Categoria: English

The war between the Liberation Theology movement and Rome is over

Leonardo Boff2 Comentários
Muitos solicitaram uma versão inglesa deste texto importante sobre a nova relação da Teologia da Libertação com o Vaticano e vice-versa. Aqui segue pois a versão: Lboff

 

 

Gerhard Ludwig Müller

GERHARD LUDWIG MÜLLER

The Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Gerhard Ludwig Müller, pays tribute to the Liberation Theology movement honouring his long friendship with Peruvian theologian Gutiérrez

GIANNI VALENTE
VATICAN CITY

“The Latin American ecclesial and theological movement known as “Liberation Theology”, which spread to other parts of the world after the Second Vatican Council, should in my opinion be included among the most important currents in 20th century Catholic theology.” This authoritative and glorifying historical evaluation of Liberation Theology did not just come from some ancient South American theologian who is out of touch wit the times. The above statement was made by Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which Ratzinger headed in the 1980’s, after John Paul I appointed him to the post. The Prefect gave two instructions, warning against pastoral and doctrinal deviations from Latin American theological currents of thought.

This decisive comment about the Liberation Theology movement is not just some witty remark that happened to escape the mouth of the current custodian of Catholic orthodoxy. The same balanced opinion pervades the densely written pages of “On the Side of the Poor. The Theology of Liberation”, a collection of essays co-written with liberation theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez and published in Germany in 2004. Gutiérrez invented the formula for defining the Liberation Theology movement, whose actions were – for a long time – closely scrutinised by the Ratzinger-led Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The movement was not criticised once during this time.

Today the book seems to wave goodbye in a way to the theological wars of the past and the hostility that flash up now and again, to cause alarm on purpose.

The book put an official seal on a common path the two had followed for many years. Müller never hid his closeness to Gustavo Gutiérrez, whom he met in Lima in 1988, during a study seminar. During the ceremony for the honorary degree which the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru granted to Müller in 2008, the then bishop of Regensburg defined the theological thought of his master and Peruvian friend as fully orthodox. In the months before Müller’s nomination as head of the dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, some claimed his closeness to Gutiérrez proved he was not suited to the role previously held by Cardinal Ratzinger (24 long years).

In the book’s essays, the two authors/friends back each other up. Müller says the merits of Liberation Theology go beyond the Latin American Catholic. The Prefect stressed that in recent decades, Latin America’s Liberation Theology movement has been oriented towards the image of Jesus Christ the Redeemer and liberator, an image all genuinely Christian theological currents are oriented towards. This stems from an evangelical inclination towards the poor. Müller affirmed that “poverty in Latin America oppresses children, the elderly and the sick,” to such an extent that many are driven to “contemplate death as the only way out.” Right from the outset, the Liberation Theology movement “forced” theological movements founded elsewhere, not to consider the real living conditions of people and individuals as something abstract. He saw “the body of Christ” in the poor, as Pope Francis does.

The arrival of the Catholic Church’s first Latin American Pope made it possible to look at those years and experience without being conditioned by the controversies that raged at the time. Without the ritualism of the false mea culpas and superficial changes, it is easier today to see that the hostility shown by certain sections of the Church towards the Liberation Theology movement was politically motivated and did not really stem from a desire to preserve and spread the faith of the apostles. Those who paid the price were the theologians and pastors who were completely immersed in the evangelical faith of their people. They either ended up in the mince or faded into the shadows. For a long time, the hostility shown towards the Liberation Theology movement was invaluable factor in helping some climb the ecclesiastical career ladder.

In one of his speeches, Müller (who in an interview on 27 December 2012 suggested it was likely a Latin American would substitute Ratzinger as Pope) did not hesitate to describe the political and geopolitical factors that had influenced certain “crusades” against the Liberation Theology movement: “the satisfaction of depriving the Liberation Theology movement of all meaning was intensified by capitalism’s sense of triumph, which was probably considered to have gained absolute victory. It was seen as an easy target that could be fitted into the same category as revolutionary violence and Marxist terrorism,” Müller said. He referred to a secret document prepared for President Reagan by the Committee of Santa Fé in 1980 (so 4 years before the Vatican’s first Instruction on the Liberation Theology movement), requesting that the U.S. government take aggressive action against the movement, which was accused of transforming the Catholic Church into “a political weapon against private property and productive capitalism by infiltrating the religious community with ideas that are less Christian than communist.” Müller said: “The impertinence shown by the document’s authors, who are themselves guilty of brutal military dictatorships and powerful oligarchies, is disturbing. Their interest in private property and the capitalist production system has replaced Christianity as a criterion.”

