Rio Linda appreciates the attention and clarification.
Posted on 03/09/2007 7:23:10 AM PST by CitadelArmyJag
As President Bush visits Mexico, Central, and South America he will encounter a region grown much friendlier to Castro's legacy of Latin American Marxism than when he took office. Not only in the Venezuela of Hugo Chavez but also in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua the sons and daughters of Castro have mounted an insurgence.
None of these countries, unsurprisingly, is on the President's agenda.
Yet, the spreading power of the revolutionary populism will be evident throughout the countries visited by Bush because one of the principal vehicles for Marxism is still, unfortunately, the Catholic Church.
One of the first, and most public, actions of John Paul II was his 1979 rebuke of liberation theologian Ernest Cardenal at the Managua airport in Nicaragua. However, with the passing of John Paul II, Catholic Marxists are organizing to reassert the dominance of liberation theology.
Their efforts will culminate at the upcoming May 5th meeting of the General Conference of Latin American Bishops in Aparacida, Brazil. The event will be inaugurated by Pope Benedict XVI and will define pastoral trends for the Church in Latin America for decades to come.
Aparacida is a National Marian shrine two hours from São Paulo, the second largest archdiocese in the world. According to sources in South America, the Latin American bishops don't realize that liberation and feminist theologians are preparing to hijack the Conference. These old left-wingers, who are virulently anti-American, hope to control the agenda with a "Theology of the Excluded" infused throughout all the conference documents.
If these documents emerge unchanged from the Aparacida Conference they will be given pastoral and moral authority throughout Latin America -- the result will be a disaster for orthodox Catholic teaching. The issues directly affected will be Church governance and authority, women's ordination, priestly celibacy, abortion, and homosexuality. Also included in the documents are a rejection of capitalism and a healthy dose of anti-American hatred.
The bishop who secured permission for the Conference from John Paul II - Cardinal Francesco Xavier de Errazuriz of Santiago, Chile - according to my sources, is unaware of these preparations and is "being used" by Marxist theologians and activists.
Some liberation theologians have made no effort to cloak their intentions. The July-August 2006 issue of the Mexican theological journal Christus was devoted to what should happen during the 5th Conference of Latin American Bishops in May at Aparacida. Christus is the flagship magazine of Jesuit publications in Mexico and Central America.
The authors of the Christus essays propose:
The re-birth of liberation theology, this time to fight against the dominance of a free market and the U.S. in Latin America.
The reduction of the Catholic Church to a political and social organization.
The "redefinition" of the Church's teachings on family, life and marriage in line with "gender" ideology.
The renewed push for married priests and women priests.
The "democratization" of the Church in both its administration and selection of its authorities.
The editorial "introduction" makes the agenda of liberation theology clear: The Church needs "to break with the church-centered spirit that breathes in many environments. The community of followers of Jesus is not in the world to be in charge of its own growth and perpetuation…it is rather a matter of being in the service of human beings, of a clear option for the poor, so that they all have life."
The lead article in Christus magazine is indicative of what is in store for the bishops at the Aparacida Conference. The author is a Brazilian Jesuit, Fr. Joao Batista Libiano. Fr. Libiano is the author of several books criticizing Pope John Paul II, a national advisor to the Brazilian "Ecclesial Base Communities" (CEBs,) as well as a founding member of SOTER, a liberal Catholic think tank based in Northern Brazil, mainly dedicated to promoting liberation theology. (These Latin American think tanks that keep liberation theology alive receive their funding from the United States and Europe.)
Fr. Libiano insists the Church must "Revisit the issue of ordained ministry in light of the options of the Second Vatican Council..." He then proposes reincorporating the ordination of married men, women, and those priests who have been previously liaised. "The celibate clergy hardly manages to grasp many of the problems that affect the family." He also includes the importance of "taking into account the new forms of the family that escape the traditional model."
In classic dissenting fashion, Fr. Libiano takes aim at the authority structure of the Church: He writes that, "The relationship between the Bishops' Conferences and the diocesan bishops requires a binding character on certain subjects; that the selection of pastors and bishops be done in a mandatory way with a greater participation of those faithful interested; that the diocesan advisors, including people from the community, may assume, not the role of a merely decorative and consultative forum, but one with the power to make decisions."
In other words, the power to pick bishops and place pastors should be made "democratically."
Fr. Libiano also writes scathingly about the influence of the United States: "In the field of economics, we find a despotic, solitary reign [referring to the U.S.], and of neo-liberalism, with the terrible consequences that we all know. Democracies were established in replacement of military regimes in Latin America, but they were put in the service of neo-liberalism [capitalism], with few changes in favor of the popular classes."
The other authors of the articles from this issue include: Fr. Agenor Brighenti, Brazilian Franciscan theologian, and author of the "The Future of the Church and the Church of the Future," which was highly critical of the current Catholic leadership; Fr. Sebastián Mier, a Spanish Jesuit with a doctorate in Biblical studies; Fr. Francisco Lucas Núñez, Mexican priest and pastor in the diocese of Tarahumara, Northern Mexico; Rosemari de Almeida, Lay leader involved in women's organizations in Brazil and a member of the leadership of the "Movimento Sem Terra," the left-wing organization of "landless" peasants.
The Aparacida Conference will be a vital meeting for the Church in Latin America, where almost half of all Catholics in the world reside. What direction the Church takes in Latin America has immediate consequences for the Church Universal and for the United States in particular. An emboldened core group of liberation theologians in Latin America will spread dissent and Marxist social theory around the world and throughout the Church.
