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As Pope Heads to Brazil, a Rival Theology Persists
Via NY Transfer News Collective All the News that Doesn't Fit
The New York Times - May 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/world/americas/07theology.html
As Pope Heads to Brazil, a Rival Theology Persists
By Larry Rohter
Sco Paulo, Brazil, In the early 1980s, when Pope John Paul II wanted to
clamp down on what he considered a dangerous, Marxist-inspired movement
in the Roman Catholic Church, liberation theology, he turned to a
trusted aide: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
Now Cardinal Ratzinger is Pope Benedict XVI, and when he arrives here on
Wednesday for his first pastoral visit to Latin America he may be
surprised at what he finds. Liberation theology, which he once called
"a fundamental threat to the faith of the church," persists as an
active, even defiant force in Latin America, home to nearly half the
world's one billion Roman Catholics.
Over the past 25 years, even as the Vatican moved to silence the
clerical theorists of liberation theology and the church fortified its
conservative hierarchy, the social and economic ills the movement
highlighted have worsened. In recent years, the politics of the region
have also drifted leftward, giving the movement's demand that the
church embrace "a preferential option for the poor" new impetus and
credibility.
Today some 80,000 "base communities," as the grass-roots building
blocks of liberation theology are called, operate in Brazil, the
world's most populous Roman Catholic nation, and nearly one million
"Bible circles" meet regularly to read and discuss scripture from the
viewpoint of the theology of liberation.
During Benedict's five-day visit here, he is scheduled to meet with
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, canonize a saint, preach to the
faithful and visit a drug treatment center before addressing the opening
session of a conference of Latin American bishops that will discuss the
future of the church in the region where liberation theology originated,
prospered and drew so much of his censure. Some liberation theology
supporters will be present, others will be at a parallel meeting, and
all have been cautioned not to be too aggressive in pressing their
views.
In the past, adherents stood firm as death squads made scores of
martyrs to the movement, ranging from Archbishop Sscar Arnulfo Romero
of El Salvador, killed in 1980 while celebrating Mass, to Dorothy Mae
Stang, an American-born nun shot to death in the Brazilian Amazon in
February 2005. Compared to that, the pressures of the Vatican are
nothing to fear, they maintain.
"Despite everything, we continue to endure in a kind of subterranean
way," said Luiz Antonio Rodrigues dos Santos, a 55-year-old teacher
active in the movement for nearly 30 years. "Let Rome and the critics
say what they want; we simply persevere in our work with the poor and
the oppressed."
On a cool and cloudy Saturday morning in late April, evidence of the
movement's vitality was plain to see. Representatives of 50 base
communities gathered at the St. Paul the Apostle Church on the east
side of this sprawling city, in an area of humble workers' residences
and squatter slums.
With four priests present, readings from the Bible alternated with more
worldly concerns: criticisms of government proposals to reduce pensions
and workers' rights under the Brazilian labor code. The service ended
with the Lord's Prayer and then a hymn.
"In the land of mankind, conceived of as a pyramid, there are few at the
top, and many at the bottom," the congregation sang. "In the land of
mankind, those at the top crush those at the bottom. Oh, people of the
poor, people subjected to domination, what are you doing just standing
there? The world of mankind has to be changed, so arise people, don't
stand still."
Afterward, discussion turned to other social problems, chief among them
a lack of proper sanitation. A representative of the left-wing Workers'
Party discussed strategies to press the government to complete a sewer
project. Congregants agreed to organize a campaign to lobby for it.
In other areas here, liberation theology advocates have strong links to
labor unions. At a May 1 Mass to commemorate International Labor Day,
they draped a wooden cross with black banners labeled "imperialism" and
"privatization" and applauded when the homily criticized the
government's "neoliberal" economic policies, the kind Washington
supports.
"We believe in merging the questions of faith and social action," said
Valmir Resende dos Santos, a liberation disciple who brings base
communities and labor groups together in the industrial suburbs here.
"We advise groups and social movements, mobilize the unemployed, and
work with unions and parties, always from a perspective based on the
Gospel."
Since liberation theology first emerged in the 1960s, it has
consistently mixed politics and religion. Adherents have often been
active in labor unions and left-wing political parties and criticized
governments they complain are beholden to modern-day Pharisees.
