LIBERATION THEOLOGY

The Pope is dead. Long live the Pope. Actually I am not Catholic, so why do I care? The fact is that John Paulo II was a man of convictions and principles. For sure he did very little the last five years in office, mostly because of age and health problems. His greatest error was the priest sex scandals, which he did little or nothing about. I am convinced that he did not understand the problem, or much less the extent of it within the Catholic Church. The whole idea of priests molesting kids (mostly young boys) was probably outside his experience. Of course, what happened in the US and other countries did not happen in a day or week or month or year. Over 17 centuries the Catholic Church had an unwritten rule on how to deal with wayward clergy. It was the same old thing, but worse - because of modern morality and a more open tolerance of homosexuality. Add to that the fact of the shortage of priests, and the fact that a church offers many attractions for perverts and pedophiles: an all male environment, access to young children and a culture of trust. Shame on the Catholic Church!

Anyway, the purpose of this is not to comment of the Catholic sex scandals or pedophile priests, or the life and times of JP2, but to make some observations on what is called "Liberation Theology" (LT). Believe me, I know Liberation Theology. For almost two decades I was near the center of it, watching it grow and glow. The fact is that Liberation Theology (LT) has very little "theology" and no "liberation". If there ever were an award for false advertising, it would surely go to the clergy and media that propagated that ideology. The fact is that this so-called theology has little to do with traditional Christian doctrine. According to Liberation Theology dogma, Salvation is not an issue of faith or heaven, but of bringing about a social revolution resulting in a Kingdom of God on earth, which looks a lot like the worker's paradise described in the gospel according to St. Marx. God is a remote figure out there that may or may not care about you. If He does care, the Liberation priest will let you know. Jesus Christ may or may not be divine, but He was a good man, and most of all he was a rebel who was oppressed and then killed by the evil imperialists. The Bible is a revolutionary guidebook, and many parts of it are relevant, most of it not. Sin is not a personal issue, but an economic and social condition. Violence is bad, except to fight the oppressors and change the status quo. Of course, this means that violence can be used against not only the oppressors, but also those that support the oppressors, or even those who accept oppression by their passivity. Under Liberation Theology everybody is fair game for a bullet.

I lived though the 'golden years' of Liberation Theology in the epicenter of it in South America and I heard most of their leaders speak, at one time or another. I am specifically referring to Paulo Arns, Helder Camara, Leonardo Boff and Frei Betto (aka, Carlos Alberto Libanio Christo, also known as "I love Fidel"). Let me be very clear: these people had very little to do with Christian doctrine or Christianity and very much to do with Marxist hermeneutics and dialectics, except they are not even honest enough to admit it. Everything they did and said was essentially the same things that the PCB and PC do B (the two major Communist Parties in Brazil) did and said. Every verse, every story in the Bible was deconstructed and rebuilt with a Marxist interpretation. I remember one pamphlet (cartilha) I saw that was 99% Communist doctrine and 1% Christian related. It was about the death and crucifixion of Jesus - well guess what, all of Brazil - every man, woman and child - is being crucified daily by the social injustices inherent to an evil capitalist society. And so on...

One thing John Paul II did understand, however, was Communism. During the burial ceremonies I heard several commentators saying that he did not really understand Liberation Theology or the so-called "option for the poor". Much to the contrary, au contrair - ao contrario meu amigo, the fact is that Pope had spent most of his life among Communists in his native land - people saying cute words and doing evil. So why would it be that the Pope would not know these same people, even if dressed in priestly clothes (batinas, in Portuguese)? I still remember the images of the Pope getting off the plane in Nicaragua and letting one of these left wing bishop have it, not only telling him in no uncertain terms to consider his actions, but even pointing two fingers in his face and shaking them at the guy as he spoke. Ouch!

PBS and the Millennial Pope

I watched the PBS Program honoring the recently deceased Pope. It was a strange combination of "he was a really good guy, but he did bad things, but only because he didn't really understand the issues."

Let me quote from the Frontline program itself, in the words of Roberto Suro: "over the course of ten, fifteen years that idea, that strategy, that priority evolved into many forms of action that get lumped into the idea of liberation theology, but basically means that the Church's primary mission had to somehow bring about change in Latin America." Until then, in most places, the Church had sided with the status quo -- with the rich and powerful. From that time, the hierarchy was undermined because there was conflict between bishops who favored social action and those who were essentially apologists for the upper classes and for the military regimes. According to Suro, John Paul II's condemnation of liberation theology was, "'There will be no double magisterium. There will be no double hierarchy.'" The Pope saw liberation theology, first of all, as a challenge to Church hierarchy. He instinctively reacted against the participatory democracy inside the base communities where priests and congregations mingled freely. Secondly, the Pope distrusted the openness to difference and discussion within these communities. ... He could not see any similarities between the social revolution in Latin America and the democratic revolution in his Poland.... In 1983, he made his famous trip to Central America where his clerics held a number of positions in the left-wing government. John Paul II publicly scolded Ernesto Cardenal. In private, he negotiated the ex-communication of Miguel D'Escoto, a Jesuit who'd joined the Sandinista's government with permission from his order. In 1984, the Brazilian Franciscan Leonardo Boff, a brilliant liberation theologian, was summoned to the Vatican to answer for his latest book. In it, he used Marxist language to critique the Church and analyze its mission. He was silenced, forbidden from speaking or publishing his work. This is from: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/teach/leadership/pope/.