The human being as the hub of all relationships

Leonardo BoffDeixe um comentário

In 1845 Karl Marx wrote his famous 11 Thesis on Feuerbach, published only in 1888 by Engels.  In the sixth thesis, Marx says something true but reductionist: «The human essence is the gathering of social relations». In effect, the human essence cannot be imagined independently of social relations, but it is much more than that, because it is the result of the combination of these social relations.

Descriptively, without trying to define the human essence, it appears as a point of relationships of the greatest complexity, facing all directions: upwards, downwards, to the inside and outwards. It is like a rhizome, a bulb with roots in all directions. The human being is defined by the degree to which it activates this collection of relationships, not only the social ones.

In other words, the human being is characterized by its appearance as an unlimited opening: towards itself, to the world, towards the other, and towards the totality. The human being feels an infinite pulsation within, but finds only finite objects. Hence this permanent incompleteness and dissatisfaction. This is not a psychological problem that can be cured by a psychoanalyst or a psychiatrist. It is a human’s distinctive, ontological, trademark, and not a defect.

But, accepting Marx’s affirmation, a good part of the making of the human is effectively accomplished through society. Hence the importance of considering which social formation creates the best conditions for the human being to open fully to the greatest variety of relationships.

Without offering the proper mediations, it is said that the best social formation is that of social democracy: communitarian, social, representative, participatory, from the bottom up, and including everyone without exception. In the words of Boaventura de Souza Santos, democracy should have no end. We have to deal with an open-ended project, always under construction, one that starts with the relationships within the family, the school, the community, the associations, the movements, and the churches, and culminates in the organization of the State.

As Herbert de Souza (Betinho) emphasized so strongly during his life, I see that, like a table, at a minimum, a true democracy is supported by four legs.  This is an idea that we tried together to disseminate, in conferences and debates, to mayors and popular leaders alike.

The first leg consists of participation: the human being, intelligent and free, does not want to be only the beneficiary of a process, but an actor and participant in it. Only then does s/he become a subject and a citizen. This participation must come from below, in order not to exclude anyone.

The second leg consists of equality. We live in a world with all types of inequalities. Each one is unique and different. But a developing participation in everything keeps differences from turning into inequalities, and allows equality to grow. Equality in the recognition of the dignity of each person and respect for his/her rights sustains social justice. With equality comes equity: the sufficient share that each person receives for cooperating in the building of the social whole.

The third leg is difference. It is a gift of nature. Every being, above all every human being, man or woman, is different. This must be accepted and respected as a manifestation of the potential of persons, groups, and cultures. These differences show us that we humans come in many forms, all of them human, and therefore deserving of respect and acceptance.

The fourth leg is found in communion: the human being has subjectivity, the capacity to communicate with his/her inner being, and with the subjectivity of the others.  S/he is the carrier of values such as solidarity, compassion, protection of the most vulnerable and dialogue with nature and with the divine. Here spirituality appears, as a dimension of consciousness making us feel that we are part of a Whole, and as the group of intangible values that give meaning to our personal and social life, and also to the whole universe.

These four legs always go together and balance the table, that is, they sustain a real democracy. This teaches us to be co-authors in building the common good, and in its name, we learn to limit our desires, out of our love of satisfying the collective desires.

This four legged table would not exist if it were not supported by the floor and the earth. In the same way, democracy would not be complete if it did not include nature, which makes everything possible. Nature provides the physical-chemical-ecological basis that sustains life, and each and every one of us. Since they have value in themselves, independently of the use we would make of them, all beings are carriers of rights. They deserve to continue to exist and we should respect them and understand them as citizens. They will be included in an endless socio-cosmic democracy.  Through all these dimensions, the human being is realized throughout history, in a process without limit and without end.

Free translation from the Spanish sent by
Melina Alfaro, alfaro_melina@yahoo.com.ar,
done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

The “temptation” of Francis of Assisi and the possible “temptation” of Francis of Rome

Leonardo Boff2 Comentários

Let us not imagine that saints are free from the vicissitudes common to human life, which includes moments of happiness and frustration, dangerous temptations and courageous stands. It was no different with Saint Francis, portrayed as «the always happy brother», courteous, who lived a mystical union with all creatures, whom he considered his brothers and sisters. But at the same time, he was a person of great passions and profound rage when he saw his ideals betrayed by his brothers. His foremost biographer, Friar Tommaso da Celano, described with cruel realism that Francis suffered temptations of «violent lust», that he knew how to symbolically sublimate.

