Iglesia Descalza

José Ignacio López Vigil: "Saint Paul invented the homophobic and sexist Church"

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Mon, 03 Dec 2018 16:58:00 +0000

by José Manuel Vidal (English translation by Rebel Girl)
Religión Digital
November 16, 2018

Translator's Note: I have many questions about López Vigil's assertions in this article, which don't seem to me to be supported by the Bible or standard Biblical scholarship but his perspective is interesting.

"Paul of Tarsus, who didn't know Jesus of Nazareth, invented Jesus Christ and, moreover, since he was misogynist, proslavery, and homophobic, he created a Church in his image and likeness." He says it all in one fell swoop and, when finished, asks those present, "Have I spoken many heresies?" And the truth is that, with his long beard, gray hair and glasses, José Ignacio López Vigil seems a holy father rather than a heretic. Of course, he speaks and writes very clearly, as he has been demonstrating, for years, on his radio programs and in his books.

Yesterday, specifically, he presented his latest work ¡Frente a frente! San Pablo Apóstol, el que inventó a Cristo y María Magdalena, la que conoció a Jesús ["Face to Face! Saint Paul the Apostle, the one who invented Christ, and Mary Magdalene, the one who knew Jesus" -- Ediciones feadulta.com, 2018], before a large audience which filled the auditorium of Chaminade High School. A new book that, like all the previous ones, is written in four hands with his sister, María López Vigil, who is also a journalist.

The introduction of the table, which included the author along with theologian Xabier Pikaza, was given by Africa de la Cruz, professor emeritus of psychology at the Autonomous University of Madrid, who began by recalling "the important role that the two sibling writers played in my spiritual evolution." With several of their works, but especially with Un tal Jesus, the most famous and the most controversial one, but that served as food for generations of believers, who, from their hand, "made the mortal leap from the Jesus of the Creed to the 'brown man from Nazareth,' from a God to be feared and basically hated, to the God of love and only love."

Of the new book, the object of the presentation, the professor praised its "casual and irreverent style, its apparent simplicity and its simplification and, even, its sense of humor and its engaging narrative form."

Then, a video of theologian José María Castillo, author of several books on the subject, who says that "the problem started with Paul," was screened. After greeting those present, he described the López Vigil siblings as "people of significant gospel depth and remarkable intellectual competence."

Regarding the work, Castillo wanted to emphasize that the expository simplicity is not at odds with the depth, although "there are people who confuse the simplicity and clear-sightedness of direct communication with lack of intellectual depth." In his opinion, to speak plainly and clearly like Jesus, "is not to lower the level of reliability" and, in addition, one reaches many more people that way.

"There are mentalities formed in high speculation that give more value to theories, but Jesus spoke in parables and his teaching was narrative theology, a theology that is as valuable as the purely speculative and, in many cases, goes further and reaches to what is deepest in the faith of the simple," concluded the theologian, asserting that the authors "have that gift of the narrative theology." A gift "that few have."

After thanking Castillo, who appears in the series initially composed as radio chronicles, one of the authors, José Ignacio López Vigil, jumps into the arena, picks up the microphone and with his accent a mix of Asturias Spanish passed through Latin America for many years (and he is still there), goes straight to the point from the beginning. As if he wanted to shake up and provoke those present who, on the other hand, came wanting to be shaken up.

And he launches a series of clear and emphatic statements: "Paul wrote his letters knowing nothing, absolutely nothing about Jesus. He neither knew Jesus nor ate fish with him. He just had a revelation on the way to Damascus and began to write, without even going back to Jerusalem to speak with Mary, his mother, or with Mary Magdalene, his companion."

Therefore, "in Paul's letters there is no geography nor history." So much so that Paul, the traveler, the intellectual of the Pharisaic school of Gamaliel who knew three languages (Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek) and knew how to write while "the other disciples and Jesus himself were illiterate," that Paul "invented Jesus Christ."

Moreover, "Paul of Tarsus was not only homophobic, misogynist and proslavery, but he also invented the theory of original sin and, as a consequence, the thesis of expiation." To redeem the world from that terrible sin, God, enraged, sends his own Son to be killed and with his blood he washes away the sin and God is quiet. Terrible."

The opposite face of nascent Christianity is offered, according to López Vigil, by Mary Magdalene, "the founder of Christianity, who proclaimed 'he is alive and his project did not end on the cross'." The one who is opposed in the book, to the homophobia of Paul of Tarsus. Among other things, because "all those who go to communion have prayed before the prayer of a gay man, the Roman centurion, who says to Jesus, 'Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter my house (to heal my partner), but one word of yours will be enough to heal him.' " *

The worst of these two opposing forms of Christianity is, for López Vigil, that "the Church opted for that of Paul of Tarsus and completely marginalized that of Mary Magdalene." Therefore, in his opinion, "it is crucial to recover the gospels and Mary Magdalene."

After the author's first intervention, Xabier Pikaza, like the great biblist he is, wanted to clarify López Vigil's statements a little and said that, contrary to what is usually thought, "the Paul of whom you speak is the popular Paul, to whom are attributed some assertions that are obvious interpolations, such as what he says about women."

According to Pikaza, "Paul did admirable things and, most important, he said that Jesus was God." The biblical scholar acknowledges that "it seems that Paul had a misogyny problem, but in his Church women were equal to men." And he ended by stressing that "Paul was fundamental and, without him, Christianity would not have been able to move forward" and by asking the authors for new installments of their work on the authentic Paul.

López Vigil accepted the challenge to keep on discussing and writing about Paul of Tarsus in new books, to then submit to the questions of those present. In his answers, he recalled for example that he wrote Un tal Jesús "in the beautiful days of Liberation Theology, which John Paul II busied himself ruining."

Asked again about Magdalene, he asserted that "although the Church, to marginalize her, characterized her as a prostitute, she was really a fish seller who fell in love with Jesus and Jesus with her, an extraordinary woman, a fighting Galilean." Therefore, in his opinion, "you have to reclaim her, because she was the apostle of the apostles."

To connect the current Church to Mary Magdalene's Christianity, López Vigil asked the Pope for "a Church that abolishes celibacy and a Church with women leaders, not women priests, because if the Church doesn't have a feminine face, it isn't the Church of Jesus."

Asked about the relationship between celibacy and clergy abuse, López Vigil denied a direct relationship but he stated that "the Church prohibited priests from marriage to defend its heritage and imposed celibacy so that priests' wives could not inherit anything," and he proclaimed that "celibacy is an anti-natural law that can cause anti-natural reactions and, therefore, it must be abolished."

Contrary to what is usually argued, López Vigil said that "Jesus was a happy and talkative peasant, who liked to tell jokes and riddles, as well as someone radically revolutionary, although he couldn't write and could barely read, stumbling."

And he ended by proclaiming that the Church must "remove fear and guilt, because, if you believe in hell, you don't believe in God," and inviting to hope, because "another God is possible," as the title of another of his works says.

* Translator's note: For a summary of the scholarship behind the interpretation that the Roman centurion was gay, see Jay Michaelson's 2012 article "When Jesus Healed a Same-Sex Partner."

For a new Pact of the Catacombs

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Tue, 27 Nov 2018 16:32:00 +0000

By Marcelo Barros (English translation by Rebel Girl)
Encontro com Marcelo Barros Blog
November 15, 2018

This is the second year that the Pope has proposed that all the local Churches in the world dedicate the 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time as the "World Day of the Poor," that is, a day in which the commitment of the whole Church, pastors and faithful, to the poor of the world is celebrated and intensified.

Certainly, the Pope's intuition comes from his experience when he sees that the path of present society causes an enormous increase in poverty, social inequalities and a mass of migrants and refugees who challenge the luxury islands of the First World. The Pope has been moved; he has gathered with hundreds of poor and homeless at the Vatican for meals. And he proposes that bishops in their diocese and priests in their parishes do the same thing. I know many who are willing to follow all canonical rules concerning ecclesiastical discipline, but I know of almost no one who is willing to follow the example of the Pope on this path of solidarity with the poor.

Undoubtedly, in establishing this Day of Communion with the poor of the world, the Pope recalls that on November 16, 1965, 42 bishops who were in Rome at the last session of the Second Vatican Council met to celebrate in the Catacombs of Domitilla and there signed a document of commitment to simplify their lives, renounce all signs of ostentation of power and wealth, and put themselves and their diocese at the service of the poor. In the following days, some more bishops who could not be at the initial celebration joined the first ones and signed the document.

In fact, the Pact of the Catacombs that was not taken up by the Council or by Pope Paul VI, had a profound impact on the diocese and especially in Latin America. Personally, just over a year ago, I myself was questioned in Dom Helder Camara's beatification process and I was asked about a point of accusation. Dom Helder was accused of being a poor administrator of the diocese. When he resigned as archbishop, his accusers said, the archdiocese was in a bad economic situation. The process judge asked me if I agreed with this charge. I answered "yes" and I explained that Dom Helder had taken the Pact of the Catacombs seriously and had always lived as a poor man and impoverished the archdiocese. I noticed that the judge had difficulty understanding this and concluded, "In fact, only Jesus can understand this well and defend him."

At the time the Pact of the Catacombs was taken up, the challenges were proper to the times. Today, we need to ask pastors and faithful for a new Pact of the Catacombs, no longer just in relation to the sobriety of the lifestyle (which is still important), not only renouncing the signs of religious triumphalism (unfortunately, in recent decades, bishops and priests have regained the worst of liturgical triumphalism in pompous medieval ceremonies, in gestures and signs of narcissistic self-celebration during Jesus' Supper, and other similar sins). A new Pact of the Catacombs is needed to restore the right to a simpler, more prayerful liturgy, a more sober and gospel one as an expression of a discipleship of equals. God must touch the hearts of ministers and faithful, men and women, all in witness of the divine plan for the world, which is not to return to the monarchy and extravagance of medieval courts.

The new Pact of the Catacombs must free us from clericalism which the Pope denounces as the sickness of our Church. It must persuade the new priests that God is God and is Love and can not be socially and politically right-wing or reactionary. A new way of commitment to the poor is needed, not just taking on poverty as a way of life, but a commitment of defense of and solidarity with the struggle for liberation of the organized poor. The new Pact of the Catacombs will continue the meetings of Pope Francis with social movements and will fight for an outgoing Church and resistance to a false use of God that legitimizes very bad things for the impoverished. We need a new Pact of the Catacombs which will no longer be just the Roman catacombs of persecution of the first Christians, but will be the catacombs of today, of a society that buries justice and human rights as if these had nothing to do with faith. Those who do this proclaim themselves as Christians and unfortunately many bishops and pastors, evangelicals and Catholics, approve and bless them. A new Pact of the Catacombs is needed in reaction to this fascist and anti-gospel Christianity.

Thanks be to God, we still have brothers and sisters who continue the path of the Pact of the Catacombs today. Recently, I went to Bahia and met suffering street people and lay missionaries who live with them as a gospel choice and they gave me news of Brother Henrique Peregrino of the Trinity who for decades has lived with street children in the ruins of a church in Salvador. Today I give thanks to God for the witness of some of the diocese here in Brazil that continue this line of the Pact of the Catacombs and remain totally dedicated to serving the poor. Today I thank God for the witness of our dear brother Father João Pubben. He left from Holland for Brazil on the same day the bishops signed the Pact of the Catacombs in Rome (November 16, 1965). He worked with us here for nearly 50 years, accompanied Dom Helder and assisted him in the last years of his life as his guardian angel. And now, sick but still very firm in the mission, even from Holland, he continues to accompany us in the same spirit of the Pact of the Catacombs. For all this, we praise you and thank you, Lord.

Félix Cepeda: "The Pope should have an advisory council of women and another one of oppressed people"

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Mon, 05 Nov 2018 21:27:00 +0000

by Cameron Doody (English translation by Rebel Girl)
Religión Digital
November 4, 2018

The Dominican ex-Jesuit Félix Cepeda is one of the leaders in the fight for social justice in the Church in the United States. To the point where he has been arrested several times for his demonstrations for the most oppressed. In this interview with RD, the young social activist analyzes the challenges of the North American bishops before their fall meeting of November 12 to 14, for which one of his main petitions is that the prelates ask the Pope "to change canon law to allow us lay men and women to be able to make decisions in the parishes."

The US media have described you as a "one man social justice mission." What does "social justice" mean to you and what are you doing to achieve it?

For me, justice is that no one is discriminated against for any reason -- their sexual orientation or gender, their skin color, their social class, their religion or for being an atheist -- in Church and in society. That we can all have housing, education, health care, a job with a decent salary, be able to take vacations, enjoy good food, art, music...

To achieve this in the United States and in the Dominican Republic, I work with many people and social movements, where we try to think, pray and act for justice. And we try with the little we have -- music, food, knowledge, etc. -- to share with our needier brothers and sisters. We have even been arrested for defending the rights of the most vulnerable and I think you have to risk your freedom and life if necessary.

You were a Jesuit brother before becoming a social activist. Does your social activism involve as much of a vocation as being a Jesuit?

God has called me to learn and struggle together with our most oppressed sisters and brothers. For a time I did it as a Jesuit and now I'm doing it as a layman. The way of serving might change, but never the call to fight for justice in and out of the Church.

From November 12 to 14 the US bishops will meet for their fall gathering in Baltimore. In your opinion, what should they do at this meeting to respond to the sex abuse crisis?

I think the main thing during those days is to invite the victims, listen to them, and put their suggestions into practice, such as the one that the Catholic bishops ought to stop fighting against the laws that the victims want approved that would be beneficial to them.

I think the bishops agree that there should not be a limitation period from now on, that is that current victims can accuse their abuser when they're ready, no matter if a lot of time has passed since the abuse. But the bishops don't agree that laws be changed so that past victims can sue their abusers and institutions. Past victims are fighting for this to change, but the bishops are fighting against them.

What should the US bishops do for the migrant caravan that's currently crossing Central America?

I think the day that caravan gets to the border, all the US bishops should be there to receive them and offer them their homes and churches, and to receive those who need a place to sleep and support them in everything they need.

Is there any other urgent matter in your opinion that the US bishops should address at their gathering?

