Posted on 03/03/2007 7:03:43 PM PST by NormsRevenge
CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez calls Jesus a guiding light for his self-styled socialist revolution.
But his relationship with the Roman Catholic Church is complicated and sometimes strained.
Even as the leftist leader has invited Catholic priests to share their ideas on transforming Venezuela into a socialist state, he has clashed with some priests who are critical of him - and in one case declared that a Venezuelan archbishop is bound for hell.
Nonetheless, Chavez says he wants the best relations with the church and has recently spoken by phone with some supportive priests during his near-daily radio broadcasts.
The church leadership's tone toward Chavez has varied over the years from cordiality to open hostility.
"The Catholic Church, its priests at all levels, (should) take a step toward the forefront of the debate ... You are welcome in the debate on building socialism, our socialism," Chavez said in his radio address on Tuesday.
Chavez has lashed out, however, at Monsignor Roberto Luckert, who has warned that Venezuela is headed for communism and that the shift could infringe on freedoms.
In a January speech, Chavez accused Luckert, the archbishop of Coro, of telling lies and living an ungodly privileged life.
Chavez said the priest is doomed to go to hell - to which Luckert responded: "It seems he's going to hell, too."
The Venezuelan leader peppers his speeches with Bible verses and often describes his political movement as a struggle between good and evil, such as when he famously called President George W. Bush "the devil" in a speech to the United Nations last year.
At home, Luckert has been one of the most outspoken critics of Chavez.
The archbishop recently told Venezuela's Union Radio that, while Chavez gives sermon-like speeches, his government is spending money lavishly.
Just as Chavez urged him to live more humbly, Luckert replied that "I invite him to take a dugout canoe (instead of the presidential jet) and go to Nicaragua."
Chavez said Tuesday that despite Luckert's hostility, "he isn't going to get us fighting with the Catholic Church."
He added: "We are true Catholics and friends of the majority of priests and bishops."
Most Venezuelans are Catholic, and the church wields tremendous influence among parishioners, giving particular sting to the barbs exchanged periodically between Chavez, Luckert and some other church leaders.
"There has to be respect," said churchgoer Cesar Milano, who visited Caracas' San Francisco Church to pray while passers-by paused to cross themselves at the doorway. "I hope they reach an understanding for the good of us all."
Leading bishops in the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference have called for a style of socialism that upholds free speech, tolerates opposing views and respects religious education.
Chavez assures them they have nothing to fear.
"Christianity is essentially socialist, so no one - no Christian, no Catholic - should be alarmed," said Chavez, who was once an altar boy and says his brand of socialism will not copy Soviet or Cuban communism despite his close friendship with Fidel Castro.
Chavez says if he had not entered politics, he would have loved to be a priest.
He calls Jesus an exemplary revolutionary and often recalls the Bible passage that declares it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.
Chavez, who was first elected in 1998, has promised a renewed drive to create a socialist system and help the poor following his re-election in December.
The entirely pro-Chavez National Assembly granted him sweeping powers in January to pass laws by decree for 18 months in areas from the economy to defense.
While Chavez has since moved to nationalize electrical and phone companies and take majority control of several privately run oil projects, he also has insisted private property and personal freedoms will be respected.
He snapped at church leaders in January when they expressed concern about a government decision not to renew the broadcast license of opposition-sided TV channel RCTV.
Chavez pointedly told top Vatican representative Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino in one speech: "The state respects the church. The church should respect the state."
Urosa and other bishops say they want a respectful dialogue that allows for disagreement. And Urosa has bristled at the suggestion that Jesus was a pioneering socialist.
"His purpose on Earth was not to establish or institute systems - whether socialist, republican, democratic - nor much less was he a precursor of socialist ideas. That confusion should end," Urosa was quoted as saying by the newspaper El Nacional.
Meanwhile, some priests have increasingly been speaking up in favor of Chavez's ideals.
Monsignor Edgar Doria said he thinks Chavez shares Christian principles like social justice and equality, and that the church can be a key ally in social programs for the poor.
Bishop Mario Moronta wrote in a recent letter, widely published in Venezuelan media, that the church has a role to play in discussing the "21st century socialism" espoused by Chavez.
"We are called to participate in just efforts to overcome poverty," Moronta wrote. "Every Catholic and person of good will has much to contribute."
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
The persecution will become severe within about three years.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1718576/posts
Every Christian needs to have an answer to why Jesus was NOT a socialist. I've gotten asked this many times in my life.
I remember years ago, a family member asked me what I thought about "liberation theoogy". I didn't even know what it was at the time. Now that person is a socialist. I wish I had had a good answer then.
If anyone has any doubts about where Jesus stands on socialism, let them review the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard which is found in Matthew 20.
This parable illustrates nothing but capitalist, free market, property rights. It ends with Jesus asking a rhetorical question that destroys socialism: "Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money?" (Matthew 20:15)
The parable also documents that Jesus was familiar with other rights: the right to own your own labor; the right to negotiate a mutually acceptable wage; the right to expect that wage agreement would be adhered to; the right to own productive property; the right to hire workers and sell the work product for a profit.
Not a single one of these rights, which are implicitly acknowledged and supported by Our Savior in the context of telling this parable are supported or protected under socialism.
Other parables that also reflect these values are the Pearl of Great Price and the Treasure Hidden in the Field. See Matthew 13: 44-46.
This man is more delusional than I ever imagined.
2nd Thessalonians .3
[10] For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
My understanding is that, although Marx wrote "From each according to his abilities and to each according to his needs", the Soviet Constitution read "to each according to his work".
But that is no way to sell boob bait to the masses (or: them asses).
But there is a big flaw in the logic of using this as a model for an entire country. The monastic system , even at its height, was a small part of society, and was entirely voluntary. It it a place to be with others who have the same degree of faith as others, not to impose it on others who could not live according to the rules.
Modern day communists wanted to spread an atheistic monasticism without the faith that is the reason for the institution itself, and have wondered why it always fails.
10. So strong and convincing are these arguments that it seems amazing that some should now be setting up anew certain obsolete opinions in opposition to what is here laid down. They assert that it is right for private persons to have the use of the soil and its various fruits, but that it is unjust for any one to possess outright either the land on which he has built or the estate which he has brought under cultivation. But those who deny these rights do not perceive that they are defrauding man of what his own labor has produced. For the soil which is tilled and cultivated with toil and skill utterly changes its condition; it was wild before, now it is fruitful; was barren, but now brings forth in abundance. That which has thus altered and improved the land becomes so truly part of itself as to be in great measure indistinguishable and inseparable from it. Is it just that the fruit of a man's own sweat and labor should be possessed and enjoyed by any one else? As effects follow their cause, so is it just and right that the results of labor should belong to those who have bestowed their labor.
17. It must be first of all recognized that the condition of things inherent in human affairs must be borne with, for it is impossible to reduce civil society to one dead level. Socialists may in that intent do their utmost, but all striving against nature is in vain. There naturally exist among mankind manifold differences of the most important kind; people differ in capacity, skill, health, strength; and unequal fortune is a necessary result of unequal condition. Such unequality is far from being disadvantageous either to individuals or to the community. Social and public life can only be maintained by means of various kinds of capacity for business and the playing of many parts; and each man, as a rule, chooses the part which suits his own peculiar domestic condition. As regards bodily labor, even had man never fallen from the state of innocence, he would not have remained wholly idle; but that which would then have been his free choice and his delight became afterwards compulsory, and the painful expiation for his disobedience. "Cursed be the earth in thy work; in thy labor thou shalt eat of it all the days of thy life." Gen. 3:17
I don't think that Chavez is a Catholic.
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