The Frontline program continues: In any case, the new pope soon moved to quash liberation theology's dynamics, without officially declaring it taboo. In Brazil, the pope fired Archbishop Helder Camara, the "red bishop," and replaced him with an archconservative in Brazil's needy northeast region. He curbed the influence of Sao Paulo Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns, a strong proponent of base communities, by carving up his archdiocese in 1989. "We were not understood," said Arns, 83 and now retired, adding that many Catholics became disaffected under the late pope. "A portion of the lay leadership was lost." ... In some areas, the Pope did not receive the support and accolades that he experienced in Eastern Europe. Liberation Theology would be one arena in which his position would cause conflict, debate and heartache for many in the Church. The 1980s found Latin America rife with violent civil wars between right wing regimes and Marxist revolutionaries. Many of the region's Catholic parishes came to believe that the Church had supported the wealthy and powerful for too long. Now, they believed that the Church had to realign itself on the side of the poor. This meant alignment with the Marxists who spoke for the poor in the name of social change. To the Pope, this was an impossible alliance. Given his opposition to Communism he would neither listen to nor entertain discussion on this topic. He advised his priests to find common ground with the current regimes of their host countries and to abandon their notions of "liberation theology", as they referred to their philosophical approach.

No, no, no. There are so many errors in the preceding statement I don't even know where to begin. What the pope did was 100% consistent. He believed the Church should not become a political instrument linked to, or even subordinate to, a specific ideology. The Pope also believed a person that talks like a communist, acts like a communist, associates with communist, praises everything communist, might just be a communist, independently of whether he/she uses a uniform or a robe, and even if he/she would throw in 10% or so of biblical related terms in their speeches. The Pope's opposition to Liberation Theology did not really drive anybody away except the ones who were only there for the Marxism, and they were never really genuine Catholics. As I remember the Pope was cheered by gigantic crowds in all of Latin America. The Pope believed that the Church should operate primarily in a spiritual dimension and that social change and public attitudes would be a consequence of the growth of that spirituality. Well, nice thoughts, but dream on... I am, as I have said, very cynical about human nature. Another fact: the Catholic Church does not intrinsically align itself with either the rich or the poor. Like all organizations, the Catholic Church will give priority to the best interests of the Catholic Church, whatever they may be at a certain time. And one last thing, the problem of the Catholic Church was not its rejection of Liberation Theology. The main problem of the Catholic Church is that society has changed, and the Catholic Church has not. If must change, throwing out the Bible and Tradition and adopting the Hammer and Sickle is not the way. Neither is becoming more liberal the answer, otherwise it becomes like many Anglican / Episcopalian churches, which believe in absolutely nothing (in the Bible) and preach the Gospel of St "Anything Goes". Maybe one day I'll write about the real problems of the Catholic Church.

The fact is that the PBS Frontline story is both inaccurate and misleading. It does not mention the radical leftist nature of the CEBs (Communidades Eclesiaticas de Base, the Base Communities - which were not really democratic) and their direct links to the most radical Marxists groups, and alliance with the slightly less radical labor union (CUT - Central Unica dos Trabalhadores). The fact is that the Liberation Theology folks, the privileged leftist intellectuals, the CUT people, the core membership of the PCB, PC do B, MR-8 and other revolutionary groups were pretty much one and the same. If they did not actually belong to the same club, they sure spent a lot of time drinking cerveja and eating bolinhos together. Their speeches and writings were pretty much indistinguishable. Another thing that Frontline doesn't say is that only a very small portion of Catholic parishes were involved in this ideology, representing an even smaller number of actual poor people. Liberation Theology, as far as I could tell, was a small number of priests, an even smaller number of foolish people, supported and mostly controlled by long established leftwing groups, and glorified by the mainstream media. Most Catholics I knew would clearly say it was a Marxist movement, even the ones that were sympathetic to some of the declared goals of Liberation Theology. Most Catholics were also appalled by the radical politics and even more radical talk that were coming out of the CEBs. Another thing that is not quite right in the program is where it says that the pope "advised his priests to find common ground with the current regimes". What I think John Paul said was that the priests should concern themselves with spiritual issues, not political ones, and that if they wanted to get involved in politics they could do so, but not from the pulpit of a Catholic Church.