There is, however, a fact that pious Franciscan historiography hides, but that is well documented by historical critique, and that is known as «the great temptation». The last five years of Francis’ life (he died in 1226) were marked by deep anguish, almost desperation, and the grave illnesses that afflicted him, such as malaria and blindness. The problem was objective: his ideal of life was to live in extreme poverty and radical simplicity, divested of all power, and sustained only by the Gospel read to him without the interpretation  that often shroud its revolutionary meaning.

As it happened, in a few years his lifestyle captivated thousands of followers, more than five thousand. How to shelter them? How to feed them? Many were priests and theologians, such as Saint Anthony. His movement had neither structure nor legality. It was purely a dream taken seriously. Francis understood himself as a «novellus pazzus», a «new madman» that God wanted for the very wealthy Church, led by Pope Innocence III, the most powerful of all popes throughout history.

Beginning in the Summer of 1220, he wrote several versions of a rule that were all rejected by the gatherings of the fraternity. They were too utopic. Frustrated and feeling useless, he decided to renounce leadership of the movement. Filled with anguish and without knowing what else to do, he found refuge in the woods for two years, visited only by his intimate friend friar Leo.  He waited for a divine illumination that would not come. Meanwhile, a rule was drafted that was marked by the influence of the Roman Curia and the Pope, turning the movement into a religious order: the Order of Friars Minor, with defined structure and purposes.  Francis, with pain, humbly accepted it. But he clearly stated that he would no longer discuss it, but would continue giving examples of the primitive dream. Law triumphed over life, power confined charisma. But the spirit of Francis remained: the spirit of poverty, of simplicity, of universal brotherhood that inspires us to this day. Francis died amidst great personal frustration, but without losing his happiness. He died singing Provencal songs of love and the psalms.

Francis of Rome will surely face his own «great temptation», no less than the one of Francis of Assisi. He has to reform the Roman Curia, an institution that is about one thousand years old. In it, the sacred power (sacra potestas) has fossilized into an administrative structure.  At any rate, it is a question of administering an institution with a population as large as China’s: one billion, two hundred million Catholics. But one must immediately be warned: it is difficult for love and mercy to co-exist with power.  It is an empire of doctrine, law and order, that by its nature includes or excludes, approves or condemns.

Where there is power, above all in an absolutist monarchy such as the Vatican State, there always arise anti-power intrigues, career climbers, and power disputes. Thomas Hobbes in his famous Leviatan (1651) saw it clearly: «power can not be guaranteed other than by seeking more and more power». Francis of Rome, presently the local bishop and Pope, must intervene in that power, marked by a thousand tricks, and sometimes, by corruption. We know from previous Popes who also proposed to reform the Curia, the resistance and frustrations they had to endure, including suspicion of the physical elimination of a Pope by people of the ecclesiastic administration. Francis of Rome has the spirit of Francis of Assisi: he is for poverty, simplicity and relinquishing power. But fortunately, he is a Jesuit, with a different background, and endowed with the famous “discernment of spirits” of the Jesuit Order. Francis of Rome manifests an explicit tenderness in everything he does, but he can also show an unusual vigor, as befits a Pope with the mission of restoring the morally bankrupt Church.

Francis of Assisi had a few advisors, dreamers like himself, who did not know how to help him. Francis of Rome has surrounded himself with advisors chosen from every continent, persons of age, that is, with experience in the exercise of the sacred power. This Pope must acquire a different profile: one that is more nearly of service than command, more divested of than adorned with the symbols of palatial power, with more of the “flavor of the lamb” than the perfume of the flowers of the altar. The carrier of the sacred power must be a pastor before he is the carrier of ecclesiastic authority; he must preside more in charity and less with canonical right, he must be brother among his brothers, but with different responsibilities.

Will Francis of Rome face his «great temptation» inspired by his namesake of Assisi? I believe he will know how to have a firm hand and that he will not lack the courage to follow what his “discernment of spirit” dictates is necessary to effectively restore the credibility of the Church, and return the fascination with the figure of Jesus of Nazareth.

