Editing Montoneros (section)

===Liberation theology===
Despite its far-left ideology, Montoneros originated from middle-class and upper-middle-class Catholic and nationalist backgrounds.<ref>{{cite book |title=Juan Perón: The Life of the People's Colonel |page=207 |first=Jill |last=Hedges |publisher=I.B. Tauris |isbn=978-0-7556-0268-1 |year=2021}}</ref> The core of Montonero ideology was Argentinian nationalism and Political Catholicism, which were later extended into Peronism and socialism. This connection was made possible by the influence of post-Vatican II Catholicism, as third-worldist and liberation theology Argentinian priests, also known as the worker-priests, would radicalize Catholic students into embracing these political currents.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Mapping the Argentine New Left Social Liberation, National Liberation, and Revolutionary Violence, 1969–1977 |first=David |last=Copello |journal=Latin American Perspectives |issue=1 |volume=20 |doi=10.1177/0094582X20939101 |year=2020 |page=7 |url=https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02525133/file/LAP_Copello_D%C3%A9p%C3%B4t%20HAL.pdf |access-date=14 February 2024 |archive-date=3 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201103063654/https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02525133/file/LAP_Copello_D%C3%A9p%C3%B4t%20HAL.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> Priest Carlos Mugica, known for his work in shantytowns at the time, became a spiritual advisor of the Catholic students' organization at the [[National University of Central Buenos Aires]], coming in contact with students that would become leading members of the Montoneros. Mugica promoted Peronism, arguing that he was "absolutely convinced that the liberation of my people will be through the Peronist movement. I know from the Gospel, from Christ’s attitude, that I must see human history through the poor. And in Argentina the majority of the poor are Peronists."<ref>{{cite book |title=Juan Perón: The Life of the People's Colonel |page=227 |first=Jill |last=Hedges |publisher=I.B. Tauris |isbn=978-0-7556-0268-1 |year=2021}}</ref> Catholicism was so central to Montoneros that the group started correspondence with Pope [[John Paul II]], and also had its own chaplain, Catholic priest Jorge Adur, who became the Montoneros' emissary to the Vatican.<ref>{{cite thesis |title=Of Order and Liberty: Catholic Intellectuals in Argentina and Brazil, 1930-1980 |year=2015 |first=Travis K. |last=Knoll |publisher=University of Texas Press |location=Austin |degree=Masters of Arts |page=80 |url=https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/a30c83cf-baf0-45f7-ac9b-825cedfd75dd/content}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |first=María |last=Soledad Catoggio |title=Argentine Catholicism During the Last Military Dictatorship: Unresolved Tensions and Tragic Outcomes |year=2013 |journal=Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies |publisher=Travesia |doi=10.1080/13569325.2013.803954 |page=1}}</ref>

Around 1964 Mugica contacted former members of a 1950s Peronist resistance organization known as the Tacuaristas, and introduced them to his pupils. Mugica praised Peronism as effective realization of Catholicism, arguing that Peronism and Catholicism were united in their goals of "love for the poor, for those persecuted for defending justice and for fighting against injustice".<ref>{{cite book |title=Soldiers of Peron: Argentina's Montoneros |first=Richard |last=Gillespie |year=1982 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-821131-7 |page=56}}</ref> Further radicalization came from the death of Camilo Torres, a revolutionary Catholic priest who joined the Marxist-Leninist [[National Liberation Army (Colombia)|National Liberation Army]] and was killed during one of the organization's operations. Six months after his death, first issue of Catholic socialist journal ''Cristianismo y Revolución'', directed by García Elorrio, was published. The journal promoted post-conciliar reforms in the Catholic Church as a turn towards Marxism, encouraged armed struggle as a truly Catholic way of seizing power, idealized Camilo Torres and Che Guevara as examples of anti-imperialist martyrs, and vindicated Peronism as the "revolutionary key of national construction of socialism".<ref name="salcedo">{{cite journal |title=De los Camilos a los Comandos Peronistas de Liberacíon en los orígenes de Montoneros |first=Javier |last=Salcedo |publisher=Universidad de Santiago de Chile |journal=Revista de Historia Social y de las Mentalidades |language=es |volume=22 |issue=1 |pages=199–224 |year=2018 |issn=0717-5248 |url=https://rhistoria.usach.cl/sites/revistahistoria/files/3648-texto_del_articulo-26003579-1-10-20190118.pdf |access-date=30 December 2023 |archive-date=30 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231230083457/https://rhistoria.usach.cl/sites/revistahistoria/files/3648-texto_del_articulo-26003579-1-10-20190118.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> Most influential in regards to Montoneros was Elorrio's article from March 1967, which connected Camilo Torres' struggle to Peronism:

{{blockquote|text= We are all in the same war; the question is on which side? There are no third ways—clerical meditations or company truces. And there should not be. This is the challenge which reaction has thrown at us. From national frustration we must now move rapidly to confrontation. The government has already announced that the escalation phase has begun. This statement hides the only reality: official violence against the rebellion of the people. We are in the thick of violence and cannot be on the sidelines...
:
As martyr and symbol of the demand ‘liberation or death’, Camilo Torres died as a guerrilla a year ago. Camilo faithfully realized his personal road to revolution. Priest and sociologist, political fighter and agitator, student and mass leader, he satisfied his thirst for justice by joining the armed struggle when he understood that the oligarchy shuts all roads and confronts the people with its ultimate weapon—violence ...
:
Camilo represents contradiction, scandal, probing, unity, sacrifice, action, violence, and commitment. We accept him and uphold him in his totality. We do not parcel him out or divide him according to where our fear takes us. We want to be with him in our Argentine reality, fighting with the Peronist movement for the victory of the working class, for the realization of socialism in our national experience.
:
Under the banner of Camilo, we hereby declare total war on exploitation, on imperialism, on under-development, and on all people who betray our country from within or without. We also hereby affirm our declaration of revolutionary faith, revolutionary necessity, and revolutionary existence. We affirm a faith full of hope in the triumph of the people, a definite and permanent necessity, and an existence dictated by our Christianity.
:
With Camilo, we believe that revolution is the only efficient and meaningful way to achieve love for all.|source=Juan García Elorrio, Cristianismo y Revolución (No. 4, March 1967, pp. 2-3.)}}

[[Richard Gillespie]] identifies ''Cristianismo y Revolución'' as the decisive factor behind the radicalization of Catholic students and the creation of Montoneros, along with the [[Movement of Priests for the Third World]]. The journal made emotional appeals for sympathy for the oppressed and made radical Catholics identify themselves with the 'national liberation' struggles of the Third World, with Perón and Guevara named as main examples. It also glorified militians, paid homages to them and portrayed their deaths as ultimate sacrifice in the name of love for the downtrodden. ''Cristianismo y Revolución'' also defused dislike towards Peronism amongst Catholic and mainstream socialist circles - Elorrio regarded Catholic and socialist opposition to Peronism as mistake, which resonated with the hitherto anti-Peronist middle class who was now disillusioned with authoritarianism and corruption of post-Perón Argentinian governments. Because of this, former anti-Peronists "now embraced Peronism with the zeal of reformed sinners". Elorrio also pushed his readers towards action and revolution, writing: "I had to fight with the slaves, the people, as they fought, not as an elitist teacher who tells them what is good and what is evil and then goes back to his study to read Saint Augustine, but as a genuine participant, with them not for them, in their misery, their failings, their violence... Either I fought or I was a phony."<ref>{{cite book |title=Soldiers of Peron: Argentina's Montoneros |first=Richard |last=Gillespie |year=1982 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-821131-7 |page=59}}</ref> Catholic influence remained strong for the entirety of Montoneros existence – [[Martha Crenshaw]] remarked that its members "were regular church attenders right up to the moment of going underground", and the organization established its own Catholic “chaplaincy” after resuming its clandestine resistance in September 1974. Montoneros' liberation theology also included a Cuban-inspired cult of martyrdom of its fallen members – ''guerrillero heroico''.<ref>{{cite book |title=Terrorism in Context |first=Martha |last=Crenshaw |author-link=Martha Crenshaw |year=1995 |publisher=Pennsylvania State University Press |isbn=0-271-01015-0 |page=228}}</ref>

The arrival of Onganía to power in Argentina through the 1966 coup d'état resulted in the group openly embracing the concepts of revolutionary struggle, not only because of the new government's neoliberal economic policies, but also because of suppression of the spheres of political and cultural participation, such as universities and political parties. [[Michael Goebel]] argues that government's actions made academics friendly to Perón, which was a side effect of the mass exodus of intellectuals caused by university purges. The academic staff was replaced by professors and priests from Catholic universities, who were now friendly towards Perón.<ref>{{cite book |title=Argentina's Partisan Past: Nationalism and the Politics of History |first=Michael |last=Goebel |author-link=Michael Goebel |year=2011 |publisher=Liverpool University Press |isbn=978-1-84631-714-9 |page=156}}</ref> In 1967, Camilo Torres Commando was formed, which became the armed precursor of the Montoneros. [[Donald C. Hodges]] notes that the ideology of Camilo Torres Commando was identical to that of Montoneros, representing "a fusion of Camilist, Guevarist, and Cookist themes combined with the cult of Evita Peron".<ref>{{cite book |title=Argentina's "Dirty War": An Intellectual Biography |last=Hodges |first=Donald |author-link=Donald C. Hodges |publisher=University of Texas Press |location=[[Austin, Texas]] |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-292-77689-0 |page=109}}</ref> In 1970, the Commando officially became the Montoneros, named after "montoneras", irregular popular troops that followed the federal caudillos of the Argentine interior in the 19th century. The ideology behind armed struggle was influenced by [[Foquismo]] of Che Guevara, together with the theory of urban guerrilla warfare written by Peronist [[Abraham Guillén]] and Marxist-Leninist [[Tupamaros]].<ref name="Segovia 111–152">{{cite journal |title=Montoneros: Entre Perón y la Vanguardia. Una experiencia guerrillera peronista |language=es |first=Gonzalo |last=Segovia |journal=Fuego y Raya |volume=20 |pages=111–152}}</ref>