Supporters see that activism as a necessary virtue to answer the needs
of the poor. Opponents say it dangerously insinuates the church into the
temporal, political realm, and in recent years they have repeatedly
announced the movement's decline or disappearance.
Some of the distinctions in this debate are finely drawn. John Paul II's
reach extended into human rights and politics, as he discouraged
abortion and divorce and encouraged fellow Poles and other Europeans to
reject Communism. He is widely credited with helping to bring about the
eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.
That, some say, differs from the direct, class-oriented political
activism embraced by liberation theology. Cardinal Ratzinger once
called the movement a "fusing of the Bible's view of history with
Marxist dialectics," and other critics complain of what they see as its
emphasis on direct collective action in Jesus' name over individual
faith.
As John Paul II put it early in his papacy: "This conception of Christ
as a political figure, a revolutionary, as the subversive of Nazareth,
does not tally with the church's catechism."
Certainly at the upper levels of the church hierarchy, liberation
theology has been forced into retreat. Bishops and cardinals who
supported and protected the movement in the 1970s and 1980s have either
died or retired, succeeded by clerics openly hostile to such
communities and the values they espouse.
"Base communities can only thrive in areas where there are bishops to
encourage them," said Margaret Hebblethwaite, a British religious writer
whose books include "Base Communities: An Introduction" and "The Next
Pope." "If you take away the support of the bishop, it becomes very
difficult for them to get anywhere."
But the movement remains especially active in the poorest areas like the
Amazon, the hinterlands of northeast Brazil and on the outskirts of
large urban centers like this one, the largest in Brazil, with nearly
20 million people in the metropolitan area. Hoping to draw less
attention and opprobrium to themselves, some of these groups simply say
they are engaged in a "social pastorate."
Sparring between liberation theologians and Benedict - whose own
theology was formed in reaction to the reach of Nazi ideology - has
been long and bitter. In 1984, as the Vatican official charged with
supervising questions of faith and doctrine, he declared that "the
theology of liberation is a singular heresy."
More recently, he said, "it seems to me we need not theology of
liberation, but theology of martyrdom," and argued that the movement
will become a valid theology "only when it refuses to accept power and
worldly logic" and instead emphasizes "inner liberty." But that was
when his job was to carry out John Paul's orders, and there is
speculation here that his views may have softened somewhat.
That helps explain some of the theological maneuvering that has been
going on in Latin America recently.
At the behest of conservatives, the Vatican has imposed sanctions on the
liberation theologians Gustavo Gutiirrez of Peru, Leonardo Boff of
Brazil and, most recently, Jon Sobrino of El Salvador, a Jesuit born in
Spain. But when the Vatican admonished Father Sobrino, in March, Pedro
Casaldaliga of Brazil, one of the bishops most committed to liberation
theology, wrote an open letter calling on the church to reaffirm its
"real commitment to the service of God's poor" and "the link between
faith and politics."
That drew a sharp rebuke from Felipe Aquino, a conservative theologian
whose views are often broadcast on Catholic radio stations here. "In
spite of having received the Vatican's cordial warning, you continue to
be incorrigible, poisoning the people with the theology of liberation,
which, as Ratzinger noted, annihilates the true faith and subverts the
gospel of salvation," he wrote.
At a news conference here on April 27, the newly appointed archbishop
of Sco Paulo, Odilo Scherer, 57, tried to conciliate the two opposing
viewpoints. While he criticized liberation theology for using "Marxism
as a tool of analysis," he also praised liberation theologians for
redirecting the church's mission here to focus on issues of social
injustice and poverty.
He also argued that the movement was in decline. Adherents, however, are
less sure.
"The force of Latin America's harsh social reality is stronger than
Rome's ideology, so the theology of liberation still has a great deal
of vitality," Mr. Boff, a former Franciscan friar who left the clergy
in 1992, argued in a recent interview. "It is true it doesn't have the
visibility it once had and is not as controversial as it once was, but
it is very much alive and well."
