIA, the mayor of Barranquilla, under pressure from a local Catholic Action group, revoked Billy’s permit to speak in the city’s baseball stadium; instead, Graham hired a field owned by the local American Protestant School, drew 18,000. In Bogota, President Alberto Lleras Camargo found an excuse to turn down Billy’s request for a meeting, but Billy struck up a friendship with ex-President Eduardo Santos, powerful owner of Bogota’s largest newspaper. “I thought the man just a rabble-rouser before I met him,” Santos said. After the meeting, he ordered his papers to cover Billy’s trip.

In ECUADOR, Carlos Maria Cardinal de la Torre, Archbishop of Quito, forbade Catholics to attend Graham’s crusades. But Billy drew more than 12,000 to his two sermons.

Preacher Graham ended-his crusade last weekend in Santiago, Chile, and seems ready for the next. “I sense here a great spiritual hunger,” he said in Lima. “A large percentage of Latins do not attend church, or do so very irregularly. I want them to accept the Lord, to go to church, to live like Christians.”