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Pope Francis has close ties with liberation theology, the prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the body that once condemned the movement, has said. In a lengthy interview in the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller said Pope Francis “is not so much a liberation theologian in the academic sense, but as far as pastoral work is concerned, he has close ties with liberation theology’s concerns. What we can learn from him is the insight that there is no pastoral work without profound theology and vice versa”. In the 1980s the...

This Thursday, Mr. Obama will meet with Pope Francis at the Vatican after a three-decade divergence with the church. By the late 1980s, the Catholic hierarchy had taken a conservative turn that de-emphasized social engagement and elevated the culture wars that would eventually cast Mr. Obama as an abortion-supporting enemy. Mr. Obama, who went on to find his own faith with the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.’s Trinity United Church of Christ, drifted from his youthful, church-backed activism to become a pragmatic politician and the president with a terrorist “kill list.” The meeting this week is a potential point of...

Pope to Italian Steel Workers: work is essential for human dignity, should be available to all (Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has reaffirmed that employment is essential to society, families, and individuals and for the dignity of the human person. In a Vatican audience Thursday for staff and families of the Italian Steel Works company “Acciaierie di Terni” celebrating its 130th anniversary, Pope Francis said his thoughts were directed not only to their company and others in the region, but to “all of the working world.” In the current economic climate and the difficulties facing the work environment, the Pope said,...

The founder of liberation theology, the Latin American-inspired Catholic theology advocating for the poor, received a hero’s welcome Tuesday at the Vatican as the once-criticized movement continues its rehabilitation under Pope Francis. The Rev. Gustavo Gutierrez of Peru was the surprise speaker Tuesday at a book launch featuring the head of the Vatican’s orthodoxy office, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller; one of Francis’ top advisers, Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga; and the Vatican spokesman.

For twenty years, Mr. Obama drank from a particular brand of religion—Liberal Christianity. To be sure, most Bible-believing Christians would not consider that brand to be Christianity at all. But liberal Christians would consider their brand to actually be the enlightened one. Over time, Liberal Christianity has developed a humanistic understanding of what the Christian faith is about. They claim that Christians who still believe the Bible is God’s perfect self-revelation are stuck back in the 1st century. Society has evolved, they say. And because society has evolved, God must be evolving also. After all, why else would He allow...

Rev. Jeremiah Wright at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Annual Breakfast in Wilmington, DE: Video “[W]ith one branch of the Tea Party being nothing but a 2.0 upgrade of the lynch party … with some folks doing everything they can to get that black man out of their White House.”

“Palestinian Messengers”: How Christ and Christians Are Used for the Palestinian Cause By Julio Severo Last Christmas, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Jesus was a “Palestinian” messenger. Even though Jesus was never a Palestinian or an advocate of a Palestinian cause, Abbas and his Muslim colleagues want to use Him to “ecumenically” unify Christians and Muslims to secure their cause. Christ has never been a Palestinian messenger, but there has been a number of Christian individuals and groups associating themselves with a Palestinian message. Knowingly or not, they have been used as Palestinian messengers. WCC and Liberation Theology The...

On progressive news sites, Pope Francis is all the rage. Not only has he taken on the bishops, now he is taking on the ruling elites of the world. In his first major statement to the world, his “Evangelii Gaudium” (The Joy of the Gospel), the Pope addresses issues of trickle-down economics, runaway inequality, and the idolatry of money. His statements pull no punches. He says that for the rich not to share their wealth with the poor is nothing less than theft. The entire document is devoted to an effort to reverse the horrors brought on the world by...

In a recent segment on his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh talked about the pope’s new apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium. I don’t have the space to address everything Limbaugh said, but what struck me was his mischaracterization of Pope Francis's comments about economics.The fundamental problem was that Limbaugh chose to quote not what Pope Francis wrote but a Washington Post article on the exhortation, which stated: Pope Francis attacked unfettered capitalism as "a new tyranny" and beseeched global leaders to fight poverty and growing inequality, in a document on Tuesday setting out a platform for his papacy and...

Democrat Bill de Blasio defeated Republican challenger Joe Lhota last Tuesday in the New York City mayoral race by nearly 50 points (73-24), giving Democrats their first mayor elected on the party line since 1993. De Blasio is a self-described “social democrat” in the mold of Europe’s socialist parties, and may turn out to be the most leftwing politician to ever sit in Gracie Mansion. He campaigned on an agenda to turn away from the policies of the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations and usher in an era of “substantial change” in the city. Whether he can turn his overwhelming victory...

A Charismatic Response to “The Growing Crisis Behind Brazil’s Evangelical Success Story” Julio Severo addresses misconceptions and missed targets on article by Brazilian Presbyterian theologian By Julio Severo In his The Gospel Coalition blog, Brazilian Calvinist theologian Augustus Nicodemus Gomes Lopes said, “When Paulo Romeiro wrote ‘Evangelicals in Crisis’ in the mid-1990s, a book that has remained a bestseller among Brazilian evangelicals, he addressed just one of the many ways in which evangelicalism had collapsed in Brazil, namely, its inability to halt the spread of prosperity theology.” (Link: http://archive.is/hjNXb) He mentions “Prosperity Theology” three times. Strangely, Liberation Theology and its Protestant...