================================================================
NY Transfer News Collective A Service of Blythe Systems
Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us
Search Archives: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/htdig/search.html
List Archives: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/
Subscribe: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr
================================================================
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Hash: SHA1
As Pope Heads to Brazil, a Rival Theology Persists
Via NY Transfer News Collective All the News that Doesn't Fit
The New York Times - May 7, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/world/americas/07theology.html
As Pope Heads to Brazil, a Rival Theology Persists
By Larry Rohter
Sco Paulo, Brazil, In the early 1980s, when Pope John Paul II wanted to
clamp down on what he considered a dangerous, Marxist-inspired movement
in the Roman Catholic Church, liberation theology, he turned to a
trusted aide: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
Now Cardinal Ratzinger is Pope Benedict XVI, and when he arrives here on
Wednesday for his first pastoral visit to Latin America he may be
surprised at what he finds. Liberation theology, which he once called
"a fundamental threat to the faith of the church," persists as an
active, even defiant force in Latin America, home to nearly half the
world's one billion Roman Catholics.
Over the past 25 years, even as the Vatican moved to silence the
clerical theorists of liberation theology and the church fortified its
conservative hierarchy, the social and economic ills the movement
highlighted have worsened. In recent years, the politics of the region
have also drifted leftward, giving the movement's demand that the
church embrace "a preferential option for the poor" new impetus and
credibility.
Today some 80,000 "base communities," as the grass-roots building
blocks of liberation theology are called, operate in Brazil, the
world's most populous Roman Catholic nation, and nearly one million
"Bible circles" meet regularly to read and discuss scripture from the
viewpoint of the theology of liberation.
During Benedict's five-day visit here, he is scheduled to meet with
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, canonize a saint, preach to the
faithful and visit a drug treatment center before addressing the opening
session of a conference of Latin American bishops that will discuss the
future of the church in the region where liberation theology originated,
prospered and drew so much of his censure. Some liberation theology
supporters will be present, others will be at a parallel meeting, and
all have been cautioned not to be too aggressive in pressing their
views.
In the past, adherents stood firm as death squads made scores of
martyrs to the movement, ranging from Archbishop Sscar Arnulfo Romero
of El Salvador, killed in 1980 while celebrating Mass, to Dorothy Mae
Stang, an American-born nun shot to death in the Brazilian Amazon in
February 2005. Compared to that, the pressures of the Vatican are
nothing to fear, they maintain.
"Despite everything, we continue to endure in a kind of subterranean
way," said Luiz Antonio Rodrigues dos Santos, a 55-year-old teacher
active in the movement for nearly 30 years. "Let Rome and the critics
say what they want; we simply persevere in our work with the poor and
the oppressed."
On a cool and cloudy Saturday morning in late April, evidence of the
movement's vitality was plain to see. Representatives of 50 base
communities gathered at the St. Paul the Apostle Church on the east
side of this sprawling city, in an area of humble workers' residences
and squatter slums.
With four priests present, readings from the Bible alternated with more
worldly concerns: criticisms of government proposals to reduce pensions
and workers' rights under the Brazilian labor code. The service ended
with the Lord's Prayer and then a hymn.
"In the land of mankind, conceived of as a pyramid, there are few at the
top, and many at the bottom," the congregation sang. "In the land of
mankind, those at the top crush those at the bottom. Oh, people of the
poor, people subjected to domination, what are you doing just standing
there? The world of mankind has to be changed, so arise people, don't
stand still."
Afterward, discussion turned to other social problems, chief among them
a lack of proper sanitation. A representative of the left-wing Workers'
Party discussed strategies to press the government to complete a sewer
project. Congregants agreed to organize a campaign to lobby for it.
In other areas here, liberation theology advocates have strong links to
labor unions. At a May 1 Mass to commemorate International Labor Day,
they draped a wooden cross with black banners labeled "imperialism" and
"privatization" and applauded when the homily criticized the
government's "neoliberal" economic policies, the kind Washington
supports.
"We believe in merging the questions of faith and social action," said
Valmir Resende dos Santos, a liberation disciple who brings base
communities and labor groups together in the industrial suburbs here.
"We advise groups and social movements, mobilize the unemployed, and
work with unions and parties, always from a perspective based on the
Gospel."
Since liberation theology first emerged in the 1960s, it has
consistently mixed politics and religion. Adherents have often been
active in labor unions and left-wing political parties and criticized
governments they complain are beholden to modern-day Pharisees.