So this begs the question: where are all the leftist commentators and intellectuals that so boldly proclaim the "separation of church and state" and denounce any political involvement by the evil "Christian Right" in the US? Had any American evangelical preacher made any political statement or voter recommendation that was even 10 times less direct as the Liberation Theology priests, everybody on the left all over America and Europe would have had a fit. Yet, at the same time, when leftwing and Marxist priests take an active part in politics, even holding office, there is only praise for their "concern for the poor". What hypocrisy!

What is Liberation Theology?

The Frontline program is biased. PBS should not insult people's intelligence with matters that understand not. This is how PBS defines "Liberation Theology" in the glossary in the online article for the "John Paul II: the Millennial Pope" program: Liberation Theology - a theological philosophy rooted in religious practice as well as the struggle for human freedom, justice and social change. Not a word about communism, Marxism, or the small and insignificant fact (to PBS) that these people are not and never were dedicated to freedom or justice. Perhaps PBS did not know that Boff had been to Cuba and then wrote an article calling it basically a "heaven on earth," ignoring the torture, repression and lack of liberty, and even ignoring the discrimination against Catholics openly practiced by Fidel. Boff and his friends were not a little embarrassed when some letters from Catholic bishops in Cuba were smuggled out and published in Brazil, asking if there was, by chance, some other island named "Cuba" because they didn't recognize the one Boff described. Then there was the USSR trip by another leader of the LT movement, which after returning from the USSR called Communist Russia the "freest nation of the planet". This of course, happened as people in Eastern Europe were marching in the streets to get rid of the these same ideologies and the occupying armies of that "freest nation." But, as all leftist radicals and intellectuals known, facts and reality mean nothing, what matter are cute words and nice sweet thoughts.

So John Paul II almost single-handedly destroyed Liberation Theology. He cut their feet off, silenced their voices and took them out of the pulpits. Some, he told, if you want to do politics, that's OK, but not in the church. You are free to go. Others he called to Rome and said "Do you really want to talk about Communism with me? Do you really think you know more about Marxism than I? Silence.

Most Catholics loved the Pope. Some people hated him and most of these weren't even Catholics, just the usual Reds that have been around for almost 100 years. Here is a typical essay about the pope from one of these people:
But what the Pope did was one of the greatest evils in all of history. His systematic destruction of the popular church and Liberation Theologists constitutes a war crime, a crime against humanity and genocide. He should be tried in absentia and all of the church's property and wealth should be transferred to the poor people of Latin America that he persecuted and betrayed so utterly. Only by acknowledging these crimes - crimes that the Pope did admit to some degree in his trip to Mexico, can the church reclaim its mission and that of Christ for a preferential option for the poor. If the church does not move immediately to recognize Oscar Romero as a saint and the true leader of the church then all Catholics, and all people should boycott and attack this decrepit and evil institution." - Anamaria Salvedra, speaking for underground remnants of Liberation Theology in Central America. This is from http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=69280&print_page=true

As some obscure guy named Joseph Ratzinger stated, referring to this subject: In the meantime the Marxist analysis of history and society was largely accepted as the only "scientific" one. This means that the world must be interpreted in terms of the class struggle and that the only choice is between Capitalism and Marxism. It also means that all reality is political and has to justify itself politically. The biblical concept of the 'poor' provides a starting point for fusing the Bible's view of history with Marxist dialectic; it is interpreted by the idea of the proletariat in the marxist sense and thus justifies marxism as the legitimate hermeneutics for understanding the Bible ... Since, according to this view, there are, and can only be, two options, any objection to this interpretation of the Bible is an expression of the ruling class's determination to hold on to its power. A well-known liberation theologian asserts: "The class struggle is a fact; neutrality on this point is simply impossible."

Liberation Theology has a positive side, I guess - for some. Many Brazilians looked at it and decided they wanted no part of it or the Catholic Church, so they turned to evangelical Christianity by the millions. The growth of the evangelical and protestant groups (mostly Pentecostal) in Latin America has been phenomenal. I guess some people prefer the old "love one another" to the hate and anger of Liberation Theology. Imagine that!

