-DATE- 19711130 -YEAR- 1971 -DOCUMENT_TYPE- MEETING -AUTHOR- F. CASTRO -HEADLINE- MEETS SOCIALIST PRIESTS -PLACE- SANTIAGO CHILE -SOURCE- CILE PRENSA LATINA -REPORT_NBR- FBIS -REPORT_DATE- 19711201 -TEXT- Meets Socialist Priests Santiago Chile PRENSA LATINA in Spanish to PRENSA LATINA Havana 0248 GMT 30 Nov 71 C--FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY [Text] Santiago, Chile, 29 Nov--by Jorge Timossi--Cuban Prime Minister Maj Fidel Castro said tonight that Sunday's elections imposed on Uruguay "the most reactionary and most pro-imperialist" elements and suggested the possibility of fraudulent manipulations in the elections. In this country there have never been governments and "it is like a peace of Swiss cheese, full of holes," Fidel Castro added, "even fear has been used. The citizens having been threatened with the mobilization of Brazilian troops on the border." The first statements of the Cuban leader concerning the Uruguayan elections were made to a group of more than 120 Chilean priests of the Christians for Socialism Movement, which is lead by priest Gonzalo Arroyo, a foreigner. It is like the ONIS [as received] Movement in Peru and the Third World Group in Argentina. The priests met with the Cuban Prime Minister in the gardens of the Cuban ambassador's residence and for more than an hour discussed the relationship between Christianity and socialism, the role of Christians on the Latin American continent and the identification between social justice and true Christianity. Also present at the meeting were: Chilean Ambassador to Cuba Juan Enrique Vega and Under Secretary of Justice Jose Antonio Viera Gallo, both militants of the Unitary Popular Action Movement (MAPU) which is a part of the Popular Unity government and has strong contacts with the Christian Left. The Cuban prime Minister said in the informal session that: "The Christians have passed the persecution and inquisition phase" and have "now entered a new progressive period." He also said: "If the Christianity of 2,000 years ago was a utopian doctrine, today it can be a reality," and that its basic propositions are similar and agree with the needs of social justice. The Cuban leader referred to the need for a revolutionary justice as a means for a process of radical structural changes and said that if, in this case, one turns his face "to offer the other cheek," the reactionaries kill him without mercy and require payment in human lives for the right to carry out their own changes. In this regard he added that the origin of war can be found as a product of egoism and pointed out that there are Catholics chaplains who have helped the wounded in these wars or have blessed imperialist invasions such as the one at Playa Giron. Maj Fidel Castro said: "The chaplain will disappear as war disappears." A priest asked him what he saw as the solution to the problem of freeing Christian values from the improper use made of them by the bourgeoisie, the Cuban Prime Minister said; "I believe that the answer is in exactly what you are doing," that is clarifying the identification between values and the struggles for social justice. Fidel Castro explained that a rich capitalist could never be a good Christian and he presented an example from ancient Rome: "In the circus the Christian and the Lion cannot both win." The Cuban Prime Minister also spoke of literature and the means of communication which, in a distorted form, are used by a commercial party that deforms and corrupts man with pornography and the praise of sex and vice. He said over the laughter of the priests: "If one is not careful, they will even sell your soul." In response to a question, Fidel Castro referred to the situation of Catholicism in Cuba before the revolution, specifying that there had been Christian participation in the final part of the revolution. He said that Catholicism in Cuba had been basically a religion of the upper levels of society and that it was used to slow the revolution down, "but as a class problem which in reality had nothing to do with religion." Maj Fidel Castro said: "The Movement of the Christian Left in Latin America has helped the Cuban religious communities find themselves," and he mentioned a recent conversation he had had on this subject with Nicaraguan poet and priest Ernesto Cardenal. In conclusion he said: "We must take the initiative to vitalize the progressivist tendencies of the Christian in Latin America." The Chilean priest Gonzalo Arroyo, director of the Christians for Socialism Movement which includes nearly 200 Catholic priests, told PRENSA LATINA soon after the meeting that "meetings like this and the opinions of Fidel Castro help our work a great deal." Gonzalo Arroyo felt that the most important point developed by the Cuban Prime Minister in his talks with Catholics or in his opinions regarding Christianity during his stay in Chile--such as those made today at the State Technical University--is that which "clarifies that Christians are not merely tactical allies but strategic allies" in a revolutionary process. -END-