Supporters see that activism as a necessary virtue to answer the needs
of the poor. Opponents say it dangerously insinuates the church into the
temporal, political realm, and in recent years they have repeatedly
announced the movement's decline or disappearance.
Some of the distinctions in this debate are finely drawn. John Paul II's
reach extended into human rights and politics, as he discouraged
abortion and divorce and encouraged fellow Poles and other Europeans to
reject Communism. He is widely credited with helping to bring about the
eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.
That, some say, differs from the direct, class-oriented political
activism embraced by liberation theology. Cardinal Ratzinger once
called the movement a "fusing of the Bible's view of history with
Marxist dialectics," and other critics complain of what they see as its
emphasis on direct collective action in Jesus' name over individual
faith.
As John Paul II put it early in his papacy: "This conception of Christ
as a political figure, a revolutionary, as the subversive of Nazareth,
does not tally with the church's catechism."
Certainly at the upper levels of the church hierarchy, liberation
theology has been forced into retreat. Bishops and cardinals who
supported and protected the movement in the 1970s and 1980s have either
died or retired, succeeded by clerics openly hostile to such
communities and the values they espouse.
"Base communities can only thrive in areas where there are bishops to
encourage them," said Margaret Hebblethwaite, a British religious writer
whose books include "Base Communities: An Introduction" and "The Next
Pope." "If you take away the support of the bishop, it becomes very
difficult for them to get anywhere."
But the movement remains especially active in the poorest areas like the
Amazon, the hinterlands of northeast Brazil and on the outskirts of
large urban centers like this one, the largest in Brazil, with nearly
20 million people in the metropolitan area. Hoping to draw less
attention and opprobrium to themselves, some of these groups simply say
they are engaged in a "social pastorate."
Sparring between liberation theologians and Benedict - whose own
theology was formed in reaction to the reach of Nazi ideology - has
been long and bitter. In 1984, as the Vatican official charged with
supervising questions of faith and doctrine, he declared that "the
theology of liberation is a singular heresy."
More recently, he said, "it seems to me we need not theology of
liberation, but theology of martyrdom," and argued that the movement
will become a valid theology "only when it refuses to accept power and
worldly logic" and instead emphasizes "inner liberty." But that was
when his job was to carry out John Paul's orders, and there is
speculation here that his views may have softened somewhat.
That helps explain some of the theological maneuvering that has been
going on in Latin America recently.
At the behest of conservatives, the Vatican has imposed sanctions on the
liberation theologians Gustavo Gutiirrez of Peru, Leonardo Boff of
Brazil and, most recently, Jon Sobrino of El Salvador, a Jesuit born in
Spain. But when the Vatican admonished Father Sobrino, in March, Pedro
Casaldaliga of Brazil, one of the bishops most committed to liberation
theology, wrote an open letter calling on the church to reaffirm its
"real commitment to the service of God's poor" and "the link between
faith and politics."
That drew a sharp rebuke from Felipe Aquino, a conservative theologian
whose views are often broadcast on Catholic radio stations here. "In
spite of having received the Vatican's cordial warning, you continue to
be incorrigible, poisoning the people with the theology of liberation,
which, as Ratzinger noted, annihilates the true faith and subverts the
gospel of salvation," he wrote.
At a news conference here on April 27, the newly appointed archbishop
of Sco Paulo, Odilo Scherer, 57, tried to conciliate the two opposing
viewpoints. While he criticized liberation theology for using "Marxism
as a tool of analysis," he also praised liberation theologians for
redirecting the church's mission here to focus on issues of social
injustice and poverty.
He also argued that the movement was in decline. Adherents, however, are
less sure.
"The force of Latin America's harsh social reality is stronger than
Rome's ideology, so the theology of liberation still has a great deal
of vitality," Mr. Boff, a former Franciscan friar who left the clergy
in 1992, argued in a recent interview. "It is true it doesn't have the
visibility it once had and is not as controversial as it once was, but
it is very much alive and well."
================================================================
NY Transfer News Collective A Service of Blythe Systems
Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us
Search Archives: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/htdig/search.html
List Archives: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/
Subscribe: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr
================================================================
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