Liberation Theology is not dead

Pope John Paul 2 did not destroy Liberation Theology. He just put it into its proper place - outside of the Catholic Church. It is not dead, but it is not the same, either. Liberation Theology has changed. It is no longer Marxism hiding behind Catholic robes; it is now Marxism hiding behind multiculturalism, feminism, anti-globalism and ecology. It has truly come into the 21st century, and is just one more face in the radical left, sitting next to the 'Move on' and Indymedia folks. The people involved are the same and their objectives are identical to those proclaimed in the 1980s, they just have a new vocabulary. Here are some words from the new and improved Mr. Boff: "Liberation theologians cannot accept a market doctrine that brings death to the majority of the human race. Too long we have been enslaved by a paradigm that divides us from Nature. The West-backed globalization agenda seeks to homogenize humanity through the spread of western values. We are for multicultural and multi-faith societies and respect for diverse forms of social and political organization. The Church must break away from the powers of this world and turn its attention to the oppressed who make up two-thirds of the world. We have to reject a Christianity which allies with the ruling classes against the poor." In the 1980s, Boff would never have made a speech like that! Now the enemies are not just Imperialism and Capitalism, but all forms of oppression - political, economic, social, sexual, racial, religious. Yep, Liberation Theology, having done so well in the Catholic Church is now taking on the full multicultural list of the evils of Western Culture. Of all the cultures on this small planet, Western Culture has by far done the most to promote human freedom and lessen exactly those kinds of oppression that he refers to. Yet bird-brain Boff hates these freedoms and attackes the very cultures that lets him do his diarrhia-of-the-mouth thing. How predictable! Well, at least the gay and pedophiles priests will have a place to go to - they will be right at home with the Liberation Theology activists.

A final Word or two...

Let me tell you a secret - I don't like these guys. Last year I wrote a page about the '20 most' important people in Brazil in different categories (politics, art, literature, etc.). Here is what I wrote about these same people, ranking them from 7 to 10 on the list of top 20.
The next four names are what I call the 'Red Catholics': 90% Marxist, 7% humanists, 2% confused and somewhere there must be maybe 1% of Catholic doctrine.
7) DOM HELDER CAMARA - A long battle for social justice for some, and others can go to hell as far as Dom Helder is concerned (And I'm not talking about the rich or powerful, either). This guy knows even less about history than the Bible.
8) DOM PAULO EVARISTO - the voice of an 8-year-old girl trapped in a man's body (maybe that of Barney Fife). JP2 took the poor Cardinal of Sao Paulo to the woodshed soon after being elected pope.
9) LEONARDO BOFF - Mr. Liberation Theology. Made some famous trips. After visiting Cuba he published a letter suggesting he had been to paradise. Some letters from Cuban Catholics (smuggled out of paradise) were soon published asking if by chance there was another Cuba on the planet, since they did not recognize the one described by Old Boffy.
10) FREI BETTO - Lenin wearing a batina (priestly robe). No, I can do better: the love child of Isabella of Castile and Torquemada, raised by Che Guevara and channeling the spirit of Rasputin. As Frei Betto always says: Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto Caesar the things that are God's.

Note: Was I too hard on our Red friends? I think not. For 30 years they have been media darlings, judged by their words rather than their actions and their associations. It was the bad luck of these four guys to have a Pope like John Paul II. As I understand it, the Pope called them in and asked "Do you really want to have a talk about communism with me? Would you really care to explain to me why Marxism is so wonderful? Kind of like Goebels explaining the benefits of nazism to an Auschwitz survivor. Dom Helder is probably the most ignorant person in Brazil, at least as far as history is concerned. Did you know that Churchill asked Stalin to save England after the Germans conquered France? Yep!! This, according to Helder Camera, proved that Socialist regimes were all heart and that nations can work together. Of course the fact that Stalin was a bloody mass murderer or that Russia and Germany were actually allies (non-Aggression pact, dividing up Poland - remember!) at that time does mean anything to Cardinal Helder Camera. What an ass!

I have also written about some of these people in the pages below. Be aware that Frei Beto is no longer in charge of the Zero Fome (Zero Hunger) program. He left, as far as I could tell, because Lula's government wasn't radical enough, and because of the criticisms about his politicalization of the anti-hunger program. Yep, this great humanitarian was playing politics with the children's food.

The twenty most. A list of the twenty most important people in different sectors of Brazilian life in the 20th century, from politics to art and literature. It was published by Isto � magazine and is very good, but it needs some corrections. At the end of the page I have added two more rankings: the happiest Brazilians and a list of the most corrupt. You must really know Brazil to follow this subject.

Fome Zero, the Zero Hunger program.A look at President Lula's plan to end hunger in Brazil. This is a page about the Zero Hunger (Fome Zero) program and how it is perceived by different parts of society. In Brazil nothing is simple - and nothing is sacred. No matter how noble the goals, no matter what a person does, or how he does it, there will be those who are critical of it, and those who will find humor in the whole thing.

Lasted updaded last week...