THE Vatican has begun a historic move to rehabilitate the leftist Catholic movement known as “liberation theology” as the Pope refocuses the church on the poor. L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s official newspaper, devoted its centre spread to defending the virtues of liberation theology, which had been anathema since the Cold War. “With a Latin American Pope, liberation theology could not remain for long in the shadows to which it has been relegated for some years, at least in Europe,” wrote Ugo Sartorio, a priest and editor of a Catholic magazine. Father Sartorio even argued in his piece yesterday that, while...

UPENN PROFESSOR SAYS GOD IS A WHITE RACIST I didn't think it could get any more bizarre, rediculous...or ultimately dangerous...and then you have this. A University of Pennsylvania Professor, Professor Anthea Bulter (shown above), who is an associate professor of Religion at the University of Pennsylvania, blogged the following to her readers and students regarding her thoughts after the George Zimmerman not guilty verdict: "God ain’t good all of the time. in fact, sometimes, God is not for us. As a black woman in an nation that has taken too many pains to remind me that I am not a...

Liberation Theology and Neo-Pentecostalism: A Leading Challenge to the Evangelical Churches in Brazil By Julio Severo Traditionally, major theological trends — good or wicked — came from Europe and America. The single major theological trend originating outside Europe and America is Liberation Theology, which is prevalent in Latin America, especially Brazil. In this original and exclusive e-booklet, I trace this movement in Brazil and how its leaders recognized openly that the only force capable of challenging Liberation Theology was neo-Pentecostal churches. In fact, the Brazilian Left admits today that neo-Pentecostal churches are the only hindrance to the advance of its...

Every once in awhile WILLIAM RIVERS PITT publicly puts on a very showy display of supposed faith for either political and/or showboating purposes. We already saw Pitt showboating himself as a KENNEDY CATHOLIC upon the death of Teddy Kennedy in which he recited Latin prayers in DUmmieland which he never utters in real life except, perhaps, when on a huge Bukowski's bender. And now that a new Pope has been chosen, the expected Catholic bashing went full force in DUmmieland which led the Pittster into full blown showboating in which he pretends to be indignant about attacks on his...

We have a new pope! Pope Francis I, formerly Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, is the first Latin American pope, and indeed the first pope not from Europe or Northern Africa. While considered a long shot in the betting markets — correcting for bookie profit, Paddy Power gave him a 2 percent chance, and Betfair a 0.7 percent chance, last I checked — he was widely considered the runner-up in the 2005 race for pope, a fact confirmed by leaked diaries after the fact. He also has one of the more interesting political records of any of the...

Mexican Narcoterrorist Region May Abandon Catholicism for Islam It would seem as if Bishop Ruiz’s brand of Liberation Theology has had the same effect on Chiapas as on Europe. Chiapas is poor, but it’s now also appearing to trend Islamic as any region under the influence of the left eventually does. When you kill the local religion and replace it with social justice, foreign religions eventually take its place. In the mid-1990s, a leftist resistance group which calls itself The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) made Chiapas its home. Its attempts to fight the Mexican Army repeatedly failed, but...

Disobedience and preaching against the teaching of the Catholic Church about women's ordination led to his excommunication, dismissal and laicization. Then Fr. Bourgeois engaged in an obstinate crusade which involved public and direct defiance of the Holy See and a repudiation of the unbroken teaching of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church concerning sacred ordination. MARYKNOLL, N.Y. (Catholic Online) - The short Press Release from the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers confirmed some sad news on Monday, November 19, 2012. The priestly ministry of Roy Bourgeois has come to an end: ***** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEThe Congregation For The Doctrine Of The...

He blasted big business, Wall Street, big oil, General Motors, “excess profits,” “millionaires” and the “wealthy.”He called out the “corporation executive” for not paying his “fair” share.He attacked “GOP” tax cuts that “spare the rich” and “benefit millionaires.”He advocated wealth redistribution from greedy “corporations” to “health insurance” and “public works projects.”He described himself as “progressive,” while his detractors accused him of being a communist.He adopted slogans like “Forward” and “Change.” He wanted to transform America through what he called “fundamental change.”He was skeptical of preachers and their effect on God-and-gun clinging Americans, and saw the Catholic Church as an obstacle...

(Church & State Magazine) — The movement known as the Religious Right is the number-one threat to church-state separation in America. This collection of organizations is well funded and well organized; it uses its massive annual revenue and grassroots troops to undermine the wall of separation in communities nationwide.Americans United staff members have carefully researched this movement, and here are the 10 Religious Right groups that pose the greatest challenges to church-state separation. Most of these organizations are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code, but the financial data includes some affiliated 501(c)(4) lobbying organizations operating alongside the...