There has not been such a meeting of Latin American bishops since 1992. And as one of my sources puts it, "In 1992 there was no Internet and cell phones were a rarity: the Bishops are convening in a whole different world!" What he means, of course, is that Catholic Marxists are using the new technology to control the agenda and outcome of the Aparacida Conference.
Pope Benedict XVI, however, can be counted upon to call the Marxists to task in no less a pointed way than his predecessor. Let's hope that his intervention reaches down to the level of the official documents adopted at the Aparacida Conference.
Catholic Marxists are hoping those documents will legitimize their efforts to undermine Church teaching on core issues of morality and authority.
Gee, perhaps Mr. Hudson could get in touch with the poor old bishops sometime before May and lend them his expertise. It all seems so clear and obvious to him, perhaps he can explain it to them.
Rio Linda appreciates the attention and clarification.
"Liberation theology" = Karl Marx in a Jesus mask.
Time to bring back excommunication.
SOME time ago on an RC thread, the RC's were pontificating about how
--TRADITION
--THE MAGICSTERICAL
--THE purported LINEAGE BACK TO THE APOSTLES
etc.
etc.
and etc.
had protected the RC edifice from errors and how the TRULY TRUEST TRUE TRUTH HAD
ALWAYS
REIGNED PURE, PRISTINE AND SUPREME IN THE RC EDIFICE AND ONLY THE RC EDIFICE.
I noted at the time that the LIBERATION MARXIST "THEOLOGY" in the Roman edifice in South and Central America
was PROOF POSITIVE that the above assertions were wholesale simply false, not true, wrong--simply not historical fact.
First, the RC's tried to assert that the MARXIST liberation theologies were minor in their impact and 2 that those forces were largely gone from the scene anyway.
This article outlines the utter hollow emptiness of such defenses.
"This article outlines the utter hollow emptiness of such defenses."
Let's not get too smug with this. We have our own, Wallis, Campolo, Sider, Fuller Seminary, Christianity Today, NAE, etc. to consider. There is as much threat from the guilt mongers as there is from the socialists. Envy/grasping is not the sole province of the poor; there is as much if not more with the rich or comfortable. It is only when we recognize that we are just stewards that we can enjoy what God gives without looking over the fence and scheming how to get what our neighbor has.
Excellent points.
I think I'm a bit uncommon amongst us protesties hereon . . . in that I have long persistently noted that we have the same flaws to greater or lesser degree.
The point that people were making about the RCC is not that error never gets in, but that it has, so far, not been able to install itself as doctrine. Error gets in all the time, which was why the Pope's former job was actually as Secretary of the Vatican office in charge of protecting and maintaining doctrine.
I think Deal Hudson is definitely sounding an important warning here, though though the situation may not really be that dangerous. The aging, mostly-Jesuit hippies who espoused "Liberation Theology" are not going to go off into the sunset without one last stab at doing away with Christianity. But I think this Pope is a match for them, although they are certainly going to try him sorely. Also, a number of the Latin American bishops are new bishops, only recently appointed either by JPII or by BXVI himself, and they are more orthodox than the crop before them. Personally, I wish the Pope would go ahead and disband the Jesuits (it's been done before). But that's just me...
"True, but we don't look to them as infallible guides. There's the difference."
But the MSM does and it's the perception, not the substance that rules in today's world. They have a lot of influence over the college "yutes" today from liberal churches and over kids in "secular" Christian colleges who feel a false sense of guilt over their parents hard earned successes and the liberal short term summer missions work programs.
Certainly. But theologically, evangelical Christians and Catholics are on different feet. The MSM will take any opportunity to take a whack at either of us, and frankly don't care about our theological standing. Yet, while I agree we shouldn't be pompous about the failings of the RCC, it is more than okay to point them out seeing the blind trust many people place in them. Kinda gets us back to a level of accountability based on Scripture, don't ya know.
There is plenty of guilt to go around on this one.
Earlier in the thread, I pointed out a document published by the CDF, part of the Vatican Curia. It's purpose was in order to correct some of the doctrinal and practical errors that were creeping in parts of the Church.
The purpose is analagous to St. Paul's writings to the Church in Galatia (and no I'm not saying the CDF document is divinely inspired...so don't go there).
People tend to wander off the reservation all the time. That's why it's important to have good, solid leadership in the Chuch to bring them back.
The analogy of the shepherd is used all the time. The shepher'd crozier (crook) provides a good analogy. The hooked part of it is useful to grab the sheep by the neck and yank it back into line (before it walks off the cliff). The long, straight, staff part of the crozier is useful in kicking the sheep in the butt to get it moving in the correct direction.
Members of the Church today need correction as much as members of the Church did in apostolic times. Members of the Church will always need correction as long as there is the Church Militant here on earth. Thankfully the Lord has watched over the Church since those apostolic times.
I guess Scripture Alone isn't such a bad idea. ;-)
Separation of church and state also comes to mind.
Hopefully this can be resolved peacefully.
This was one of John Calvin's many gifts to the world -- that the church should not be beholden to the state and definitely the state should not be beholden to the church. Two complimentary, but separate realms.
Obviously, Rome disagreed.
I'm inclined to agree with you--at least mostly.
And particularly about disbanding the Jesuits.
We shall see. I'm not overly optimistic about peacefully in our era.
Then there's that mysterious verse about the righteous taking things by force. Whatever that means with the weapons of our warfare not being carnal.
There is definitely a social gospel - light on gospel- going through our ranks. No, evangelical closets are not clean. But you understand my point above as well. My concern is when people look to their leadership blindly. Then you end up with someone like Jose Luis Jesus de Miranda gathering throngs around him.
So what else is new?
ping
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