I think the bishops should ask the Pope to change canon law and allow us lay women and men to be able to make decisions in the parishes. Parish councils are currently there to advise the pastor, but the priest has the last word. This should change. In the Protestant churches, laypeople can fire a pastor if he doesn't suit them. I think that in our Church too we laypeople should have more power to serve our communities, jointly with the priests.

Did you follow the recent Vatican synod on youth? If so, what sticks with you?

I'm very pleased with the women and men who, in the streets of Rome and in the Synod, protested to demand that women be able to vote in the Synod.

I think the time has come now to protest and get organized. We laywomen and laymen, women and men, should be together with the cardinals and bishops, priests and the Pope as equals. Likewise, we should be able to govern our Church together, to be able to better serve our most oppressed brothers and sisters.

What's your opinion of Pope Francis? Do you feel motivated as an activist by the emphasis on social justice in his papacy up to now, or would you like him to go further in his ideas?

I admire Pope Francis a lot, but I think he has to listen more to the most oppressed women and men in Church and society, as well as put his suggestions into practice.

I was arrested in Washington, DC, when Pope Francis was here in the United States. With other women and men, we committed civil disobedience and nonviolently blocked the entrance where the Pope's car was passing. The police arrested us. The Pope looked at us and read our signs where we were calling for women's ordination to the priesthood.

Just as Pope Francis has a council of cardinals, he should have one of women and of oppressed people who are struggling against their oppressors. These people could help the Pope be braver.

Ivone Gebara: "The Church is going to lose thinking women"

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Fri, 05 Oct 2018 02:28:00 +0000

by Jesús Bastante (English translation by Rebel Girl)
Religión Digital
October 1, 2018

"To say that the Virgin Mary is more important than the apostles, only serves to keep everything the same. That doesn't come from the Gospel." Brazilian theologian Ivone Gebara is one of the greatest representatives of feminist theology in the world.

From Comillas, where this afternoon she participated in some conversations organized by the Asociación de Teólogas Españolas [ATE - "Association of Spanish Women Theologians"], Gebara criticizes the "Patriarchal Church" that, she asserts, runs the risk of "losing thinking women." We're talking with her exclusively.

In your presentation, you talk about alterity, difference and equality. What do you mean by all that?

They're concepts that are very connected with feminism and that's why some feminist philosophers, and I too, have worked these concepts that weren't born with feminism but from other philosophical reflections like those of the French Jewish philosopher Levinas who talked a lot about the other, about who the other is. My contribution is raising suspicion that the reflections on alterity have placed women as "the other." And when speaking of difference, it is done within a context, where male universality is quite strong.

Are we experiencing a sexist ethic?

Not necessarily sexist. I mean that they're not always connected with an ethic but also with a way of reducing the other, of not taking the difference into account. These concepts become theoretical, almost empty in practice. Equality, alterity, difference ... are related to something. Same as what, different from what. In that sense I want to talk about something that is connected with the life of women, which is beauty. A single beauty is manufactured, which is actually the products that are sold. The same brands produced for different label...

This is a spiderweb into which we all fall because that beauty is something external and it is very self-sacrificing. We have to sacrifice ourselves a lot to have the ideal weight, the wrinkle-free skin...thousands of bondages. Finally, I speak of the female body from Christianity. And it's interesting that Christianity -- and when I speak of Christianity I speak of theology, not of Jesus' time -- the ideal of feminine beauty is a "spiritual" ideal, but it's the beauty of service. The woman who is good is the one who serves, the one who is a very good mother ... For example, all these women who go out to the street to talk about the rights of women, are betraying the ideal of women as mothers, caregivers, submissive, housewives, cleaners of the Church, servants of the priests. They are the women who cook for them, clean the seminaries ....

Doesn't the Church realize that the day women say "Enough already" to being servants, slaves...and nothing else within this Church, the Church might remain empty?

It's that up until now they see this women's project as very far off, especially in Latin America. They're aware, but they act as if the problem doesn't exist. I know some priests who pay measly salaries and, at the same time, talk about social justice. These contradictions exist because poverty exists, which women experience. Material poverty, in the first place, but there's also a "compensation", because sometimes the priest is a good guy, polite, not like the drunken husband. That's the consolation...

Yes, but if women don't change their role, they're still submissive...

But the submission is different. The priest doesn't hit her, the priest thanks her, he says he'll pray for her. There's an idea of the priest as representative of Jesus. That symbology, in a certain way, delays the process.

Here, that is called "micromachismos," unwittingly...

...you're fomenting injustice. The day the priest realizes it, the relationships are going to change. But they're relationships more of friendship.

When will the Church recognize women as disciples of Jesus too?

The first thing that must be said is that if we say "disciples", we are now establishing a hierarchy. I prefer to speak of the "Jesus Movement." In that movement, Jesus didn't always have the last word. Male theologians have underscored an infused wisdom in Jesus, as if he would never have had to learn anything from anybody, to the point of saying that Mary was the first disciple of her son. This can't be sustained. Jesus had to learn, be contested, respond, make mistakes. I think we have a very romantic idea of Jesus of Nazareth and speaking of a movement, we're coming down to the reality of life. In the Jewish world, women have a very important role as mothers, educators who are listened to. The patriarchal world, Christianity since the 2nd and 3rd centuries is connected with the Roman Empire idea of power, and there things start to change. Women's public authority is totally lost.

Is the Church sexist?

I prefer not to use the word "sexism" because that word has a very negative connotation of subjectivity and emotionalism. Not all men are sexist, nor are all bishops sexist, so I prefer to speak of a patriarchal foundation. Here the man is in charge because he's the representative of Jesus and I'm not. So, I could be more right than you, but the last word is yours. The patriarchal world doesn't just exist in the Church.

Is it in the gospel that only men can be priests, that women can't have a sacramental role in the Church?

That doesn't come from the Gospel. The priests want to see the 12 apostles, men, as Jesus' choice. I don't see that. Feminist biblical hermeneutics sees other things, but unfortunately they don't read us, they don't listen to us, and they throw us out of the formation institutions. The few women theologians who teach in Theology schools have to adapt to the norms.

How do you interpret the fact that the Pope has included three women on the International Theological Commission, and that he has opened a commission on the female diaconate?

I'm very critical. I'm not the only one who thinks that way. First, who elected these women theologians as representatives? They could be representatives of the feminine, but not of Catholic feminism. Because what bothers the Church isn't the feminine, it's feminism. Because feminine is saying, like the Pope says, that the Virgin Mary is more important than the apostles -- this is romantic discourse that serves to keep everything the same.

The Pope puts three women, among them there's a nun, two German theologians. Why didn't he ask the different women theologians' organizations -- the Spanish ATE, for example -- what names they would indicate?

Do you think it's more a matter of quota, and not of conviction?

Sure, and then you get two old cardinals who have nothing to do with it. They say they're studying it, but they won't come to any conclusion. Already in advance, he has already said no to priestly ordination. Now he opens a small gap for the diaconal one, but there's no need to have much hope.

What do we feminist Catholics, men and women, who understand that the Church should be a place where equality is practiced, have to do?

I think men talk very little about this. They might do it in closed circles, but they don't speak at the congresses, they don't write to the Pope. They are satisfied, although it could be done differently. There are no male voices. There are Dominicans, Jesuits, who speak of respect for women, against violence, there are very nice texts about this. But between this and saying "We must change theology," until the moment we talk about the apostles, about God the Father Almighty, about the sacraments only connected with the male figure of Jesus ... then there are no changes. And if there are changes, I'm sure it will not be now, but you have to start changing.

Where should we start?

Every community, in every group, in every country, has to start from their own reality. I would invite the women to meet, to study, for their part, and the men to reflect on their side.

What future awaits the Church if it doesn't break from the paradigm of men with power and women servants?

I can't speak to the future, but presently what is happening is that many women are leaving the Church. The Church has already lost the reserves, it has already lost the peasantry, and it's going to lose thinking women. Thinking women and leaders of popular movements. The Catholic Church says almost nothing to them now. In the indigenous world, the Church's manner with communitarian feminism doesn't say anything to them. Yes, some will stay, but they will lose many.

Mary E. Hunt: "All priests are complicit in the abuse crisis"

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Fri, 28 Sep 2018 22:18:00 +0000

By Cameron Doody (English translation by Rebel Girl)
Religión Digital
September 16, 2018

The American reference point on feminist theology, Mary E. Hunt, may not believe in the institutional Church of abuses and cover-ups, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't believe in God. She simply recognizes, with an unusual lucidity, that "we are maturing in post-modernity towards a different kind of faith." That is why -- because she is faithful not only to the Gospel example of Jesus Christ but also to people -- she implores that, from the hierarchy, this new model of Catholicism that has already begun to bloom be allowed to flourish.

First, your impressions of the Congress of the Asociación de Teólogos y Teólogas Juan XXIII that just ended.

I considered it very interesting and coherent with the kind of issues that the group has been addressing so far. I was here in '92, and back then we also worked on the divine and that kind of thing. I think you can see the development, the thinking of people and the expectations of people about what religion can provide, coming from the Catholic tradition -- the limitations of this tradition and what we can do creatively to develop other options. I think all that was evident this weekend.

I think it was very important to have the presentation on the Sufi perspective, that it was very important to have a younger person for the last presentation ... and that it was very important to address both the content of mysticism and what it could mean for people. There was a common thread, as usual in this group, of serious commitment to social justice and also to spirituality.

I've probably never focused in these terms on mysticism or contemplation or meditation, whatever one may call our spiritual dimension. I thought it was very useful -- I found it personally very useful and I met many interesting people. I found the presentations very stimulating.

What exactly did you address in your presentation?

I gave it a rather curious title: "The power of silence and working for justice." Things that aren't usually juxtaposed: either you're committed to spirituality or you're doing the work of justice. But my point of view, my experience and my practice are that it has to be both at the same time, and I tried to explain, given the sad situation of institutional Catholicism -- and, coming from the United States, the sad situation of our government -- that many people are very discouraged, and it's a difficult time to not have the usual resources that people often turn to in their spirituality.

But what are we going to create that is new? Also with the Catholic Church in the United States in ruins, many Catholics are looking for something else, and I think that using some of the roots of our tradition -- Hildegard of Bingen or Nancy Sylvester (from the Institute for Communal Contemplation and Dialogue), for example -- we can bring the contemplative practice to the work of social justice, and include social justice in the practice of contemplation.

It's community contemplation; it's not simply what one does gazing at one's navel, but what one does accompanied by other people both physically and non-physically, and I tried to describe some of the ways in which that happens.

Going back to the idea of the "Church in ruins". The sex abuse crisis -- how did we get here and how can we get out of it?

I don't have a magical way for us to get out of this, but I understand how we got here. I think there are two main factors.

The first, the studied duplicity that has been rampant in the Catholic Church. I'm talking about the Church in the United States and the Roman Church. I don't want to say anything about the Spanish Church, although I think there are similarities in that situation.

Duplicity has grown up around a false anthropology, which is that in some way there is a differentiation, a degrading differentiation, between people.

Once you start with a structure with a division of clerics-laity, in which the clergy have all the power and the laity have all the responsibility to make it work, and once you decide that only men can be part of the clergy, that homosexuals can't be part of the clergy ... What Rosemary Radford Ruether called "hierarchical dualisms". That God is above the world. That people are above animals. Men over women. Whites over people of color. Heterosexual people over homosexual people ... Once you establish that habit of thinking, it's devastating.

Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza gave it a name: "kyriarchy." When you take structures of racism, sexism, xenophobia, economic disparities, etc., you put them all together and they're intertwined -- so that a poor, black lesbian woman finds herself in a much worse situation than a heterosexual white man -- once that is structured, there are very few ways out.

The relationship between this "dominion" and the sex abuse crisis is twofold: the colossal and culpable ignorance of most clerics about sexuality in general and the types of prohibition in the Church. No to contraception, to masturbation, to other forms of sexuality, to priests practicing sex due to the vow of celibacy ... The stage is set and those involved will have to find a way out, which in this case has been sex with children. But it's a single perspective.

What we're seeing now is the abuse of power by clerics with those they're in charge of. Seminarians and other priests, as in the case of Theodore McCarrick. How ironic and sad that the worst thing that could happen to him is that he is "reduced" to the lay state, like the rest of us.

What came out about the McCarrick case was that not only was he habitually going to bed with seminarians, and that the work and future of those seminarians depended on their compliance, but that everyone knew it. How could it happen that this guy committed abuses and, on top of that, extrajudicial compensation was reached with some victims?

Why do you think?

It's this duplicity of the Church. That the institution protects its own and lies about it -- there's a lack of transparency. And then there are McCarrick's pedophilia cases...Someone had to know something.

There are stories about McCarrick in New York...He went out to dinner with men, he took them to a Catholic hospital where he had a flat...

Or the beach house.

The beach house was another place...but a hospital? It's extraordinary. Many people must have helped him do it, and meanwhile he's rising in rank to become not only an archbishop but a cardinal, and in Washington, DC to top it off.

He got very close to the rich and famous and to people in politics, and he raised a lot of money. But now, Viganò, the former papal nuncio, has written his allegation... It's a complicated situation, because there are factors on both sides: right and left, pro-Pope Francis and anti-Pope Francis ... But Francis must have known something ... Either he's lying or he's stupid, those are the only two options. And now with the new letter from Sandri ... it seems they're all lying.

What I gather from this are two things: one, that apparently all this is "nothing is happening here," all normal. If you want to rise in rank, you do it by sleeping with people. And two, that this is a disaster that has left many people -- good people, laity -- with enormous difficulties. Difficulties that can be attributed to specific people who didn't do their jobs correctly and who would be dismissed if it were a secular organization. Dismissed and replaced, but not with more bishops who were raised in the same system ...

I consider every priest an accomplice: they know how the system works. All are complicit spectators at best. We need a new system! To get rid of the bishops, the clergy and have a Church run by laity, where people who have expertise in particular areas form committees in each region or diocese. I don't think that in a year anyone will miss a bishop, and I don't think most parishes miss a priest.

We've just left the final liturgy of the Congress, carried out by the LGBTIQ community ... Very, very well done, and the role of the ordained priest was minimal in the best of cases. The whole community participated, and nobody missed anyone wearing robes similar to Halloween ones. I think we're maturing in post-modernity towards a different kind of faith.

But why are there Catholics who continue to resist this new model of the Church?

I think there are many people who don't think about these things for a living, like you and I, and they take it as something they learned when they were children, and for them religion is what they learned in school. Many people leave it there. And I think many people just don't have models ...

My experience has been, especially in light of this scandal -- a scandal of proportions that we haven't seen before -- that we still don't know how much it will cost.

The report from Philadelphia, a report about three hundred abusive priests and more than a thousand victims -- and made by the state, and not by the Church -- made it clear that not even half of the crimes have come out. And now we have 49 more states that must make their reports.

New York has just cited all the dioceses there, and I don't think any of them can resist any more. It's the law that's coming for them. It's sad to see that a religious institution has to be modified by the legal system, but we live in a society where the safety of children and workers is now a common value. So my feeling is that, although there are some who are resisting -- like Opus Dei and extreme right groups who are using this for their purposes, saying, for example, that homosexuals are to blame, which isn't true -- many people who are in touch with postmodern values are looking for something more. I think the resistance will erode, especially as the financial picture becomes clearer.

There is no money in the Catholic Church in the United States to pay for these abuse cases. Truly, every diocese must be bankrupt. Not only morally, but also financially. And the Church is a business, after all. When people realize that when they put money in the basket, a percentage of that goes to the diocese, and that's what pays the lawyers and compensation to victims, they won't want to pay the fees of those lawyers and they won't want to pay for cover ups. People aren't stupid; they're happy to share, but they don't want to be taken advantage of.

They'll vote with their pocketbooks.

That's it.

And this future Church...Will it be ecumenical? Interfaith?

I would hope so.

I belong to a Women Church group -- "Women Church" is the name that's been given to the feminist groups that have been meeting over the last thirty years. We understood that the word ekklesia has to do with the regular assembly of free male citizens, and since we were not free male citizens, only when you put the word "woman" next to "Church" can you really have something inclusive. It's an irony.

We've had small home-churches for the last thirty years, and there are many intentional Eucharistic communities... Our Women Church group has Jewish women, Protestant ministers...It started as a group of nuns. So I think there will be many new configurations and many new forms of worship.

At WATER, for example, where I work -- Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual -- when we have rituals or meditations, we don't check identification at the door. You just come. So that's already happening, but that the Roman Catholic Church as we know it is going to change into that, no one knows, and in any case probably not in my lifetime. But the more general trend is in that direction.

And your opinion of Pope Francis. Has he brought fresh air to the Church? Or is he more of the same?

Well...Recently I made a presentation about Pope Francis from the feminist perspective, in Brazil, at the UNISINOS conference. And I was a minority voice -- the people at the conference supported the Pope very much, some of his biographers being there and more. But I made a very strong case, I think, for why Pope Francis should be considered a poisoned gift, in the best case scenario.

I think he entered a situation in which the bar was very, very low, after 37 years of John Paul II and Ratzinger ... Progressive people, in particular, were so disappointed that Francis was seen as something wonderful.

It turns out that I lived in Argentina for two years, living and teaching in Buenos Aires during the time when he was the superior of the Jesuit community. I never met him, and we had an interreligious group, Protestants, Jews and Catholics, who met regularly to reflect on the Dirty War -- how to support young people, especially, who were part of the resistance to the Dirty War ... But I never saw a Jesuit.

I also followed him [Bergoglio] in Argentina on the question of same-sex marriage, and in the end he came to a Jesuitical equilibrium by saying that it might be good to have domestic unions. Well, no, Bergoglio: we wanted marriage. And he [Bergoglio] has been terrible with regard to the problems of women in all areas; he jokes about mothers-in-law and is largely a product of his environment.

His only feminist source is his abuelita Rosita, his grandmother Rosa, who's been dead a long time. He simply has no idea how half -- or maybe a bit more than half -- the Church is doing.

So I've been disappointed and frustrated with him from that perspective. That said, I think his work on the environment, on the fight against poverty, the death penalty...on those things I agree with him completely. But with respect to women's issues in particular -- not just the issue of ordination but also birth control and abortion -- on queer issues in general...I think his "Who am I to judge?" statement was lamentable. Even though people did the impossible to praise him.

"Who am I to judge?..." Well, let me tell you: You're the Pope, you're a Catholic, you're a person, you're a pastor...Your work is to judge: judge where love is. So I was very disillusioned with that statement even though most people saw it as a very important opening. As a person, as a Catholic, as a feminist, as a woman, as a lesbian, I don't want the question. I want the statement. Not because we are -- I have a woman partner and a daughter -- but because it's love.

The other thing is that making that declaration as a Jesuit is quite hypocritical, because in my experience the Society is mostly gay. Therefore, he [Francis] has many gay brothers. So at least he could be honest and say: "Here we have a problem with sexuality, and we have to get out of that."

It's not my problem and I'm not going to solve it for them...and in fact I'm very skeptical of women coming and being ordained -- I don't want to ordain anybody. I'm very skeptical of turning to people who haven't created the problem. I've seen that this has already happened -- for example, in a Catholic university, with a woman president and lawyer, trying to fix the McCarrick case. It's a nightmare that these women are the ones who have to fix it.

I don't have a solution and I'm not looking for a solution beyond that of love and caring towards the victims and survivors [of abuse]. Anything we can do in their name is a solution, but the institutional questions...the men are alone, unless they're open to these new serious models of community run by lay people, and not just open to them.

Their time is up.

Photo: Mary Hunt (holding up the paten) participating in the closing liturgy of the Asociación de Teólogos y Teólogas Juan XXIII Congress.

Letter from the 3rd Continental Congress on Latin American and Caribbean Theology to Pope Francis

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 12:55:00 +0000

This is an English translation of the letter that was issued. The original Spanish version can be found on the Amerindia website.

Dear brother Francis:

In this harsh time of trial, we want to make you feel our closeness and support because we know of your fidelity to the Gospel of Jesus. To tell you that your proposal for a poor church for the poor is also our quest and commitment.

Amerindia, in its forty-year journey on the continent, seeks to present the essential challenges of the Second Vatican Council and the Latin American magisterium from a liberating theology. In the Third Continental Congress on Latin American and Caribbean Theology, more than six hundred of us participants are gathered -- men and women theologians and Christians involved in various areas of social and ecclesial life to delve into the 50th anniversary of Medellin and its actualization today.

These lands bear witness to prophecy and martyrdom as a consequence of following Christ in the search for justice and the preferential option for the poor, as attested to by Mons. Romero, the UCA martyrs, and so many others. From this context, we are reading this "your hour" and because of it, we believe and affirm that the blood of martyrs is the seed of life and hope. We are aware that a new spring is emerging in the Church and is taking place in the complexity of the transforming processes.

In these times of celebration of the 50th anniversary of Medellin under the powerful beacon of Vatican II and the great movement that second Conference conceived, you have emerged as a genuine son of that Church.

We know that your gospel fidelity implies discernment and the courage of prophetic denunciation, an affectionate embrace of the disinherited of the earth and the victims of human cruelty, in and out of the Church.

As daughters and sons, sisters and brothers, we are fully with you and assume the co-responsibility this means, praying that you be able to carry forward the work God has entrusted to you.

"The cries of the poor and the earth challenge us" on the 50th anniversary of the Medellin Conference - El Salvador, August 30 - September 2, 2018.

"I am Agustina Gamboa and I will no longer keep silent"

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Tue, 07 Aug 2018 17:19:00 +0000

Fathers and teenage daughters at loggerheads over a political issue isn't news. Imagine if the father in question is a prominent priest in the archdiocese who holds traditional views on reproductive rights and you, his daughter and guilty secret, are a feminist. Agustina Maria Gamboa Arias, did not reveal her biological father's identity for 18 years, but when she saw Fr. Carlos Gamboa, a member of the Archdiocese of Salta, Argentina, on the TV program La Otra Campana speaking out against the bill to legalize abortion that her nation's government is considering, she knew she could no longer keep silent. On July 29th, Gamboa Arias issued the following statement on her Facebook page, revealing her father's identity, his past actions, and her opposition to his views:

"Priest and point of reference of the Catholic Church of Salta Carlos Gamboa was interviewed on the program "La Otra Campana" about the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy Act to be dealt with soon in the nation's Senate. On the occasion, Carlos Gamboa appealed to the slogans "Yes to life", "Yes to all life", "All life is worthy." Those were his statements. However, reality contradicts his words since he has systematically neglected and disregarded me, his daughter Agustina María Gamboa Arias, born in May 2000.

I bear the last name of my progenitor, but originally I was noted in the Public Registry as Agustina Arias since he refused to acknowledge me legally, denying me also the right of every boy and girl to their identity. On August 16, 2002, at the behest of a lawyer, I was able to be recognized as is recorded in the annotation on the margin of my birth certificate. Even though I am alive, if it were for him I would be in complete abandonment.

I have always known everything about my identity, who I am and where I come from, but this reality was inconclusive. As I grew up I needed not only to know it but also to understand what was happening. Why was my father absent?

In the interview in which he appeared, Gamboa talks about "accompanying the woman who is in the dilemma of continuing or interrupting a pregnancy." He also talks about "supporting the kids who are alive." Being his daughter, I went through many abandonment issues because Carlos Gamboa never cared to know me.

Based on my insistence, we were able to coordinate some meetings that became more and more complicated. We would see one another at service stations far from anyone who might recognize him. In the meetings he would repeat the argument that he loved me but that he couldn't be my father. In those days for a girl of 6 or 7 years, it was a very confusing story since I didn't have the emotional tools to understand what he was saying in such a contradictory way. I was a girl who believed my father loved me; I waited for his calls on important dates like birthdays and holidays or any show of interest that never came.

There were never any initiatives on his part, despite the fact that my mother and my heart father [stepfather] offered him many options to facilitate our bond like meeting in other provinces or paying his fare to the Federal Capital, the place where I live, so he could come see me. He never agreed and with the passing of time, the silences were longer and longer.

I understood a lot later, in my adolescence that my father didn't love me so I sought affection in other members of my paternal family. Through the social networks I started to look for everyone with the last name Gamboa who might be a relative. There were many and I was even able to meet a cousin who with her parents and brothers, received me with joy. However, that unleashed a storm that manifested itself in verbal and psychological abuse over the phone by Gamboa towards me and my mom.

Carlos Gamboa's family lined up behind him, protecting him and preventing me from knowing them and completing part of my identity and my life -- what Gamboa says he's defending. In this very unfortunate episode, Víctor Gamboa, Carlos' twin brother, had a terribly violent and destructive role, being that at the beginning he seemed to be a trustworthy person and a good father.

In this struggle to achieve recognition, space, a little affection and to complete my story, I ended up confronting the Catholic Church of Salta which, as we know, has a lot of power and through a lawyer defended its interests, going completely against my rights.

So, when my progenitor talks about "respecting both lives" I must say that he did not respect the life of his daughter because of defending his image and his economic privileges. The church covered it up and helped hide me. No one was to be aware of my existence.

I was the victim of all these manipulations that affected me psychologically. The abandonment of the child who was born is so destructive for the personality that it makes it still hard for me today when bonding or shaping my personal relationships to the point that I came to think that I didn't deserve to be loved.

Carlos Gamboa in the interview says the Church should form and respect people but he never did that with me; his actions affected my way of being, the way in which I bond with people and how I've developed emotionally, having experienced so much emotional manipulation, having heard so many empty words that have affected me forever. I've been going to a psychologist as long as I can remember. How to trust others if you can't trust your biological father? That's why, when in the interview he says he's "for both lives" and says "let's not harm it more with another abuse," I must state that the damage he did to me is irreversible, harm that also manifested itself in relation to child support since for him to comply with his obligation, a private agreement had to be concluded. On numerous occasions he fell behind on the support payments and abused my mother when she requested what was due me, so that situation was very violent.

So when Carlos Gamboa and the Church he represents talk about "yes to life", "yes to all life", and "every life is worthy," I ask myself what does he mean by that? Why does he feel he has the moral authority to say it so lightly? Imposing with this argument a way of thinking on society, knowing that his words have a lot of weight but his actions contradict him. I have to say that all this seems total hypocrisy to me.

Against my father's position, my family and I are in favor of the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy Act without modifications because we know that this Act will help women and gestating bodies that are at risk or want to decide about their future. We also think that abandonment is death and that the dogma of the Church should not be interposed in republican life and that women's decisions should be respected.

To conclude, I would add that this letter was very hard to write and that there have been months of preparation, analysis and removing issues that hurt or are troublesome, but it leaves me somewhat clearer, it frees me from the stigma the curia imposed on me at birth. Now I can proudly say that I participated in the vigil at the [Chamber of] Deputies, that I've had an ideological life formation oriented towards human rights and those of women and dissident sexualities and that is why I'm making this letter public. My name is Agustina María Gamboa Arias and I have decided on my own -- and with my family's support -- to stop being an accomplice in the moral double standard of the Church of which my biological father, Carlos Gamboa, is a part.

I am expressing myself because I want abortion to be LEGAL SAFE and FREE and that there be SECULAR SEXUAL EDUCATION WITH THE GENDER PERSPECTIVE in ALL educational institutions in the country, and because I want ALL women and gestating bodies to have FREE CHOICE over our bodies and our lives.

LONG LIVE THE FEMINIST STRUGGLE!"

Gamboa Arias' public statement caused a huge uproar. On July 31st, Msgr. Mario Cargnello, the Archbishop of Salta, issued a communique asking God's forgiveness and that of the faithful for the pain caused by this news, by the scandal it has caused. While he did not apologize directly to Ms. Gamboa Arias, Msgr. Cargnello did say that he wants to "staunch" her wounds and would be launching a canonical investigation into her allegations.

Truth and its violent consequences

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 19:45:00 +0000

by Ivone Gebara (English translation by Rebel Girl)
Carta Capital (em português)
July 5, 2018

"Do you swear to tell the truth and only the truth?" I swear. "Do you swear by God, by the homeland, by the family, by your honor, by the Bible?" I swear. What would be this truth to which one must swear and often risk one's own life?

According to the Greek origin of the word, truth -- aletheia -- has to do with what is not occult, the unconcealed, the unmasked. It extends through diverse knowledge, situations, emotions and personal and social actions. In other words, it gambles on the possibility of the human person revealing something that only she knows, something that she has discovered, something she is hiding about facts, people, situations or about herself.

Truth would be a kind of clarity about a fact, an event, a feeling, and therefore a belief that we are able to reach into the depth of ourselves and even reveal it to others. Such behavior means to many that it is possible to find 'something', 'a thing', 'an emotion' free from deception or lies, as if it were a nugget of gold, or pure love.

Some ancient philosophers believed that there was a truth of things, that it was possible for the word to be identified with the object and the object with the word. They believed in an adequation between thought, essence and thing, and vice versa.

We moderns and postmoderns find that this quasi-coincidence does not exist, but that truth is a personal and even collective point of view on interpretations of life. A thick cloud envelops us and prevents us from reaching the place indicated by our desire. Reason and desire are in conflict.

We contemporaries are lovers of circumstances, of changes and we believe in the mutation of truths, in their multiple conditionalities and consequently we live in their social belligerence.

Truth is in social movement, in its multi-faceted personal and collective reality. This is why all attempts, whether from politics or from religion, to unify the truth have led and lead to totalitarianism and violence. And both one and the other in their historical diversity and in the diversity of their forms of truth have tried the way of unification of truth and have used weapons to defend it.

Both of them from their authority have wanted to impose their truths without perceiving the truth of diversity and the impossibility of a unification by force. However, we are well aware that the foundation of political truth expressed in the forms of government and the authority of leaders is visible, whereas the foundation of religions and in particular of monotheisms, is invisible. The legitimization of religious power is done through divine invisibility that is presumed to be represented by the clerical hierarchy.

Today, we are experiencing a certain failure of the traditional foundations of the order of truths. We understand the world differently. What we see in fact is the difficulty of total agreements from affirmations called 'truths', especially those emanating from political and religious powers.

Moreover, empirically we experience the cruelty of truth every day. When we denounce the lie and want to affirm something of the truth, of the real, we are condemned. Therefore, the truth we know in history is the mother of pain, the mother of suffering, the mother of injustice, the mother of murders. Mother in the sense of being generative, of giving birth.

If we reveal it, we are brought to court, we are expelled from parties, synagogues and churches, crucified, imprisoned, condemned to death, forced to drink hemlock and tortured by those who think they have the power over truth.

If we tell the truth we have our works burned, our teaching interrupted, expulsion from our land to guarantee the truth of those who claim to be its owners. Truth is cruel! It saves no one from accusations, from prisons, from the many Gulags in history!

In 1837, Hans Christian Andersen published a story called "The Emperor's new clothes." In it, a king is deceived by two astute tailors who make him believe that they would weave him beautiful clothes that only the intelligent and capable ones would be able to see. They spend weeks weaving and making the king try on the clothes by making flattering remarks to him.

The king himself, wearing the invisible clothes, does not admit to being either incapable or unintelligent. He decides to wear the clothing and introduce himself to his subjects. They all look at it and admire it, but no one is able to reveal the truth about the king's nakedness because it would reveal their own ignorance. In this, a child in the crowd shouts, "The king is naked." The truth came out of the mouth of a child who was not afraid of being ridiculed or called incompetent or unintelligent.

She said what her eyes saw. The truth was stated by a child. It is she who reveals the hidden, it is she who says what everyone sees but is unable to say. Revelation is dangerous, truth is threatening.

The everyday story continues to show the cruelty of truth. Donald Trump's violent 'truth' is that he does not want more foreigners in the United States. He separates the children from their families and puts them in prisons. The numbers are scary. More than 2000 children are imprisoned! The truth about immigrants is that they are seeking to save their lives, to get out of hunger and go to a place where there is work and decent survival.

The conflicts show and the cruelty of some is evident over the fragility of others. The violence and hatred of some contrasts with the fragility of others. How to live with so many 'truths' and so many lies? Is there a way to negotiate them?

There might be another way when, according to the Book of Genesis, we disobey the all-powerful Father, and, seduced by the serpent of freedom that inhabits us, we transgress orders and are expelled from Paradise ...

Truth makes us wanderers in search of our bread with the sweat of our body and the abundance of our tears. Truth makes us without a fatherland, without a motherland, without family, without the friends of our childhood, without the smell of our land, without God. Might this be the freedom of truth?

Deep down it is the lie that protects us, it is the one that teaches us juggling to carry out our intent. It is the lie that hides our face from the face of others who judge and persecute us. That is why we love lies more, although we say that we swear by the truth and seek the truth.

The fact is that we are wanderers, and in this situation and condition, we can only count on the companions of that long journey. Like the child who cried out the king's nakedness, we need to welcome each other's cry of helplessness and realize that deceit about ourselves leads us to premature death, kills life, kills forests, rivers ... It kills the planet and us with it. This tragedy is an aspect of truth.

Along these lines, we are witnessing today wandering from the truth and lack of rights from different human groups. Thousands and thousands of homeless, landless, and stateless, each seeking the most important truth -- "protecting your life and that of your neighbors." To have the right to your own life is the first written truth, inscribed in our own bodies, in our breathing in search of air.

That is why one leaves his land occupied by others who are extracting precious metals, wood, water and gold from it. They kill the earth and its population in the name of their truth called progress, human development ... It is boundless greed. Conflicts are inevitable when those who have not died go out in search of a land to live in.

And where they arrive, they are not welcomed; on the contrary, they are expelled and remain wanderers. For all this, the idea of a total integral humanism and a pure truth that harmonizes us in a single vision is not only ambiguous and deceptive but unlikely.

Perhaps the way out is not to solve problems through a single social, political or religious truth since the very truth of human history is plurality. And this plurality or diversity manifests itself in all human activities and in the whole flow of life where the unforeseen and foreseen mingle, attract one another, cancel one another, and coexist.

One step would be to promote respect for the real complexity of truth and the need to continually unmask our multiple temptations to reduce the world of others to our own truth, to eliminate the lives of others to affirm our economic, political, and religious truth. Educate ourselves at all levels for diversity to avoid totalitarian dogmatisms.

Diversity costs. It is not just a spoken word, it is an external and internal modification of ourselves when in fact we want a world where all will fit with dignity. Everything is allowed, but everything is not good for the maintenance of life, human dignity and the whole planet. Respect for the diversity of life and its total interdependence must be part of our common creed.

It is what opens us to the hope of unity in real diversity. This unity is made of a continually renewed dialogue and it is in our image, fragile and helpless, always open to betrayal and communion. It is hope, in the uncertainty of the journeys. And on these journeys, the luminous truth that stubbornly inhabits us lives and will live, mixed with the many stones of the way.

The last battle of the activist nun: "I'm going back to the cloister"

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 16:53:00 +0000

by Paolo Rodari (English translation by Rebel Girl)
La Repubblica (in Italiano)
July 16, 2018

"The constituent process in Catalonia will end on the first of September. On that day I'll return to the normal life of the monastery, ever more convinced that the Catalan movement for independence from Spain is an opportunity to deepen democracy and tackle some fundamental issues of exclusion and social abuse. This has opened the eyes of many people to the insufficient nature of our democracy and to the fact that in the globalized twenty-first century, political power is subject to economic power."

A feminist theologian and Benedictine nun, Teresa Forcades left her cloister two years ago to engage in politics, fighting for the independence of Catalonia. In a month, she will return to the monastery where she will continue her battles, but in another way. Among the most read writers in Spain, engaged against the pharmaceutical industry lobby, for gender rights and for the LGBT world, she tells La Repubblica about these two years "outside the walls" and the challenges of the future, all with a look beyond the Spanish borders.

On Italy, for example, Forcades has precise ideas: "Lega ["The League"] is a far-right movement. All extreme right-wing movements are dangerous for democracy because they are by definition authoritarian, enemies of pluralism and suspicious of critical thinking. I believe that the widespread success of current right-wing authoritarianism in Europe is a reaction to the frustration created by capitalist democracy -- it is impossible to have political democracy without economic democracy. One can't be expected to act as a responsible democratic citizen after spending ten hours a day working in degrading conditions for a poor salary. The book Hired by James Bloodworth opens one's eyes in that sense and so does Il mondo deve sapere ["The world must know"] by Michela Murgia."

For Forcades the political ideal is the United Nations, "but not the one we have today, with the right of veto, nor the European Union we have today, designed to favor economic powers." "The economic powers," she says, "have more power than politicians, more power than voters. I see this as the main problem."

In the Church, Forcades is always an active nudge. In fact, there are many subjects on which the Church is struggling to have a new view. Among these, homosexuality. The catechism preaches acceptance, but at the same time asks that homosexual persons live in chastity. Says Forcades: "I think it's deeply inhuman. I believe that homosexual marriage should be recognized as a sacrament because what constitutes the sacrament of marriage is what this particular human bond has in common with the life of the Trinity and the life of the Trinity has nothing to do with gender or sexual complementarity and nothing to do with having children. Homosexuality is not a problem, homophobia is." And again: "On some issues, such as social justice, the Church's doctrine and some of its practices are prophetic and ahead of our times. On other matters, the Church is really behind. It is particularly behind on sexual morality (such as prohibiting contraception) and on the role of women and I think this is most likely a consequence of having only celibate males who govern the Church."

José María Castillo: Why are women not allowed to be priests like men?

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Wed, 25 Jul 2018 22:59:00 +0000

by Jesús Bastante (English translation by Rebel Girl)
Religión Digital
July 24, 2018

José María Castillo is one of our best theologians. Persecuted and condemned for years for supporting a popular theology, open and close to the poor. Now the coming of Pope Francis has meant a full-fledged rehabilitation for Castillo.

Not just theological but visible -- Bergoglio himself received and thanked Pepe Castillo for his theology in a historical day that we remember in this interview on the occasion of the publication of La religión de Jesús. Comentarios al Evangelio diario Ciclo C ["The religion of Jesus: Comments on the daily Gospel, Cycle C"], published by Desclée. The future of the Church and religions, also on the table, with one clear idea: "The Gospel is not a religion and, therefore, nor is Christianity -- it's a life project."

It's always an honor and a pleasure. Pepe Castillo, welcome to your home.

Indeed, this is an extension of my house.

That is also what's intended. We are trying to create a big family at Religión Digital, with you and us. In this family there are always new and very desired children who come because, moreover, this is a book you do every year and we now have it here: La religión de Jesús. Comentarios al Evangelio diario Ciclo C (2018-2019) by José María Castillo, from the publisher Desclée. They've always chosen some precious photos of children in recent years.

Yes. They take care of the cover, among other things. It's now been eleven years in a row.

Isn't it complicated? In the end, there are three cycles, right?

Yes.

You've repeated that; this will be the third or the fourth one.

Sure. It's one of the difficulties that doing this book and its corresponding commentaries has at this point -- there's a danger of repeating oneself. I've tried to overcome it by paying a lot of attention to something that seems basic to me and it's the situation. Because life is changing very rapidly and, moreover, in very deep and very important things. And, as such, responding to the questions that people are asking or the problems people are experiencing seems to me one of the most important things to do to the extent that a book of this sort can do it.

And what does the Gospel tell us about what's happening in the world today?

It tells us that on very fundamental questions of life this world has drifted towards other interests, other problems, and other solutions that are exactly opposite to the Gospel. This seems important to me. And what I want to add is, as I see it, what is most fundamental at this time is the relationship between the Church and the Gospel.

What is that relationship? What problems do we have in that relationship?

The main problem, as I see it and as I'm developing it in a book that will come out after the summer, is that the Church, to a great extent and fundamentally, has marginalized the Gospel

But wouldn't it be the base on which it sits?

Sure, it's the base; it's the axis, the core. But, however, it isn't. Although we're lucky to have the current pope.

Pope Francis is a unique character in the history of the papacy -- he is, as far as we know, an entirely original pope. From my point of view, he's a man who, without saying it, deep inside him, is what he has set for himself and how he has programmed it. But the fact is that he's changing the papacy. And he's changing it by his lifestyle, his humanity above all, his closeness to the people, his harmony with those no one else tunes in -- the most helpless and unfortunate people of this world.

This pope is changing the situation. He's changing the papacy and he's also changing the future of the Church. I want to emphasize that.

Is it enough? I mean, he's still a man in front of a mastodon like the church institution, that he's fighting strongly and fiercely so as not to commit harakiri, not disappear, in the sense of disappearing from the hierarchies, from the links of power, this pyramidal structure that leaves the people of God a bit drowning.

Yes, that's how it is, because deep down there's a threat that's much more serious. It's no secret that the Pope has great -- we're going to say it -- enemies in the Church. And very high level enemies. Not just in the secular, political, economic, social, intellectual world...but most painfully, in the ecclesiastical world.

He has them at home.

Yes. Enemies who would like to get him out of the way as soon as possible, or for God to take him out of the way. And the root of the problem, from my point of view, is that the Church since its own origins has always had difficulty, distance from and sometimes a very strong contradiction with the Gospel.

Let's not forget a very important thing: the Gospel is plain and simply not a religion. Proof of it is that religion killed the protagonist of the Gospel, who is Jesus. And according to the accounts of the Gospel, which ultimately is a narrative theology not laid out in theories or doctrines but in stories of deeds, of life events.

These recompilations of tales that each one of the evangelists organized and presented differently, basically concur on one essential thing which, normally, a notable quantity of the clerical world refuses to acknowledge.

And what is it?

That the gospel is not a religion and, therefore, Christianity isn't either. It's a life project. And I say it isn't a religion because of what I already indicated before and I'm not tired of repeating: we should never forget that the Gospel is the story of a conflict. A conflict that ended in death and -- this is curious -- the great defender and the one who most resisted killing Jesus was, according to the Passion stories, the Roman procurator.

Yes, Pilate.

The remarkable thing is that those most determined that he not only had to be killed but killed on a cross (that is, in the most cruel and humiliating and degrading way there was in that culture and in that society) were the highest officials of the religion.

The fact that the Church and Christianity have been presented, lived out, been organized and are in society as one more religion has been at the cost of defacing, deforming and marginalizing the axis and core of the Gospel.

So, -- and we're always discussing this -- how do you manage to expand the message, the life project of Jesus to the whole world without becoming a religion that, moreover, is attached to a power? Because without the Roman Empire, this expansion would probably have been impossible, And without certain ties between power and religion, surely Jesus' message would not have reached so many people over the centuries.

Is this a theory of the lesser evil? Or did it serve for a period to spread the message but the institution should have withdrawn, afterwards, from its relationship with power?

What I've been able to find out from reading, studying and reflecting on this practically all my life, but especially in recent years, is that there is a process that is provoked right from the start. I will be as brief as possible: The first is that the early Churches spread through the Empire without knowing the Gospel because the main propagator of those Churches was Saint Paul. Saint Paul didn't know Jesus or, therefore, the Gospel either. What he experienced in the famous incident on the road to Damascus when, they say, he fell off the horse (although the story doesn't mention any horse) was the experience of Christ resurrected. Therefore: Christ, no longer of this world but after this world in the fullness of his glory in eternity.

So it looked like the PP primaries, because Paul and Peter (Paul did know and dealt with Peter) already had their squabbles about how this ought to be. Sounds a bit like Cospedal/Soraya [Translator's note: This is a reference to María Dolores de Cospedal and Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, two rivals in Spain's Partido Popular (PP) party].

They had clashes because of this and for other reasons for which we don't have time now. But the fact is that Paul didn't know Jesus. And also he came to say, in the Second Letter to the Corinthians, that Jesus according to the flesh (that is, the human Jesus) didn't matter to him. And he continues: "and if I once cared about that, at this moment it matters not to me."

The Church today, is it more Paul or more Peter? Or more neither of the two?

The Church isn't confined to Peter and Paul.

Well, but as a symptom: whether it's a more spiritual Church, a more structural Church, or more trying to go back to the roots.

If by Peter we mean the Church that comes from the historical Jesus, obviously the Gospel is more of Peter. While the apostolic letters that Paul was sending to his Churches throughout the Empire from the East to -- they say he got there - Spain, Paul elaborates from his experience of the transcendental, of the Resurrected One. Very conditioned too by his education ideas -- he was educated in Greek culture, he's very marked by Stoic thinking, and it seems that one can state with full assurance that he had conditioning factors of Gnostic origin. And all that isn't Jesus, it's something else and goes along other paths.

What's remarkable is that the gospels began to appear starting from the year 70, forty and some years after Jesus' death. When the Church had already been organized into communities and assemblies throughout the big cities of the Empire. That's the first difficulty.

The second difficulty is that the assemblies that Paul's Churches organized didn't have temples, or what today we call churches, in the sense of buildings. They met in homes, but they had to be big homes and those who had homes like this were the rich and powerful. So the Church was organized around the homes of rich, important people and their consequent interests.

The third factor -- that many people don't know and that has never been taken into account -- is that in the first centuries the whole Empire was bilingual -- Greek was spoken above all, Latin too. But the gospels were drafted in Greek, and educated people knew Greek. So, people of a certain social and cultural level with all the attachments that inevitably entails. And the poor, what did they do? Well, what they've always done and still do: they stayed on the margin.

The first complete translation of the Bible we know of isn't the one given by the famous patrologist Quasten from the year 180, which is already enough: it would be almost a century and a half long after the death of Jesus. According to Tertullian, the 3rd century is when there's news of this first translation of the whole Bible into Latin. So for the first two centuries the people couldn't know the Gospel.

There's a fourth very important factor: at the beginning of the 4th century comes the famous so-called "conversion of Constantine." From that moment privileges begin to be granted to the Church. I'll not dwell on this. But it's worth taking into account. And in the same 4th century, now at the end, with Emperor Theodosius who was a native of what we now call Spain (from Aragon, it seems).

He was the one who declared the Church as the official one of the Empire.

Sure. Theodosius was the emperor who took a step further than Constantine because Constantine allowed it but Theodosius declared it the only one and all the others went underground. From that time on, end of the 4th century to the beginning of the 6th century, a phenomenon happens that has been studied carefully, well documented, by one of the most competent men we have in this business. Probably the most competent one in the whole world: an Oxford professor named Peter Brown. He wrote a book that has a very curious title, Through the Eye of a Needle. Which is that Gospel thing where a camel enters through the eye of a needle before a rich man enters the Kingdom of God.

This historian shows that from about the end of the 4th century, the whole 5th century, and until the beginning of the 6th century, a surprising phenomenon happens: an avalanche entrance of the most rich and powerful people into the Church. The thing got to the point that there were many cases of bishops named without even being baptized. The best known case is the one of the one who was bishop of Milan, Saint Ambrose. Saint Ambrose was a catechumen, and from a catechumen he was consecrated bishop because they saw he was the only one who could rule an ungovernable Church because of the troubles it had. That was repeated by the Gauls and also in Roman Hispania. It spread.

This massive entry of rich and powerful people into the Church gave it a completely new twist: the Gospel was maintained, but it wasn't lived out. And here I want to emphasize an issue that seems capital to me: the Gospel isn't a theory, it's a way of life. And it's present to the extent that it is lived out. If it isn't, we will have one or many theories -- there are even a lot of gospel sayings that have become popular sayings -- but saying them is one thing and living them, another.

And this is the Church's big problem: that we have an institution that's well organized, well managed, and well structured but also alienated and distant from the gospel. Although there are individuals, movements and groups that live it, that make an effort to live it. It occured to me at the time of Paul VI, being in Rome on Easter Sunday, to go to St. Peter's Square to the Pope's Mass. I lasted ten minutes there. When I saw the impressive spectacle, I thought, "And all this, what does it have to do with Jesus who was born in a manger and died hanging like a criminal?"

Have you found an answer to that?

I assure you that that morning I went to take a walk through the streets of Trastevere and I was turning it around in my head: " Have I lost my mind? Am I crazy? Or are the people crazy? How is it possible that the story of Jesus was the source of this?".

That day there were representatives of those soldiers who killed so many people in Argentina. There were representatives of the dictatorships of Latin America, of Europe...Search me! From all over the world, and there in the first row...

How it impressed me when I was a student and my parents, now seniors, came to see me in Rome. And the Pope was still using the gestatorial chair, the tiara and all that apparatus of bugles, incense, vestments ...

I remember that my mother (she was a good woman, but we're from a village and a simple family) who had no special culture, went pale. I asked her:

"Mom, is something wrong with you?"

"I'm sinning."

"Mom, please, we're in St. Peter's. You don't sin here; you come here to pray or join the Church."

And my mother said to me:

"It's that I remember that the only thing the Lord got up on was a little donkey. And look how that man is coming!"

What a bit of lesson.

That has stuck in my soul and I haven't stopped turning it over since then. And now, in the eleven years I've been writing this about the gospels, I haven't stopped thinking about the same problem.

I'm now finishing a book titled El Evangelio marginado ["The marginalized Gospel"]. And it's that this is painful; that's why the current pope is a blessing. But him fighting alone...Although he's not alone at all, he's very conditioned. And what they're saying about "why doesn't he remove them all and put others in" is said very soon; the Pope has to be very careful in this because a schism could be organized.

Pontiffs are bridge-builders not destroyers of communion and, sure, it's complicated. The work Francis has ahead of him is very hard.

It's an extremely complicated thing, and delicate -- being good but at the same time being firm and consistent with everyone. Harmonizing these two things is an authentic miracle. It will take years and years for this to succeed.

But there are things I don't want to keep quiet about and I'll take advantage of this time.

First -- I''ve already said it -- that it would be fundamental to organize the family thing because it's a shame; after all there are many thousands of people who still go to Mass. Few institutions have so many people guaranteed every Sunday.

Another important thing would be to allow married men as priests. And more so when it's known for sure that it [Translator's note: mandatory celibacy] was a tradition that was introduced in the 4th or 5th century.

And third, the woman problem: why are women not allowed to be able to be priests the same as men are? Here there's a more basic issue: Why is a sociological, cultural and historical phenomenon so frequently confused with a theological fact?

Naturally women in ancient cultures were marginalized. And we're still experiencing residues of that. But if we're convinced of anything, and each day we see it more clearly, it's that a society that marginalizes women can't go anywhere. And the Church has to address this phenomenon as soon as possible. Women have the same rights as men, and in theology too. Moreover, reading and re-reading, studying the gospels, one of the things that most draws your attention is the exquisite care, protection, respect, and support Jesus gave women, always. Whether Jewish women or of other origins, and regardless of their conduct. Jesus always defended them; well, we're going to defend them.

And the last thing I want to say is I don't have the mouth or the words, nor do I find arguments to ponder and thank Pope Francis for the fact that he himself called me at my home and organized for us to be able to see each other and have an interview. I told him:

"Look, Father Francis, you and I are both undocumented Jesuits just like Díez Alegría, except that he came out on top and I've come out below."

And he laughed. Then I gave him two books and he told me:

"Keep on writing. Don't stop doing it because with this you're doing people a lot of good."

This has done me more good than all the preachers, spiritual directors, confessors, etc. that I've had in my life.

We'll heed the Pope, right? Keep on doing it.

I'm trying to. And though I'm quite old now, I keep on working and will keep on working with enthusiasm while mind and body endure.

Age is in the heart, José María, and you're very young. Like this girl on the cover of your book: La religión de Jesús. Comentario al evangelio diario. Ciclo C (2018-2019) published by Desclée, as always.

Many thanks for the chat and for your magnificent work on Religión Digital too -- this huge service you do to a ton of readers who follow you the world over.

Many thanks and ever onward.

Many thanks to you and to Religión Digital for the huge good you do throughout the world, especially in Spain, in Europe, and in Latin America.

Here we are, José María, and thanks to people like you, we manage.

Recovering the Christianity of Mary Magdalene

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Mon, 23 Jul 2018 22:14:00 +0000

By Juan José Tamayo (English translation by Rebel Girl)
Redes Cristianas
July 23, 2018

On the occasion of the feast of Mary Magdalene, which is celebrated on July 22.

In her work Le Livre de la Cité des Dames ("The Book of the City of Ladies"), in the early 15th century, French writer Christine de Pizan noted the disparity between men's negative image of women and the knowledge she had of herself and other women. The men stated that female behavior was full of every vice -- a judgment that in Christine's opinion showed meanness of spirit and dishonesty. She, on the contrary, after talking with many women of her time who told her their most intimate thoughts, and studying the lives of prestigious women of the past, recognizes their gift for words and a special intelligence for the study of law, philosophy and government.

The situation then repeats itself today in most religions which are patriarchally configured and have never gotten along well with women. The latter are not usually considered religious or moral actors,therefore they are put under the guidance of a male who leads them along the path of virtue, understood and practiced patriarchally as obedience, submission, modesty, silence, humility (=humiliation), service, self-denial, sacrifice. They are denied the right to freedom on the assumption that they would misuse it. They are vetoed at the time of assuming leadership responsibilities because it is understood that they are irresponsible by nature. They are excluded as impure from sacred space. They are silenced because it is believed they are garrulous and say improper things. They are the object of every sort of violence -- moral, religious, symbolic, cultural, physical, etc.

However, religions would have hardly been able to be born and survive without them. Without women, it is possible that Christianity would not have emerged and perhaps not expanded as it did. They accompanied its founder Jesus of Nazareth from the beginning in Galilee to the end at Golgotha. They traveled the cities and towns with him proclaiming the Gospel (=Good News), they helped him with their resources and formed part of his movement on equal terms with the men.

The feminist theologian Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza has shown in her book In Memory of Her that Jesus' first followers were Galilean women freed from all patriarchal dependence, with economic autonomy, who identified themselves as women in solidarity with other women and met to celebrate common meals, live experiences of healing and reflect as a group.

Jesus' movement was an egalitarian collective of men and women followers, without discrimination for reasons of gender. It did not identify women with motherhood. It opposed Jewish laws that discriminated against them, like the libel of repudiation and stoning, and it questioned the patriarchal family model. It harmoniously combined the option for the poor and emancipation from patriarchal structures. Women were friends of Jesus, trusted people and disciples who were with him until the most dramatic moment of the crucifixion, when the male followers had abandoned him.

In Jesus' movement, women recovered the dignity, citizenship, moral authority and freedom that both the Roman Empire and the Jewish religion denied them. They were recognized as religious and moral agents without the need of patriarchal mediation or dependence. One example is Mary Magdalene, a figure of myth, legend and history, and icon in the struggle for women's emancipation.

Both the secular feminist movements and the theologies from the gender perspective appeal to her, whom they consider a fundamental link in the building of an egalitarian society respectful of difference. Mary Magdalene responds, I think, to the profile Virginia Woolf draws of Ethel Smyth: "She belongs to the race of pioneers, of path makers. She has gone before and felled trees and blasted rocks and built bridges and thus made a way for all those who come after her."

Women were the first people who lived the experience of the resurrection while the male disciples were unbelieving at the beginning. It is that experience that gave rise to the Christian church. One more reason to state that without them, Christianity would not exist. Quite a few of the leaders of the communities founded by Paul of Tarsus were women, according to the principle that he himself established in the Letter to the Galatians: "There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female..." (Gal 3:28)

However, things soon changed. Peter, the apostles and their successors, the pope and the bishops appropriated the keys of the Kingdom for themselves. They made off with the ruling rod which had nothing to do with the shepherd's crook to pastor the sheep, while on women they imposed the veil, silence and religious or domestic cloister. This happened when the churches stopped being domestic communities and became political institutions.

When will such injustice to women in Christianity be repaired? One would have to go back to its origins, more in tune with the emancipation movements than with the Christian churches of today. It is necessary to question the supremacy - the primacy - of Peter, which implies the concentration of power in one single person and impedes women's access to shared leadership responsibilities.

We have to recover the discipleship of Mary Magdalene, "Apostle to the Apostles," a recognition she was given in Christian Antiquity and that feminist theologian Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza recovered in an article by the same pioneer title in feminist research on the Christian Testament. It is necessary to revive, re-found the Christianity of Mary Magdalene, inclusive of men and women, in continuity with the men and women prophets of Israel and with the prophet Jesus of Nazareth, but not with the apostolic succession, of marked hierarchical-patriarchal accent, of scholastic theology, that viewed the Church as a monarchy.

A Christianity forgotten among the walled ruins of the city of Magdala, Mary Magdalene's place of birth, which I visited five years ago, seven kilometers from Capernaum, where Jesus of Nazareth resided during the time his public activity lasted. In the excavations that are taking place in Magdala, an important synagogue was discovered in 2009. There is found the subversive memory of the original Christianity led by Jesus and Mary Magdalene that was defeated by official Christianity.

But from that Christianity buried under those ruins emerges a vigorous liberating Christianity, defiant and empowered through the egalitarian movements that are rising on the margins of the great Christian churches, as rose up on the edges the first movement of Jesus, Mary Magdalene and the other women who accompanied him during the few months his public activity lasted.

It is necessary to inherit the moral and spiritual authority of Mary of Magdala as friend, disciple, successor of Jesus, and pioneer of equality. We have to rebuild the line of continuity of the emancipating movements throughout history and establish new inclusive alliances, created from below and not from power, fighting against the social, political and religious exclusion of women that ends in gender violence, and against discrimination against women, which is intersectional in nature -- by social class, culture, ethnicity, religion, affective-sexual identity, etc.

Juan José Tamayo is a member of the Comité Científico del Instituto Universitario de Estudios de Género of the Universidad Carlos III in Madrid. Among his works devoted to feminism should be cited: Otra teología es posible. Interculturalidad, pluralismo religioso y feminismo (Herder, Barcelona, 2012, 2nd ed.); Cincuenta intelectuales para una conciencia crítica (Fragmenta, Barcelona, 2013), that offers and intellectual profile of fourteen women pioneers of equality; Invitación a la utopía. Ensayo histórico para tiempos de crisis (Trotta, Madrid, 2012), that devotes a chapter to feminist utopia; Religión, género y violencia (Dykinson, Madrid, 2017, 2nd ed.). Islam: sociedad, política y feminismo (Dykinson, Madrid, 2018, 1st reprint).

Gustavo Gutiérrez, Father of Liberation Theology

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Fri, 20 Jul 2018 22:33:00 +0000

by Frei Betto (English translation by Rebel Girl)
Gente de Opinião (em português)
July 6, 2018

Gustavo Gutiérrez turned 90 on June 8th. On the five continents, books, theses, articles and critiques about his work, as well as that of other theologians such as Leonardo Boff, Hugo Assmann, João Batista Libânio, Juan Luis Segundo, José Míguez Bonino, Elsa Támez, and many others identified with the principles and the methodology of liberation theology, proliferate.

Liberation theology occupies a prima donna position in current theology. Thanks to Cardinal Ratzinger's "Instructions" (1984), it became a subject of interest even for the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, as I verified when I visited the country as part of a group of Brazilian theologians in June 1987.

The two "Instructions" issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the proceedings against the book Church: Charism and Power and its author, Leonardo Boff, brought theological debate into the sacred walls of ecclesiastical institutions, and gave it ample space in the media, universities and political movements.

The works of theologians provoke more interest than the personalities of their authors. This epistemological bias has its advantages. As long as the work is rigorous, according to the criteria of its specific field, there is no need to disturb the author, safe in his conquered privacy. However, divorce between author and work has not always been a mere whim of modern reason. It has sometimes served as an ideological instrument -- in the primitive sense in which Marx used the term "ideology" -- precisely to cover up the contradiction between author and work. Suffice it to recall the recent impact of the revelations that Heidegger collaborated with the Nazi regime.

In the case of dead authors, biographies are always of great interest to those who seek a better understanding of the text within the context. Who today reads Althusser with the same attention that his works provoked before November 15, 1980, when the Marxist philosopher strangled his wife? In contrast, the death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in a Nazi concentration camp gave his works a new character, just as the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero guaranteed a wide distribution of his sermons.

Although the main target is always the works they produce, the liberation theologians themselves have always aroused considerable controversy. In any case, we are accustomed to living in situations of conflict -- be it the occupation of lands that brought the brothers Leonardo and Clodovis Boff to prison in Petropolis on March 4, 1988, or the censures and punishments imposed by those who govern our Churches.

A certain discomfort is created in some theological sectors of the First World precisely because of this criterion, which gives liberation theology a new character. In it, theological discourse can not be separated from pastoral commitment. The liberation theologian is not an armchair intellectual, confined to libraries and reading rooms, dedicated to academic rigor, protected from current conflicts.

And liberation theology is not written without penetrating deeply, because the liberation theologian's starting point is not his supposedly enlightened mind but the pastoral practice of poor Christian communities, committed to the cause of people's liberation.

For this reason, liberation theology does not exist without a link with its source -- the liberating practice of oppressed Christian communities in the Third World. Gramsci helps us to understand this new status of theology with his concept of "organic intellectual," which defines the relationship of the theologian to the popular movement. This explains why liberation theology is representative of grassroots groups through the support it receives from an immense network of Basic Ecclesial Communities and countless martyrs and confessors whose ecclesial life and prophecy are sources for the theologians' thought and production.

An "illegitimate" theology

In Latin America, being an "illegitimate child" does not necessarily affect one's social image. We are all sons and daughters of relationships between Spaniards and Amerindians, Portuguese and Caboclos, whites and blacks, mestizos and mulattoes. Our racism is only for social effect -- it is diluted in the heat of the tropics, where sexuality is power and party, bargain and submission, fantasy and transgression. In this part of the world, the family is as recent a concept as its constitution. To paraphrase St. Thomas Aquinas, life extrapolates thought here. Not even theology escapes from the genealogical tree of uncertain roots and twisted branches. Questioning liberation theology about its legitimate ancestors is like asking an indigenous Mexican or a Colombian coffee planter about the historical truth behind his family tradition.

Gustavo Gutiérrez can rightly be considered the father of liberation theology, for he was the first to publish a book with that title in 1971 through the Spanish Ediciones Sígueme. But he himself does not deny the importance for his work of his visit to Brazil in 1969, when he came into contact with our Basic Ecclesial Communities and experienced up close the drama of the assassination -- still unpunished today -- of Dom Helder Camara's youth advisor, Father Henrique Pereira Neto, strangled and shot by the Brazilian military dictatorship in Recife on May 26, 1969. Gutiérrez dedicated his A Theology of Liberation to him and to the Peruvian novelist José María Arguedas. Despite this, it is not possible to deny the European roots derived from Jacques Maritain's integral humanism, Mounier's engaged personalism, Teilhard de Chardin's progressive evolutionism, De Lubac's social dogmatics, Congar's theology of the laity Lebret's theology of development, Comblin's theology of revolution, and Metz's political theology.

The Second Vatican Council encouraged the conditions for the severing of the umbilical cord that kept the theology of Latin America dependent on the womb of Mother Europe. By the beginning of the 1960s, the Cuban revolution, the failure of the Alliance for Progress, the crisis of the development model, and the growth of leftist movements not linked to the traditional Communist parties were some of the factors that led Latin American theologians to root the thought in the soil that they trod. Not that it was a matter of looking for categories that would allow a reinterpretation of social and political facts. The engine of the theory was the practice of grassroots Christian communities, rooted in the struggle. As they transformed the world, they also altered the model of the Church. Social change and ecclesiogenesis are ultimately linked.

The building of an alternative political project does not leave the Church untouched, as if it were a community of angels hovering over the contradictions that cut through the fabric of society. The new element was the awareness, achieved in the life of the Basic Ecclesial Communities, that the Church is not just the Pope or the bishops, but the people of God in history. And the presence of this believing and oppressed people in the social movements of Latin America marked the faith with a critical character that gave rise to liberation theology.

An indigenous theologian

At the seventh international conference of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWOT) in Oaxtepec, Mexico, in December 1986, African American theologian James Cone complained that Latin American liberation theology was too white. The strange thing is that next to him was Gustavo Gutierrez, of typically indigenous appearance -- brown skin, round face, short and squat, with slightly almond-shaped eyes, revealing his Quechua ancestry. At home, his father spoke the language of the ancient Inca empire. But more than language and appearance, Gutiérrez inherited the style of the Andean Amerindians. And this is what surprises anyone who knows him. He combines -- not without some conflict -- a mind endowed with quick, rational, magisterial intelligence, which expresses itself in a language constructed like the parts of a precision instrument, and a sensibility that disarms all models of modern rationality.

In him co-exist the intellectual trained in Louvain -- where he was a colleague of Camilo Torres and defended a thesis based on Freud -- and the Amerindian of the Peruvian altiplano. This is what allows him to enter a classroom without being noticed -- as if gliding on his own feet -- or visit his friend Miguel d'Escoto without anyone noticing his presence in Managua. It is as if he could travel not only on the roads accessible to urbanized travelers but also on the tracks and trails that only the inhabitants of the jungle know. This ancestral gift allows him to dominate a new language, a new field of knowledge, or to pass through New York, Paris, or Bonn like an Amerindian sneaking through trees and leaves, observing unobserved, fast as a bird and discreet as a llama.

This characteristic allowed him to work on the draft of the famous Medellín Document, approved by the Latin American Episcopal Conference in 1968 -- a text that would become fundamental to the practice and theory of the Church of the poor in Latin America.

On one occasion, Gutierrez arrived in Rome just as the Peruvian bishops were discussing his work with the highest dignitaries of the Curia. Who can swear that the final text, more favorable to him than the original draft, was not drafted by Gutiérrez's own quill?

Discreet as a Capuchin, he moves in the political domain of theological conflicts with all the subtlety of a Jesuit. Although his expression sometimes reveals that metaphysical anguish characteristic of people to whom the narrow line separating death from life is familiar, he never panics, and his keen intuition is capable of presenting immediate solutions to complicated problems as if he had meditated for years on an issue that has just emerged. He can sit for hours in an airport seat, writing an article or listening to someone, nervously biting a toothpick all the time with his strong, slightly separated teeth. His answers are almost always ironically amusing, as if he were setting up a riddle.

In lecturing and speaking, he follows a rigid pattern so carefully assembled that he appears to have ornamented his text. His jokes give the words a flavor all his own, because he is always capable of manifesting that rare virtue that so enchants him -- humor. His sense of humor allows him to keep some critical distance from any fact. He does not allow himself to be betrayed by emotion because he knows that nothing human deserves to be taken too seriously.

I lived with Gustavo Gutierrez in Puebla in January and February 1979 during the Third Latin American Episcopal Conference. At that time, his name, like those of other liberation theologians, had been excluded from the list of official advisers. He did not have direct access to the meeting place of the bishops, but many prelates came to him for help, which obliged him to spend whole nights drafting proposals.

We were all housed precariously in two unfurnished apartments, which seldom had water and whose bathrooms lacked light. We survived with manna fallen from heaven because we had no kitchen, and in the city's restaurants we would have been easy prey of the international press, always in search of a theologian to decipher the ecclesiastical language of the texts or to give an exclusive interview that would confirm the rebellious and heretical nature of liberation theology...

After dodging all foreign correspondents for days, on Sunday afternoon, February 4, 1979, Gutierrez accepted the suggestion of the Mexican Center for Social Communication (Cencos) to hold a press conference at the El Portal hotel. In his comments, he emphasized that liberation theology had not planned to begin with a reflection on the poor. The poor themselves, agents of historical transformation, began this theological reflection. The goal of liberation theology is to give the poor the right to think and express themselves theologically. The more the journalists pressured him to let something escape that might sound like heresy, the more Gutierrez was faithful to the poor and to the Church. He is a master at reconciling (harmonizing) seemingly opposing poles, presenting syntheses that encourage us to reinterpret tradition and the world around us.

I met him on different occasions in his office - the "tower" of Rimac, a poor neighborhood in Lima. It was definitely one of the most cluttered offices I've ever seen. Scattered and mixed on the floor were Coke cans and Cardinal Ratzinger's books. Also bottles on top of papal documents, torn electrical wires roaming among dusty papers. There was no hint that a mop had been there since Francisco Pizarro's arrival in Peru.

Despite that, the confusion was logical for him. He knew exactly where to find everything. And amid that pile of papers, he devoured the books he received. When he felt hungry, he ate some undefined common meal, together with the unemployed and underemployed.

Gutierrez always preferred reading to writing. He had his own dynamic reading method, as if an antenna would show him the quality of the content of a work. Writing, for him, is a painful act. And when he writes, admitting that he has reached the final version is a sacrifice. He always considers it provisional text, to be revised and improved. For this reason, almost all of his works began as mimeographed lectures. It is very likely that he is the author of more unpublished works, known only to a small circle of readers, than published ones. In general, he does not even sign the mimeographed texts, which include an excellent introduction to the ideas of Marx and Engels and their relationship to Christianity.

In January 1985, on the eve of Pope John Paul II's visit to Lima, I met him in the "tower" of Rimac, writing a series of articles related to this important ecclesial event. As we talked, Gutierrez tried to untangle a long telephone wire, which looked more like a ball of yarn in the mouth of a playful cat. He always keeps his hands busy when he is nervous, whether twisting a rubber band or playing with a ballpoint pen. And at that moment he had more than enough reasons to be tense, because Cardinal Ratzinger had announced for September a response to Leonardo Boff's defense of his Church: Charisma and Power against Rome's criticism. Christmas had passed and the Curia still remained silent. The second "Instruction" on liberation theology, based on a consultation with the bishops of Latin America, promised for November or December, had also not appeared.

Perhaps it had been decided that the pope should make a more official statement on liberation theology on the spot. Nothing could be more timely than a pronouncement during a visit to the birthplace of the father of liberation theology. Gutiérrez feared that the Pope would say something that could be interpreted as condemning his theology. It would be disastrous. Nevertheless, he was ready to leave the "tower" that protected him from the siege of the press and appear at the Pope's meeting with priests and laity in the square. Once again he seemed certain that because of his native roots, as a person able to walk at night in the forest without awakening nature from its sleep, his presence would be as discreet as the drizzle that covers the roofs of Lima before dawn.

Admirers and inspirers

On the way to Cuba, brothers Leonardo and Clodovis Boff and I passed through Lima in the late afternoon of September 4, 1985. We found Gutierrez in the worker parish where, together with Father Jorge, director of the Workers' Ministry of Lima, the theologian exercised his priestly ministry. We insisted that he go with us to Havana because Fidel Castro had shown a great desire to meet him. Gutiérrez was evasive, objecting that at that very moment a group of Peruvian bishops, led by Dom Durán Enriquez, was preparing a textbook criticizing his writings, which meant that he would have to concentrate on producing a kind of advance defense.

Some time later, Gutiérrez confirmed that he had not come to Cuba in response to a request from Father Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, then general secretary of the Cuban Bishops Conference, who had been his colleague in Rome. The Cuban priest was afraid that the presence of the Peruvian theologian in Cuba would be exploited politically.

The night after our meeting in Lima, the brothers Leonardo and Clodovis Boff and I met Fidel Castro in Havana. We handed him the letter that the theologian had sent him. When he finished, Fidel commented that he had just read A Theology of Liberation and said he was impressed with its scientific basis and its ethical impact. He mentioned in particular the honesty with which Gutierrez treats the issue of class struggle and the dimension of poverty. He added, with emphasis, "We need to distribute books like this to the Communist movement. Our people know nothing about this. It is harder for you to write a book like this than for us to produce a text about Marxism." A few days later Fidel declared, in the presence of Dom Pedro Casaldaliga from Brazil who was visiting Cuba, that "liberation theology is more important than Marxism for the revolution in Latin America."

But whoever thinks that politics speaks louder in the heart of Gustavo Gutierrez is mistaken. He is above all a mystic. His most famous books, The God of Life, On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent, and We Drink from Our Own Wells are fundamentally spiritual, aiming to nourish the faith life and prayer of Christians committed to the people's struggle.

For Gutiérrez, theology is secondary. The essential thing is to do God's will in liberating action. And his keen theological vision captures the presence of the Lord, solidary where He seems to be most absent, in the suffering of the poor. This suffering permeates the life of Gustavo Gutierrez himself, because his delicate health requires constant care. But he does not complain. He prefers to cry out for the poor.

On one occasion, I spent a whole day with him at the Summer Course in Lima, where thousands of militants from Christian base communities came in search of a theological foundation. I realized that he was sad, although he had presented his class with his usual vivacity. There was a shadow on that face that lights up, happy, when surrounded by simple, poor people, dedicated to the utopia of the Kingdom. We talked and not a word of self-pity came from his lips. Only later did I hear that his mother had died that day.

The book about Job is a disguised autobiography of Gustavo Gutierrez. From its pages comes the deep conviction that all liberation theology derives from the effort to make sense of human suffering. In pursuit of this meaning, the theologian knows that, as Clodovis Boff says, everything is political, but politics is not everything. Solidarity with the poor is not exhausted in the cause of justice; it leads us to the sphere of gratuitousness, where spiritual emptying opens the way to communion with God.

Just as in Latin America the life of faith can not be separated from the demands of politics, so the revolutionary project should find in the Christian mystic the model for the formation of new men and women. Consequently, liberation theology can only be accused of despising the spiritual dimension by someone who does not know the long list of works that have come from the contemplation and hands of Segundo Galilea, João Batista Libanio, Elsa Támez, Carlos Mesters, Arturo Paoli, Raúl Vidales, Pablo Richard and Leonardo Boff.

The divine stigmata burn within Gustavo Gutierrez. It is impossible to grasp the full depth of his intellectual inspiration, his prophetic role and his mystical soul without knowing those three Peruvians who are at the root of his genius: José Carlos Mariátegui, César Vallejo and, above all, José María Arguedas.

From the communist Mariátegui, author of the classic Siete Ensayos Peruanos ["Seven Peruvian Essays"], Gutiérrez learned the technique of cultural cannibalism necessary to Latin Americanize all the theoretical baggage of his years of studies in Rome, Belgium, France, and Germany. From the poet César Vallejo, author of Trilce -- poetry as important to modern literature as Ulysses -- he inherited the nostalgic lament of the suffering creature before the silence of the Creator: "My God, if You had been human today, You would be able to be God" (Los dados eternos). "I was born on a day when God was sick" (Espergesia).

However, the greatest influence was the novelist José María Arguedas, of whom Gutierrez was a friend and to whom he pays tribute in many of his lectures and writings. It is interesting that he chose as the epigraph of his A Theology of Liberation a page from the book Todos las Sangres by this Quechua author, specifically the one in which the indigenous sacristan of Lahuaymarca tells the priest, "Your God is not the same. He makes people suffer without consolation ..."

"Was God in the hearts of those who broke the body of the innocent teacher Bellido? Is God in the body of the engineers who are killing 'La Esmeralda'? In the authorities who took from its owners that field of corn where, at every harvest, the Virgin used to play with her Little Son?"

In November 1981, I met Gustavo Gutiérrez in Managua. There, between theological discussions with the Sandinista leaders in an attempt to help them understand the different positions of Christians regarding the revolution, what later became his book on Job was born. In it, he raises the fundamental question and asks himself: How can we talk about God in the midst of so much oppression? If we want to do theology, talk about God, he said, we must first be silent before God. From this silence, which surrounds the hearts of the poor, wisdom is born. And we must repeat with Job, in the midst of so many Latin American crosses and a deep thirst for love: "Before, I only knew you by hearsay but now my eyes have seen you." Everything in Gustavo Gutiérrez, his work and his life, converges toward this vision.

Today, Gutiérrez is my confrere in the Dominican Order.

Frei Betto is an adviser of pastoral and social movements, author of Fidel & Religion (Ocean Press, 2006), among other books. Gustavo Gutiérrez is the author of many books, the newest of which is De Medellin a Aparecida (Centro de Estudios y Publicaciones, 2018)

Save the Date: 3rd Continental Theology Conference - Amerindia

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Sat, 14 Jul 2018 20:23:00 +0000

This conference will be in Spanish and this year's theme is "The Cries of the Poor and the Earth Challenge Us / 50th Anniversary of the Medellin Conference". Additional information in Spanish can be found on the conference web site.

Date: August 30 - September 2, 2018

Place: Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas – UCA, Bulevar Los Próceres, Antiguo Cuscatlán, La Libertad, San Salvador, El Salvador

Registration: Registration fee is $100 regular / $70 theology students. You can register electronically on the conference web site and pay your fee via PayPal. See that page for what to do if you don't have a PayPal account.

Accommodations: Conference organizers have compiled a list of hotels all within a 20-minute walk from the university. Participants must make own lodging arrangements. Most hotel room rates include breakfast.

PROGRAM

Thursday August 30

7:30 Accreditation and materials distribution
8:30 Spirituality Moment - Amerindia El Salvador
9:00 Opening - UCA Rector Andreu Oliva and Amerindia Continental Coordinator Socorro Martínez Maqueo
10:30 Snack break
11:00 Testimony of Cecilio de Lora
11:30 Generating memory of Medellin - Pablo Bonavia
12:15 Contributions of participants
12:30 Lunch
14:30 Workshops (choose one 2-day workshop and an alternate when you register):
1. New church ministeries for a new model of Church - Serena Noccetti and José Antonio de Almeida
2. Youth for a different possible world in an outgoing church - Carlos Eduardo Cardozo and Francisco Bosch
3. The PanAmazonic cry demands a new face of the church - Mauricio López and Roberto Malvezzi
4. Present and future of the option for the poor, CEBs, and liberation theology - Geraldina Céspedes and Manoel Godoy
5. Communication for the encounter culture in the digital era - Susana Nuin and Oscar Elizalde
6. Synodality: source of inspiration for the way of the Church in Latin America and the Caribbean - Victor Codina and Maria José Caram
7. The criminalization of the poor and victims of violence in Latin America and the Caribbean - Benjamin Schwab and the UCA Team
8. Lay men and woman: strength and hope of the Church in the world - Cesar Kuzma and Alejandro Ortiz
9. Mysticism: force that pushes joy and hope in the midst of conflict - Rosa Ramos
10. Justice and prophethood in the most unequal continent - Juan Hernández Pico
11. Migration and human trafficking - Maura Verzeletti and Carmela Gibaja
12. The cry of the earth and whole ecology - Tania Avila Meneses and Afonso Murad
13. Inside the system - Mons. Reginaldo Andrietta and Juan Luis Hernández
14. History workshop on Medellin - CEHILA
16:00 Break
16:30 Cultural time - Teatro del Azoro
18:00 Global analysis of the current Latin American and Caribbean moment - Elio Gasda
19:30 Questions
19:45 Return to lodging

Friday August 31

8:30 Spirituality Moment - Amerindia El Salvador
9:00 Testimony of Maria López Vigil
9:30 Address: Cries and resistance of the poor since Medellin - Francisco Aquino Junior
10:15 Contributions of participants
10:30 Snack break
11:00 The Medellin event from a historical perspective - Silvia Scatena
11:45 The Latin American episcopate and its difficult propehtic mission since Medellin - Rodolfo Cardenal
12:30 Lunch
14:30 Workshops (same as on August 30)
16:00 Break
16:30 Young Theologians Panel: "50th Anniversary of Medellin: What are our dreams now?"
18:00 Testimony of Roberto Malvezzi
18:30 Address: From Medellin to Laudato Si' - Leonardo Boff
19:30 Questions
19:45 Return to lodging

Saturday September 1

8:30 The legacy of the martyrs - Jon Sobrino and Martha Zechmeister
9:15 Contributions of participants
9:30 Pilgrimage organized by the UCA Teaching Team: Crypt of Mons. Romero, home of Mons. Romero, Hospital chapel (where Mons. Romero was killed), the UCA martyrs
12:30 Lunch
14:30 Testimony of Rogelio Ponseele
15:00 The strength of the little ones in the Bible - Elsa Tamez
15:45 Contributions of participants
16:00 Break
16:30 The strength of the little ones in the experience of women since Medellin - Pilar Aquino
17:15 Contributions of participants
18:00 Cultural time - Yolocamba I Ta
19:45 Return to lodging

Sunday September 2

8:30 Spirituality Moment - Amerindia El Salvador
9:00 Liberating mysticism: urgency of the essential for the task of Christians today - Maria Clara Lucchetti de Bingemer
10:00 Contributions of participants
10:30 Snack break
11:00 Structural changes for a poor church committed to the poor - Carlos Schickendantz
12:00 Contributions of participants
12:30 Lunch
14:30 Closing: Proposals from this Conference for the future of Christians in Latin America and the Caribbean - Manoel Godoy and Paola Polo
Message from Gustavo Gutiérrez

Save the Date: 38th Theology Conference of the Asociación Teológica Juan XXIII

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Sat, 14 Jul 2018 18:29:00 +0000

You can find information about this conference in Spanish on the conference web site. This year's theme is "Mysticism and Liberation."

Date: September 7-9, 2018

Place: Actos de Comisiones Obreras, calle Lope de Vega 40, Madrid, Spain

Registration: 30 euros for adults/20 euros for youth. Fee can be paid in cash at the door on the first day of the conference or via a bank transfer made before 9/5/2018. For details on how to make a bank transfer, see conference web site. Lodging and meals are not provided.

PROGRAM

Friday September 7

18:30 Introduction of the Conference - Asociación Teológica Juan XXIII
19:00 Mysticism and Politics - Adela Cortina, University of Valencia

Saturday September 8

10:00 - 11:30 Salvation and Liberation: A Sufi Perspective - Halil Bárcena, Institute of Sufi Studies
Break
12:00 - 13:30 In the Waters of the Spirit: Mysticism as Overcoming Fundamentalism - María Toscano, Pontifical University of Comillas
16:00 - 16:30 Spirituality and Youth - María Isabel Herrera and Mario Picazo,Young Christian Workers
16:30 - 18:00 Roundtable: Models of Mysticism:
- Christian Mysticism - Ángela Muñoz, Castilla La-Mancha University
- Eastern Mysticism - Javier Ruiz Calderón, Hindu philosopher
- Simone Weil: Mysticism and Justice - Alejandro del Río, Editorial Trotta
Break
18:30 - 20:00 The Contribution of Silence to the Fight for Justice - Mary Hunt, theologian and co-director of the Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual (WATER)

Sunday September 9

10:00 - 11:30 Mysticism and Liberation - Mercedes Barrio, historian and professor
12:00 Eucharistic Celebration and Solidarity Collection - LGTBI Christian Collective

Freeing Jesus

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Fri, 13 Jul 2018 19:02:00 +0000

By Victor Codina (English translation by Rebel Girl)
Blog de Cristianisme i Justícia
July 12, 2018

In the March 2013 conclave that preceded the election of Pope Francis, Cardinal Bergoglio made interesting interventions, one of them somewhat curious and little known.

When commenting on the text of Revelation 3:20 where it says that the Lord is at the door and knocking, Bergoglio stated that obviously the text refers to Jesus knocking at the door from outside to come in.

But he added that he was thinking about the times Jesus knocks from within for us to let him out.

Undoubtedly this interpretation might scandalize many Biblical scholars but it is an interesting idea because, as Bergoglio adds, the self-referential Church seeks to retain Jesus within itself and doesn't let him go out.

To put it differently, we have enclosed Jesus in doctrines, laws, rites, temples, episcopal palaces and structures of the past. We have held Jesus prisoner for centuries in the Western, medieval, feudal, inquisitional, colonial, diplomatic, powerful, anti-modern, absolutist, bourgeois, patriarchal, centralist and elitist church of Christendom. Jesus has been locked in ecclesial structures that distance him from the poor and simple people, from children and women, from peasants and fishermen, from migrants and refugees, from all those who in all cultures and religions seek the truth.

Jesus wants to go out to the street, to not be a prisoner of the past, to travel new roads, tread the soil, go to the borders, smell like sheep, like dust, sweat and tears, hear the cry of the people, converse, embrace, kiss, give a hand, heal, bless, speak words of encouragement, forgive, console, proclaim the Kingdom, generate hope and joy, give life, since only he possesses the Holy Spirit without measure.

We must free Jesus from the many prisons in which we have locked him over the centuries, recover the freshness of his gospel, return to Galilee, listen to his prophetic voice against the current hypocrites and exploiters of the people, against the new merchants of the temple, regain again Jesus the Nazarene craftsman, dangerous and disconcerting, able to trust his Father, to die and rise.

But freeing Jesus doesn't mean saying "Jesus yes, Church no," rather it implies forming a Church that is not self-referential but outgoing, evangelical, transparent, in sandals or barefoot, poor, missionary and paschal, detached from all temporal power, involved in the liberation of people and of creation, challenged by the pain of the victims, joyful with the joy of the Holy Spirit. The Church cannot substitute for Jesus; it must foster a personal encounter with him.

Only when we have freed Jesus from these prisons and have let him go out into the world of today to listen to the people, will we be able to open the door to him, let him enter our home, dine with him and he with us.

Bergoglio in the 2013 conclave was already announcing his future pastoral road map and the style of an outgoing Church. Perhaps because of this he was elected Pope and perhaps for the same reason others reject him today. But what is certain is that the Lord keeps knocking at the door. Does he want to come in or does he want to go out?

Catholic and priest out of obedience

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Thu, 05 Jul 2018 19:39:00 +0000

by Christina Moreira Vázquez (English translation by Rebel Girl)
Iglesia Viva
No. 274, April-June 2018, pp.101-105

Signs of identity

On June 29, 2002, aboard a boat on the Danube, seven Roman Catholic women were ordained priests according to the Catholic rite by a Catholic bishop who, one year later, would transmit the apostolic succession by consecrating the first women bishops. Since then, the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, ARCWP-RCWP ¹ has not stopped growing until reaching 250 women in 2017, scattered across various continents. From the hands of a woman bishop I received diaconal ordination (2013) and priestly ordination in March 2015. In both cases, I devoted my ministry first to my Christian community Home Novo in A Coruña.

We know that the institutional Roman Catholic Church does not welcome our ordinations since its Code of Canon Law (Can. 1024) stipulates that "A baptized male alone receives sacred ordination validly." Therefore it did not take long to respond with the corresponding excommunications. We have not been asked about our motives, nor heard in defense, nor have we felt on ourselves the caring shadow of an arm that rests on your shoulder and seeks to love and understand you. Before such a legal display, the commandment to love is a poor and homeless relative.

1. Obedience from spirituality and the gospel: prophetic obedience

These and other displays of little or no empathy towards us make us often wonder what is lost to a woman in this Church.

A vocation is not chosen. It comes where and when it is least expected with its own forms and manners. The Bible gives a good account of some of them. It breaks in in the midst of daily life, it catches you working, studying, caring for sheep. Many will understand me. With a bit of luck it goes on insinuating itself until it becomes obvious; for others it manifests itself with an unbearable glare like an "event." ². Sometimes this bears a certain similarity to those occasions when Jesus, passing along the seashore, challenged some who "at once left their nets and followed him."(Mt 4:20). That was my case. Without going into detail, I can say, like Jacob at Bethel, "The Lord is here, and I did not know it." No one who has experienced this type of encounter can remain indifferent to so much effort of seduction, much less resist obeying. When Grace enters life, the sacred duty exists to care for it, be grateful for it and share it. I would also add that it is a legitimate aspiration that it be welcomed into your family of faith as a gift for the community and not as a curse. What to say when that encounter results in deep healing-metanoia, as happened with Zacchaeus? After the "get up" comes the "walk." Staying standing and quiet like a statue is the fate dictated for countless women since the first was spoken. Honor to them. When the Church invites us to "pray for vocations," I suggest that it also ask God to limit Himself to fulfilling the Code so that nobody ever again has to die with empty hands and without hope.

And I would add, stop baptizing women now if God cannot freely address them, if they cannot freely answer Him. At some point in history, those who disregard the third petition of the "Our Father" will have to be held to account for this sin against the divine.

I suggest the same to well-meaning people who assess and judge my discernment and condemn me without even knowing who I am. I emphasize that obeying love is the first commandment. It is in force and no theologian able to refute it has been born yet.

2. Obedience from personal conscience and mind

My colleagues and I usually repeat the phrase of Peter and the other apostles -- among whom were women apostles ³ -- "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29), without forgetting the martyrial context in which many righteous people have had to speak it since their Master. When a person risks their life for a vocational commitment, it imposes respect. No one in their sound mind takes on the penalties of the caliber that the Holy See reserves for us women priests if they haven't put their lives in the key of radical following. ⁴

"Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of the human being⁵. There he is alone with God, whose voice echoes in his depths...," says Vatican II (GS 16). To this conscience we appeal, those of us who decide to step forward and say, as Abraham responded to God even before knowing what would be asked of him, "Hineni, here I am." Twice I answered Him, first in Galician before my community, second in English in my global community. I do not know what the theological discipline has ascertained about human perception in the face of transcendence made manifest Presence, but I could write treatises about it.

The moment in which the mind is setting the steps to build the action, it produces a deep humanization rooted in ancestral generations; it produces a person on their feet and ready to go out to be who they are and offer themselves to the world. It produces a joy known only to those who have tasted it. No one should be deprived of experiencing the Grace that God has reserved for them under its own non-transferable form, for their sake and that of the whole community.

Being allowed to take the step on your own path should be a human right; that each person can get to say "I am ..." in freedom and without obstacles, is essential. If you are not you, who is breathing within you? Being fully human and enjoying that which we call dignity depends on it. Hence the special effort Jesus put into raising people up. The recovered vertical position was equivalent to forgiveness and healing. Various scenes in the gospels bear witness to this. Being fully individual seemed to be his motto first of all.

Promising to go forward without looking back and promising to accompany those who are traveling in step with me with the testimony of the gospel and the table set, is nothing but what every conscious baptized person promises. Obeying the Lord's charge to "remember him" should not depend on the permission of an excluding structure that does not take into account the totality of the people of God and allows itself to put obstacles to their choice. They should not be punished just because of the gender or sexual preferences of the baptized person. Our human nature has already been assumed in Christ and not partially, but in its totality. There is no small print at the foot of the Cross.

I did not allow myself to disobey any longer; 30 years had already been a long time. No man I know had to discern so much to be ordained a priest. I was not moved by "fads" or "principles of the social order of any historical period" ⁶ but by the Holy Spirit herself. Equality is not a fad, it will not pass. It is not a worldly whim, it is the will of the Creator.

When we hear that they want to make pass for infallible doctrine the assertion that the Church cannot ordain women, I postulate as an infallible doctrine that injustice and discrimination is a sin in the category of serious violence. They will end, God willing, just as slavery ended despite Church support in its time.

3. Obeying the Church

The Church should have the sacred mission of promoting the personal and community path towards the fulfillment of the will of God. We are daughters of the Church. It could be that we love her more than is reasonable since, although mistreated, we remain because she is ours and of our communities, because our baptism made us hers and we await a warm and respectful welcome from her. She is "the people of God," the Council said. We know she can change, that sometimes there are surprises, that someday she will listen to her old married priests, to the exhausted communities that no longer even know how to answer at Mass, as it once heard the voice of the indigenous people and slaves in songs of the human soul.

When the urban communities of the first world -- and not just them -- are already self-sufficient with Eucharists without priests. When the dominant idea in many environments is that the clergy get in the way, perhaps it is urgent to listen to those who describe other ways to be Church. Communities now exist where we can perform different roles and tasks without creating submission or abuse. They will not have to step down from the altar nor will we have to go up if it is at floor level; all the people will be equidistant.

And the people will not be starved for the Eucharist. This is, first and finally, what most propels me and comforts me in my decision. Having personally witnessed countless situations of communities separated for years from the Lord's table, I swore that that would not occur while I had these hands. These are my vows, this is my obedience, not celibacy since I have chosen to love and under all forms within my reach.

Women deacons -- this fully current theme -- were a thoroughly proven reality, as other evidence shows that women had leadership in the early days. Archaeology, epigraphy, and the texts support both common sense and the sensus fidei. Christian women give equal faith testimony, their blood flows red in martyrdom just like a man's, and always has. And we haven't waited for any commission or ordinations for that. And if our ministries are to be legalized in the end, I would ask that rose-colored formulas with bows not be invented, non-sacramental forms that set us apart from the holy orders, because the Ruah blows just as holy when she encourages us. Today many underground forms of women's ministries are taking place that require light and knowledge. God willing, we will free ourselves from fear and our light will be put on the mountaintop like a beacon.

When it comes to naming things, we must attend to the absolute criteria of justice proclaimed by Jesus for his Kingdom. Obedience is first to him, to the commandments of the Holy Spirit, to conscience. Service is not blind servitude to laws and mandates but collaboration of adult human beings on an equal footing, with audible and heard voices. Serving at the altar can not be for some coming with the table set and speaking the holy words, keeping for themselves the priceless gift of collaborating with the Savior in his saving task that I now know and value more than life, and, for others, changing the altar cloths, scrubbing the stones, replacing the vessels and cloths...and vanishing to the back pew.

Conclusion

If we are to give witness to the world about the dignity of women, and I do not doubt that both Pope Francis and most of my brothers and sisters have this intention, the times we are experiencing in our world are decisive. Feminism is not a fad of these times, it will not pass nor should it pass as long as our full humanity is not acknowledged in words and in action. We don't want to break with anything but to enter into what exists, slowly and carefully, to bring our charisms, our voice specialized in weakness and pain, our arms sculpted by years of care and our capacity to sleep with one eye open. Everything shared in the common heritage where we, in turn, will take the symbols, clothes, rites, and words accumulated for centuries and finally everything will be fully of the multitudes. Yes, we even take responsibility for the rabid anticlericalism that we are already bearing without deserving it ... we have endured too much and in the end it's time to raise our heads, balance the forces and, for the wounds that have been caused, band aids are not enough. We're all needed.

I ask the authority structures what is creating "the inability of the Church to ordain women." Because you and I know that there is not a single serious biblical or theological argument against laying hands on us. Let's seek dialogue, let's seek the holy exercise of compassion rather than coercive medieval mechanisms. With all due respect, saying to an adult person that what she wishes cannot be "because I who am your father says so," does no good now.

It damages ecclesial communion and, moreover, it harms the image of the Church. It damages an urgent witness we must give to the world at a time when we are being killed, raped, and denigrated everywhere. It's urgent. As the Kingdom is urgent when the Word burns within you. Meanwhile there is one single enemy, a murderer: sexism. I don't want to think we have it in the house. God doesn't want it.

Footnotes:

1. http://arcwp.org/en/

2. María Elena Garmendia, Porque soy hija de Abrahán. Sacerdocio femenino ¿un clamor del espíritu? Desclée de Brouwer, Bilbao, 2017.

3. M. Perroni-Cristina Simonelli, María de Magdala, una genealogía apostólica, San Pablo, Madrid, 2017.

4. Cf. Normae de gravioribus delictis Decree

5. The inclusive language is my contribution; the original says "man."

6. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19951028_commento-dubium-ordinatio-sac_en.html

Pérez Prieto: "Ladaria's veto on female priesthood and intercommunion is shutting doors against the wind"

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Wed, 06 Jun 2018 19:01:00 +0000

By Victorino Pérez Prieto (English translation by Rebel Girl)
Religión Digital
June 6, 2018

The cardinal prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith, Luis Ladaria, has recently made two statements with which I disagree and that have stirred up immediate controversy.

In the first -- in an article in L'Osservatore Romano -- he tried again to close the door on the priesthood for women: "The Church has always recognized herself bound by Christ's decision to confer this sacrament on men," he wrote. In the second -- in a letter as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith -- he states that intercommunion, or communion between Catholics and Protestants, "is not mature enough" to become the norm of the universal Church, particularly in the case of communion of non-Catholic spouses in mixed marriages. In both cases, his words are like shutting doors against the wind since you can't go against history. But moreover, there are powerful arguments against them.

1. Beginning with the second of the statements made -- the one on intercommunion -- another colleague in the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Marx, archbishop of Munich and president of the German Bishops, declared himself "surprised" after the publication of the letter, recalling that in a conversation held in Rome last May, "the participating bishops were told that they should find, as far as possible, a unanimous result, in the spirit of ecclesial communion," and that this was surprising before they had found that consensus... And, what is more serious, the German cardinal pointed out that the question has effects on ecumenical relations with the other churches and ecclesial communities "that are not to be underestimated."

The controversy is coming now because of the pastoral document of the last Plenary Session of the German Bishops' Conference, "Walking with Christ -- In the Footsteps of Unity: Mixed Marriages and Common Participation in the Eucharist." (February 2018). Over three quarters of the members of the Bishops' Conference were in agreement, but the half a dozen bishops who weren't complained to Rome.

In fact, intercommunion refers to much more than communion between Catholics and Protestants in mixed marriages; it is the participation of Catholics in a Eucharist celebrated in a Christian community of a confession different from their own, or in a Catholic Eucharist with the participation of non-Catholics. The question is old and for years, both on the Protestant and on the Catholic side, the voices that cry out for "Eucharistic hospitality" have increased. It is about all those of us who are confessing Christians praying, speaking, serving and being able to celebrate together, despite our differences.

But in this, much more progress has been made in the field of praxis and theology, than in the field of ecclesiastical norms.

Intercommunion has been going on for decades, but in the theoretical doctrinal field there is still a long way to go. When you have participated in Eucharistic celebrations with brothers and sisters of a different confession, you see that there is no problem. I remember the Masses in Taizé more than 30 years ago, in which I participated with other Catholic priests and Protestant pastors. And more recently participation in the Eucharist in Skära Cathedral and in a small rural church with brothers and sisters of the Swedish Lutheran Church. Their celebrations of the Eucharist are very similar to ours, including consecration and communion (http://www.alandar.org/hemeroteca/cantar-en-tierra-extrana/una-semana-ecumenica-en-suecia/). We understood that the sacramentalized Jesus was as "present" in these masses as in what a Catholic priest would do. This can no longer be prevented; it is already a beautiful ecumenical reality.

The priesthood of women, again at the center of the debate

2. With regard to the theme of the priesthood for women -- better than "female priesthood," as an aside -- