The Discomfort of Liberation

It seems to me that when the church strays too far in one direction, a new movement springs up to pull it back the other way. These forces pulling it back are often deemed radical, heretical, and in error. Yet, if there wasn’t an element of truth in them, no one would really care. This back-and-forth is one way that people, and the societal and political structures they create, naturally meander through history. It’s a sort of awkward, slow, raucous and sometimes even violent way humanity finds, shifts and focuses its communal consensus.

One of the relatively new and controversial theological movements in Catholicism, and perhaps in Christianity in general, is Liberation Theology (here's a good intro to it). It focuses on Christ as a liberator and seeks to speak of God from the perspective of the poor and oppressed of the world. It came from Latin America as theologians, priests and bishops there sought to address the condition of their people and society. They saw the poor being taken advantage of by the upper classes, and their countries at the mercy of First-World capitalist imperialism. Reading the Gospels and contemplating them from the view of the poor, they saw much of Christ’s mission in terms of liberation from poverty and oppression. The Gospel message of liberation is then seen not only in spiritual terms, but in real, materialistic, social and political terms. Jesus not only wants to liberate our spiritual side, but also our worldly side.

In Latin America this message of liberation was very dangerous for religious leaders to espouse. Dom Hélder Câmara, a Brazilian archbishop and early proponent of Liberation Theology, once said something like ‘If I give food to the poor, they call me saint. If I ask why the poor have not been eating, they call me a communist.’ As Liberation Theology led to the criticism of the social circumstances of the poor, it also led to passionate criticism of and action against the governments that were seen as oppressors of the poor. After a few years of protesting the social and political condition in El Salvador, Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated while saying mass. In 1980 three nuns and a laywoman were kidnapped and killed by the Salvadoran government. More recently in 1989, six Jesuits along with their housekeeper and her daughter were murdered.

Liberation Theology got into theological trouble in a couple areas. It’s frequently criticized for its affinity for Marxism. Its focus on liberation of the oppressed often leads it into a Marxist view of class struggle and historical materialism. If one’s situation is what shapes how one views the world and the options for the future, then there’s no place for the constancy of the church, salvation, Christ, and so on - that’s how the criticism seems to go. Liberation Theology is also disparaged because when it focuses so much on Christ’s liberation, it often starts to discount Christ’s redemption.

In 1984 Cardinal Ratzinger came down on Liberation Theology, calling it a fundamental threat to the faith of the church. Pope John Paul 2 also spoke against it. Though these criticisms are often mentioned, we don’t often hear their context. For example, Ratzinger narrowed the scope of his definition: ‘the concept of liberation theology will be understood in a narrower sense: it will refer only to those theologies which, in one way or another, have embraced the marxist fundamental option’. Of course, one can conveniently argue that the whole theology is wedded to Marxism. But Ratzinger also noted its value as ‘a theology which stresses the responsibility which Christians necessarily hear for the poor and oppressed’.

So anyway, with all that said, I like Liberation Theology and think it has a valuable role to play in the church. It’s not all good, certainly; but neither is it all bad. It’s like an eccentric family member who makes me feel uncomfortable because they point out how I ignore the poor and wallow in my consumerism. While I wouldn’t want to be like them and go live in an Ecclesial Base Community, their prodding does remind me of my part in the social and political environment that perpetuates poverty and oppression. It reminds me that personal holiness that doesn’t lead to justice is hollow, and faith without works is dead. While I may disdain the lack of importance Christ’s redemption plays in their life, they point to how unjust it is that I live a life built on the backs of the poor and oppressed. In the end, I think we’re both right.

So, your thoughts and comments are welcome. Please be charitable and backup your thoughts with your reasoning and feelings; approach it as an opportunity for us all to grow and learn.

Comments

[crystal]

I see a lot of value in liberation theology, because I believe in the worth of our lives here - I think Jesus felt the same way ... he came, he said, to give us a more abundant life and his ministry included healing those who were sick, advising we give money to the poor, and even raising the dead. I don't understand why there are worries that, with liberation theology, some think that redemption loses its value.

I became a catholic/christian through the teaching of the Jesuits and in General Congregation 34, the Society of Jesus writes ...

Ignatius and his followers began their preaching in poverty. They worked with the powerful and the powerless, with princes, kings, and bishops, but also with the women of the street and with the victims of the plague. They linked their ministry to the powerful to the needs of the powerless.

Today, whatever our ministry, we Jesuits enter into solidarity with the poor, the marginalized, and the voiceless, in order to enable their participation in the processes that shape the society in which we all live and work. They, in their turn ... show us the way to inculturate Gospel values in situations where God is forgotten.

Liberation theology is linked with socialism/marxism but I think that's because in Latin America, the governments that oppress the poor are usually right-wing ... in truth, I believe liberation theology desires to help those who are powerless rather than to promote any particular political view.

Sorry to be so lengthy :-)

[SpiritScout]

I like your assessment. I have learned a lot from liberation theologians. It is a shame they are so quickly discredited. I've been reading Dorothee Solle, and would recommend her for her feminine perspective on theologies of liberation.

[Jennifer]

When I first heard of Liberation Theology I was well outside the Church and I remember thinking at the time "this is what Catholicism should be like everywhere." The mere existence of Liberation Theology is one of many reasons I could never discount the Church entirely -- because it allowed room for the growth of radically Christian ideas in our very secular world. It is a shame it has become so linked with Marxism, but I agree with the previous poster that the link grew out of a reaction to the right-wing politics at work destroying most of Latin America.

[American Phoenix]

I have a very different take on Liberation Theology, having very good friends who lived through the civil war in El Salvador and who suffered through those times along with the local population. The local Jesuits there were nothing short of Marxists who really were telling people that it was okay to steal from those who were "richer". Never mind that my friend - the person whom they were stealing from - did all kinds of charitable work with the local indigenous population. Never mind that her only salary was a teacher's salary. Whatever happened to the Eighth Commandment - "Thou shalt not steal"? Did that one just go flying out the window? As you note, then Cardinal Ratzinger's 1984 Instruction on Certain Aspects of Liberation Theology is "instructive" in that it is a brand of Catholicism that has become wedded to Marxism. In that regard, it seems to me to be nothing short of heretical and unorthodox. While that may seem harsh to some, I have never found that good Christian charity or concern for the poor ever required that I be a Marxist - far from it. And neither did my friend. For a really detailed and historical look at the development of Liberation Theology and its primary proponents, I would recommend The Jesuits: The Society of Jesus and the Betrayal of the Roman Catholic Church by Malachi Martin. It's an excellent book. The Jesuits, at least most of them, still don't seem to get it. After the discussion that I had with the President of my Jesuit alma mater, I have concluded that I can no longer send them any donations in good conscience. I would prefer to support a truly Catholic institution.

[crystal]

To call all liberation theology Marxist is incorrect ... at its base, it is perhaps socialist and remember that the first christian community was somewhat socialist - The community of believers were of one heart and one mind. None of them ever claimed anything as his own; rather, everything was held in common. - Acts 4:32)

About Malachi Martin, Wikipedia says of him, in part ...

Martin's writings frequently present a dark, and often paranoid, view of the world, invoking at every turn, dark spirits and sodomites, demonic posession and cannabilism, lesbians and blasphemy, heresy and pedophilia, betrayal and conspiracy, satanism and human sacrifice, each being asserted as rife throughout the Catholic church, from its lowest levels to its highest .... The authenticity of Malachi Martin's writings and viewpoints was seriously called into question by the 2002 book Clerical Error by former Vatican Time Magazine correspondent Kaiser. In his autobiographical book (as above) Kaiser accuses Martin of (being) ... a liar and fantasist.

[Steve Bogner]

Crystal - No need to apologize! Thanks for your contributions here, they are sincerely appreciated.

Jennifer - I wasn't so far out of the church whe I heard about Liberation Theology, but I remember having similar thoughts. That there was room for some new thought to surface and gain traction was refreshing.

SpiritScout - Thanks for visiting & commenting! I'll admit I haven't read, or know much about the feminine aspect of theology; but I'll keep Solle in mind next time I'm searching for a new book.

A.P. - Sorry to hear you've had some bad experiences with Jesuits. I've had many, many positive ones. Jesuit preaching, my Jesuit parish, the Spiritual Exercises and Ignatian spirituality in general pulled me back into the church when I, and my family, were at an all-time low. Regardless of what the six Salvadoran Jesuits were doing, surely it didn't justify their brutal murder. Regarding Ratzinger's instruction, it looks to me like he qualified it to a certain scope of Liberation Theology, and he noted it's positive aspects too. When LT does drift into marxism, that's bad. But that seems more like a weakness of the people living it than of the theology itself. An implementation problem, I suppose.

But then, I don't know that God wants us living according to a particular theology anyway. That Christ lives in us, and we develop & nurture that relationship is the root of it all. I don't know that a person needs much theology to do that.

[Rob Marsh, SJ]

It used to amaze me that conversations about liberation theology so quickly get polarised into opposing factions. Now I tend to see it as a direct consequence of what LT is about: that our talk about God cannot help but be communal, social, and political. Or it can avoid that only by pretending that all that matters is God in Godself or God's relationship with me privately or God's opinions about my behaviour as an individual. In addition to those three aspects of theology there is all that Jesus spoke of in his ministry about the way we live together, the way we spend our time and resources, the way we allot power among us, the way we address poverty and need. You can't speak of God in these terms without getting very concrete very quickly--and when you do serious questions surface not just about what to believe but what to do. And that's threatening to us all. None of that has been cast into question by the Vatican. Indeed, Pope Benedict's own social analysis of the state of modern Europe asks many of the same questions.

The aspect of Liberation Theology that disturbs me most is 'the epistemological priority of the poor'--the idea that theologising from a comfortable position 'about' the poor and oppressed is always distorted. The language of LT speaks of the poor becoming subjects of history rather than objects of it. There are obvious echoes of Marxism there but, I think, only echoes. The truth that disturbs me I don't doubt--that if i want to speak of the poor I must first listen to them, listen deeply, even experience something of their poverty. If I don't I will never understand them--and probably never understand the gospel either.

[crystal]

About speaking of "the poor" ... I think most of us lucky ones have the idea that those in poverty are very different from us, practically another species :-). Actually they are us and we are them, or could easily be .... lose your health, lose your job, lose your savings, lose your home, lose your social status and maybe hope too. One reason it might be easier to look the other way, or to look at them through institutionalized eyes, is that if we see "the poor" clearly, we'll see we're not different.

[Rob]

Crystal: You may be dead right. But LT, as I read it, disagrees, at least to the length of affirming that "the poor" really are different. Switching between "rich" and "poor" is more than a change in personal situation (resources, opportunities, etc.). It implies switching sides in an invisible system of power that the "rich" construct and cover up. Gutierrez, if I remember rightly, has a lot to say about different kinds of poverty.

Individually I am no different to a starving Zimbabwean woman with AIDS and my own personal poverties of health or wealth will surely increase my empathy for her and maybe move me to some charitable works for her. The difficult question is whether she, from her social vantage point, can recognise that I am not that different to her, whether she wants to claim me as kin.

What is clear (to me at least) is that Jesus claims kinship with her and all the little ones, and claims his Father does too. LT calls it God's preferential option for the poor. This has been controversial precisely because it raises the theological problem of difference. Does God not love all people indifferently? Of course we want to say yes--there are many good reasons to defend that idea. But doesn't God have a character, have desires, have a project, a kingdom which creates real differences among us? It's hard to see how we could say no to that either.

[crystal]

Didn't J also mention widows, orphans, captives, refugees, the blind, etc ... maybe it isn't just the poor but people who are needy or disenfrachised?

Maybe back then, people's economic condition remained fairly stable - poor people didn't usually become rich or the rich poor, which would make more of a "culture" of poverty? But now, though it may not happen often, someone like the poor woman in Africa might have a change in financial station ... would she then still be a "poor" person? You ask if she could see you as kin - I believe people who are disadvantaged are indeed like everyone else ... they have less/no power and their personal identity has been affected by their negative experiences but they have the same desires (though less of theirs are realized), the same fears (though more of theirs are realized).

The idea that poor people are different from others is like the idea that disabled people are different. If you are blind, for instance, you go to a school for the blind (I wouldn't go), you get a job that blind people can do (I wouldn't take those jobs), you hang out with blind people so that you can have the "power" of solidarity with your kind (read = separate but equal), and as that Sasoon poem says, you won't really mind, because people will be kind.

Society keeps them different, keeps them separate, keeps them poor.

[Rob]

I think we might be saying very similar things. I'm just trying to emphasize the social system the way liberation theology does. Imagine by a gift of great charity that all the poor people in Africa were magically given the money and resources to no longer be poor. But if the local and global economic and social and political systems didn't change they would manufacture poverty all over again.

Mrs. Thatcher was notorious in Britain for saying society doesn't exist just people. I think she was wrong.

[crystal]

Sorry - I wandered way off topic with that last post.

I see, I think ... broken human nature = unjust societies = poverty? Society/governments can change, but can human nature?

To say poverty can be eradicated may be naive, but to say it's impossible to eradicate, to say the poor will always be with us, seems worse.

[American Phoenix]

Crystal - The "shoot the messenger" approach is really unfortunate. This book on the Jesuits is the only one by Malachi Martin that I have ever read. Whether he is controversial or not, the book is indeed excellent and gives a very good background on both the Jesuit order and the rise of Liberation Theology from a philosophical, theological, and historical perspective - which started well before Gutierrez. I highly recommend it. Give it a read and see what you think before making a judgment on it.

Anyone can write anything and there have been many attempts to defame Malachi Martin, not all of them true. With respect to lesbians and blasphemy, heresy and pedophilia, betrayal and conspiracy, I think we are now all very well aware just how much priest pedophilia there has been in the Catholic church, that 80% of it was homosexual in nature, that the laity were betrayed on a massive level, and in some cases, that some of the bishops actually conspired to simply move some of these priest pedophiles from parish to parish. So mayby Fr. Martin wasn't quite so wrong after all, even if he seems extreme. I don't really wish to engage in a defense of Fr. Martin, however, because I know next to nothing about him and this is the only book by him that I have ever read. I just thought that it was a very worth while read on the particular subject matter.

With respect to Acts 4:32, I would remind you that Christians are free to join - or not join - a community that holds all property in common as many monasteries and convents do. It would hardly be Christian behavior to force someone into such a community or to steal their possessions, however, thereby tossing out the Eighth Commandment as irrelevant.

To the extent that Liberation Theology is even a little bit Marxist/socialist, how can it be truly 100% Catholic? Catholicism isn't Marxism any more than it is Capitalism. Catholicism is so much more than an economic or political system. And to the extent that people in Marxist and socialist countries are/were not free, just how "liberating" is Liberation Theology really?

From the complete Instruction:

6. In the case of Marxism, in the particular sense given to it in this context, a preliminary critique is all the more necessary since the thought of Marx is such a global vision of reality that all data received form observation and analysis are brought together in a philosophical and ideological structure, which predetermines the significance and importance to be attached to them. The ideological principles come prior to the study of the social reality and are presupposed in it. Thus no separation of the parts of this epistemologically unique complex is possible. If one tries to take only one part, say, the analysis, one ends up having to accept the entire ideology. That is why it is not uncommon for the ideological aspects to be predominant among the things which the "theologians of liberation" borrow from Marxist authors.

7. The warning of Paul VI remains fully valid today: Marxism as it is actually lived out poses many distinct aspects and questions for Christians to reflect upon and act on. However, it would be "illusory and dangerous to ignore the intimate bond which radically unites them, and to accept elements of the Marxist analysis without recognizing its connections with the ideology, or to enter into the practice of class-struggle and of its Marxist interpretation while failing to see the kind of totalitarian society to which this process slowly leads." [22]

8. It is true that Marxist thought ever since its origins, and even more so lately, has become divided and has given birth to various currents which diverge significantly from each other. To the extent that they remain fully Marxist, these currents continue to be based on certain fundamental tenets which are not compatible with the Christian conception of humanity and society. In this context, certain formulas are not neutral, but keep the meaning they had in the original Marxist doctrine. This is the case with the "class-struggle." This expression remains pregnant with the interpretation that Marx gave it, so it cannot be taken as the equivalent of "severe social conflict", in an empirical sense. Those who use similar formulas, while claiming to keep only certain elements of the Marxist analysis and yet to reject the analysis taken as a whole, maintain at the very least a serious confusion in the minds of their readers.

9. Let us recall the fact that atheism and the denial of the human person, his liberty and rights, are at the core of the Marxist theory. This theory, then, contains errors which directly threaten the truths of the faith regarding the eternal destiny of individual persons. Moreover, to attempt to integrate into theology an analysis whose criterion of interpretation depends on this atheistic conception is to involve oneself in terrible contradictions. What is more, this misunderstanding of the spiritual nature of the person leads to a total subordination of the person to the collectivity, and thus to the denial of the principles of a social and political life which is in keeping with human dignity.

My friend did not thus find Liberation Theology to be particularly "liberating", particularly after the Marxist government in Nicaragua started it's Soviet funded insurgency into El Salvador. Did you know that there were Jesuit priests who were proponents of Liberation Theology in the Nicaraguan communist government at the cabinet level? Did you know that the government was committing genocide against the Miskito Indians and two other indigenous tribes?

One final comment: I have been "disabled" my entire life. I've never looked at it that way. I went to a regular school, became a lawyer, etc., etc. Society didn't "do" anything to me. I succeeded because I had to. Some of my friends are also disabled, and while some of them need some assistance, they went to regular schools and function just fine in a relatively normal environment. Not everyone wants "separate but equal." You say you wouldn't go. Most of the disabled people I know don't want it either. They just want to be "normal folk" like everyone else.

Steve Bogner - I have not had only bad experiences with Jesuits. There have been good ones too. Besides my parents and our diocesan parish priest, it was a Jesuit priest that brought me back to Catholicism after 20 years of turning my back on my faith. A lot of that had to do with some very bad experiences of other Jesuits. I saw a real war go on between Jesuits in college and it wasn't pretty. I saw orthodox Jesuits get silenced and otherwise marginalized by other Jesuits who weren't and who had big plans to change the church and fashion it into something of their own making - not Christ's. They say every great heresy starts with priests. It is no different now than in past centuries.

You are absolutely right that what the Jesuits were doing did not justify their murder. I would never argue that.

I think you're also right that living as a Christian has nothing to do with any particular theology - but it does have to do with living as Jesus taught us. When I start to get crabby or cross with someone, I try to remember to ask myself this one question: "Are you treating this person as you would treat Jesus Christ?" It's amazing how that works to put me in that other person's shoes and to eliminate the bad attitude from myself. :)

Ignatian spirituality is a truly wonderful thing. I made my first full Ignatian retreat last March. It was wonderful, but so powerful as to be almost overwhelming. There were so many thoughts going through my head I couldn't contain them all. Like pieces of a puzzle just coming together for me. The retreat wasn't, however, being conducted by Jesuits. Interesting, no? It was being conducted by a diocesan, who happened to be two years ahead of me in college. Same experiences as me with the Jesuits in college and that's why he became a diocesan. Same personal experiences with the same Jesuit priest as me who brought me back to the faith - and who undoubtedly had a lot to do with his becoming a priest too.

Rob - I think you have hit the theological "nail" on the head. This really is an issue of whether Liberation Theology says that one social class of human beings is somehow qualitatively different than another. If they are, where in the grand scheme of things does freedom fit in? What about conscience and responsibility to the moral law? I think it isn't only God who creates differences among us and who indeed loves all of us indifferently, but we human beings also create differences amongst ourselves, via our choices.

Ratzinger writes (from the link in the original post above):

Love consists in the "option for the poor"; i.e., it coincides with opting for the class struggle. In opposition to "false universalism"'; the liberation theologians emphasize very strongly the partiality and partisan nature of the Christian option; in their view, taking sides is the fundamental presupposition for a correct hermeneutics of the biblical testimony. Here, I think, one can see very clearly that amalgam of a basic truth of Christianity and an un-Christian fundamental option which makes the whole thing so seductive: The Sermon on the Mount is indeed God taking sides with the poor. But to interpret the "poor" in the sense of the marxist dialectic of history, and "taking sides with them" in the sense of the class struggle, is a wanton attempt to portray as identical things that are contrary.

[Rob]

The theological question of difference needs a more nuanced answer than offered by the poles of "identical" and "contrary". The problem of the Other, their difference and their similarity to me, is fundamental to Modernity. We tend to see difference as either an illusory surface phenomenon under which others are basically identical to ourselves, whether we state that in terms of a common human nature or a sympathy of experience, or we see difference as absolute contrariness -- so that there are fundamental barriers of understanding between genders, between cultures, between races, between classes. What is the significance of our differences? Either option makes difference meaningless. But there is the possibility that it is our differences which make it possible for there to be significance at all. Genuine difference is the foothold for a significant presence, the way that writing has a foothold in the difference between ink and page.

One of the achievements of liberation theology -- purely in terms of theological ideas -- has been to highlight and attempt to handle the problem of difference. LT is an attempt to bring together the theologies of Creation and Redemption which have tended to drift apart. The Marxist version of that bringing together is dialectical materialism and however thoroughly we reject it we still need to find a better answer. Liberation theologies, among others, are working at bridging that gap.

[Steve Bogner]

A.P. - Thanks for your thoughtful response, it's obvious you've spent some time and effort on it, and that's appreciated.

When you said 'I think it isn't only God who creates differences among us and who indeed loves all of us indifferently, but we human beings also create differences amongst ourselves, via our choices' I was nodding my head in agreement. And I think that is one thing that LT strives to get people to realize - that our choices as individuals affect the poor. LT sees this in terms of class oppression, and there is truth in that model.

Rob, I like how you stated that LT strives to bring Creation and Redemption closer. They go together, a package-deal.

Crystal - I do think broken human nature = unjust societies. With LT's focus on unjust society, the oppression of the poor and so on, I'm surprised that I haven't read much about the role of personal holiness (to address broken human nature) in LT. Maybe I haven't read enough.

[Rich Leonardi]

Rob, I like how you stated that LT strives to bring Creation and Redemption closer. They go together, a package-deal.

Pace Steve's charitable attempt to find what is good in LT, it seems somewhat akin to saluting Hitler for the virtues of the autobahn. Everywhere it was lived, this theology became an exercise in violence, materialism, and pride. In any event, it thankfully has been in steady decline for twenty years. The focal point for most heterodox theologians these days is "pluralism." Witness Xavier University's Paul Knitter's censured ruminations in recent years.

[American Phoenix]

Steve Bogner - If Liberation Theology teaches us that our choices affect the poor, than it seems to me to be no different than true orthodox Christian Catholic teaching about free will. Of course our choices affect the poor, just as the choices of so many different governments NOT to intervene in Rwanda condemned so many to death! But by the same token, the poor have choices as well. Is it moral to steal from the rich and break the Eighth Commandment simply because they are "richer" than you are? Does the end - a just society - justify the means - murder and violence? Is every rich person evil simply because they are rich and a part of the class that must be opposed, overturned, and struggled against? And what happens when the poor obtain wealth by these means and become part of the class they have been struggling against? One of the huge problems with Liberation Theology, in my view, is that it frames things in terms of "class" oppression and not in terms of "individual" free will. The choice is all on one side, with no responsibility on the other.

Fr. Marsh - I don't see how Liberation Theology has achieved anything in addressing the problem of "difference". God makes every one of us unique and different. We all contribute different things - some large and some small - in God's plan, just as the Little Flower wrote in her autobiography. At the same time, the Catholic Church's teachings on free will are a very adequate explanation of differences in this world - and in how we will be judged in the next. I don't see how Liberation Theology has added anything to what was already there in the first place.

[crystal]

One last word about Marxism and LT - the easy way to dismiss LT is to wed it to Marxism, a philosophy none of us really want to defend. Nowdays, LT is not about Marxism ... as Oscar Andrés Rodríguez de Maradiaga, the Archbishop of Tegucigalpa in Honduras, says in an article in the Tablet ...

... in the 1970s and 1980s most Latin American countries were governed by dictatorships, which meant that the normal channels of expression – press and assembly – were closed off. Base communities became “the only spaces in which to breathe and to develop political opposition”. But now that Latin American governments are civilian-democratic, the challenge for the popular movements in the Church is to bring an ethical sense into politics, to teach a sense of the common good.

The issues are human rights and a preferential option for the poor ... these issues are central to the Catholic Church and they cannot be divided from her by the fear of outdated political philosophies (Marxism).

And one other note - there is no valid connection between homosexuality and pedophilia ...

Are homosexual adults in general sexually attracted to children and are preadolescent children at greater risk of molestation from homosexual adults than from heterosexual adults? There is no reason to believe so. The research to date all points to there being no significant relationship between a homosexual lifestyle and child molestation. There appears to be practically no reportage of sexual molestation of girls by lesbian adults, and the adult male who sexually molests young boys is not likely to be homosexual. -
Groth, A. N., & Gary, T. S. (1982). Heterosexuality, homosexuality, and pedophilia: Sexual offenses against children and adult sexual orientation. In A.M. Scacco (Ed.), Male rape: A casebook of sexual aggressions (pp. 143-152). New York: AMS Press.

[Rich Leonardi]

And one other note - there is no valid connection between homosexuality and pedophilia ...

Recognizing that this is a bit off topic, but pedophilia involves the sexual violation of prepubescent children. By and large the crisis in the Church involved homosexual priests attracted to teenage boys and young men, a different thing.

[crystal]

Sorry Rich - I was responding to American Phoenix when she said ...

I think we are now all very well aware just how much priest pedophilia there has been in the Catholic church, that 80% of it was homosexual in nature ...

[Mary H.]

I really haven't done enough reading about Liberation Theology to participate in this discussion, but I do not believe that the right to private property is an absolute. Certainly as human beings created by God, the right to equal access to resources is also important.

Here is an excerpt from Vatican II document, Gaudium et Spes, (number 69.)
If one is in extreme necessity, he has the right to procure for himself what he needs out of the riches of others.(11) Since there are so many people prostrate with hunger in the world, this sacred council urges all, both individuals and governments, to remember the aphorism of the Fathers, "Feed the man dying of hunger, because if you have not fed him, you have killed him,"(12) and really to share and employ their earthly goods, according to the ability of each, especially by supporting individuals or peoples with the aid by which they may be able to help and develop themselves.
I believe Sr. Dorothy Stang, SND – a 73-year old Sister of Notre Dame de Namur from Dayton, Ohio, murdered last year for working with the landless in Brazil and trying to protect the rain forest, is an example for us.

[American Phoenix]

Crystal - Read the Instruction. It's not that I'm dismissing Liberation Theology. It's that it IS linked to Marxism whether you want it to be that way or not. Ignoring the link won't make that link go away. I think Archbishop Maradiaga is wrong about a few things too. He opposes the Iraq war too (Saddam is no longer at large even if Osama still rules a cave), but by the same token he acknowledges that much of Latin America is now civilian-democratic - because the United States intervened.

Human rights doesn't need to have anything to do with Liberation Theology. It does have everything to do with being a Christian Catholic.

The words "preferential option for the poor" originated at the 1968 Conference of Catholic Bishops in Medellin, Columbia. The way those words have been interpreted over the years, in their Liberation Theology context, was that Christ preferred the poor/working class to the rich. In other words, they were given the definition of the Marxist class struggle. But Christ never singled out the proletariat with a preferential option in their favor. He didn't act on a sociological theory about economic inequality and the political opposition between classes. He didn't work towards armed revolution or political liberation. He didn't prefer the poor to the positive exclusion of the rich any more than He preferred children to exclusion of adults. The way I see it, Christ preferred goodness and holiness and innocence. He preferred faith and humility and fidelity to God's law - wherever He found it. And that included his rich friends like Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathea, Lazarus, etc., as well as His poor ones.

As for the pedophilia issue, which is way off topic - my apologies, it really doesn't matter to me whether the children were prepubescent or teenagers. They were minor children against whom crimes were committed. That's all that matters to me.

78% of that child abuse was homosexual in nature, as the John Jay report showed. Nearly 20% of that child abuse was, by your own definition, pedophilic in nature - prepubescent boys, with the remainder being teenage boys. That's not an insignificant number. I don't think it's an accident that the number of victims peaked during the 1970s - the height of the homosexual movement.

As to the issue of there being no valid connection between homosexuality and pedophilia, I remain unconvinced. I would recommend you read this very thought provoking article.

[crystal]

Hi American Phoenix - by now, I feel almost as if we are becoming buddies :-)

1) I see that the Instruction links LT to Marxism but that doesn't make it so ... I hope saying such a thing doesn't get me burned at the stake :-)

2) I belive the fact that Latin America now has less right wing dictatorships and more democratic states is not because of US intervention ... quite the opposite. American leaders developed a policy of supporting those authoritarian regimes because they were seen as stable, anti-communist, and capitalist.

3) You say Christ preferred goodness and holiness and innocence ... I don't agree. Remember who he hung out with? Tax collectors and prostitutes.

4) According to what I've read about sexual abuse (if you want, I can find sources), pedophiles are not attracted exclusively to either male or female young people .... they don't discriminate between the sexes but choose whatever child is available. In a church setting, you mostly have male priests alone with boys and young men, rather then girls. The fact that the abuse took place between a male adult and a male child does not = homosexulaity. Homosexuals are attracted to adults of the same sex, not to children.

[Rob]

Something this discussion makes very plain is one of the LT's chief insights: how we argue, what we believe to be self-evident, what will convince us or not, is influenced by our 'social location'. Our 'politics' (with a little 'p') seems to come before our capacity to gather and assess evidence, before our ability to listen. It creates a difference between us and we then tend to use argument to deepen the difference into an absolute chasm.

The flip side of that, as someone above mentioned, is 'radical pluralism' -- the idea that all our opinions are equally valid or invalid -- and our differences are illusory.

How then do we seek a way of debate and exchange that recognises our political and social differences and really makes something significant of them -- even something beautiful. I think that's an open philosophical and theological question but an urgent one.

[Steve Bogner]

Rob - I was hoping you'd bring an answer with that question! 'How then do we seek a way of debate and exchange that recognises our political and social differences and really makes something significant of them -- even something beautiful?' That's an answer I'd like to see.

All - I don't understand the big concern with Marxism, really. It seems to me to be an implementation problem with LT, that is sure. But it doesn't look to me that Marxism by nature has to follow LT. That it has in the past is probably due more the situation on the ground than a requirement of LT.

LT shines a bright light on unjust social structures and the oppression of the poor. I agree that more traditional, church-friendly theologies and spirituality can shine a similar light, but they didn't in Latin America. If they would have, then LT wouldn't have had the energy to germinate and grow. Maybe one question is then why did LT develop in the first place? I see it as a response to the needs of the local church, that has applications for the church at large.

I'm not willing to throw the whole theology out the window simply due to the fact that some of its theologians and implementors have linked it with Marxism. Test all and hold on to what is good - and there's a lot of good in LT, in my opinion.

I might open another topic on priestly pedophilia later - seems there's a need to talk about that one too.... hint, hint.