Free translation from the Spanish sent by
Melina Alfaro, alfaro_melina@yahoo.com.ar,
done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

The current relevance of the spirit of Saint Francis

Leonardo Boff2 Comentários

Since the present Pope adopted the name of Francis, many people are interested again in this singular figure, perhaps one of the most luminous that Christianity and the West have produced: Francis of Assisi. Some call him “the last Christian” or “the first after the Unique,” this is, after Jesus Christ.

We surely can say that when Cardinal Bergoglio took this name he was indicating that the Church would be in line with the spirit of Saint Francis. Saint Francis was the opposite of the tendency of the Church of his own time, that was expressed by temporal power over almost all of Europe, including Russia, by immense cathedrals, sumptuous palaces and grandiose abbeys. Saint Francis opted for living the pure gospel, literally, in the most extreme poverty, with an almost ingenuous simplicity, and a humility that kept him close to the Earth, at the level of the most despised of society, living among the lepers and eating with them from the same bowl. He never criticized the Pope or Rome. He simply did not follow their example. As to that type of Church and society he explicitly confessed: “I want to be a ‘novellus pazzus’, a new crazy one”: crazy for Christ the poor and for “the lady dame poverty” as an expression of total freedom: to be nothing, to have nothing, without power or pretense. This phrase is attributed to him: “I want little, and the little that I want I don’t want very much.”  In reality, it was nothing .  He eschewed all titles, and considered himself, “stupid, small, miserable and low”.

This spiritual journey was hard, since the more followers who came to him, the more they opposed him, demanding convents, norms and studies. He resisted as much as possible, but in the end he had to surrender to the mediocrity and the logic of the institutions that presuppose rules, order and power.  But he did not renounce his dream.  Frustrated, he went back to serve the lepers, allowing his movement, against his will, to slowly transform itself into the Order of Friars Minor.

This unlimited humility and radical poverty offered him an experience that leads to our questions: is it possible to regain the care and respect for nature? Is a universal brotherhood and sisterhood possible that includes all, as Francis of Assisi did: the sultan of Egypt he found in the crusade, the band of thieves, the ferocious wolf of Gubbio, and even death?

Francis showed that this is feasible through a life lived with simplicity and passion. Not possessing anything, he maintained a direct interaction of coexistence with, rather than possession of, every being of creation. Being radically humble he grounded himself in the very earth, (humus = humility) and on the side of every creature, that he considered his sister. He felt as if he were brother to the water, to the fire, the lark, the cloud, the sun and to every person he came across. He inaugurated a fraternity without borders: reaching the depths with the least, at the side of his fellow humans, whether popes or servants, and upwards with the sun, the moon and the stars. All are brothers and sisters, children of the same Father of goodness.

Poverty and humility thus practiced bear no trace of sanctimoniousness. They imply something previous: respect for every being without restriction. Filled with devotion, he moved the worm from the path so that it was not trampled, held a broken limb from a tree to heal itself, in the winter he fed the bees that flew about lost. He placed himself in the midst of the creatures with profound humility, feeling as if he were their brother. He fraternized with “sister and Mother Earth”. He did not deny the original humus nor the obscure roots whence we come. By renouncing any possession of goods, rejecting all that could put him above, or possessing, other persons or things, he made himself into the universal brother. He would go to an encounter with others with empty hands and a pure hearth, offering them only courtesy, friendship, love without self-interest, full of confidence and tenderness.

Universal fraternity arises when we place ourselves with great humility in the womb of creation, respecting every being and all forms of life. This cosmic brotherhood, grounded in unlimited respect, is the necessary prerequisite for human fraternity. Without this respect and fraternity, the Human Rights Declaration will be hardly efficacious. There will always be violations for ethnic reasons, for reasons of gender, religion and others.

This posture of cosmic fraternity, seriously undertaken, can animate our ecological concern to safeguard every species, every animal and every plant, because they are our brothers and sisters. Without real fraternity we will never be able to form the human family that with respect and caring, inhabits “sister and Mother Earth”. This fraternity demands an unlimited patience, but it also holds great promise: it is reachable. We are not condemned to set free the beast that inhabits us, and that took form in Videla, Pinochet, Fleury and other cowardly torturers.

We hope Pope Francis of Rome, in his practice of local and universal pastor, honors the name of Francis and shows the current relevancy of the values lived by the fratello from Assisi.

Free translation from the Spanish sent by
Melina Alfaro, volar@fibertel.com.ar,
done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.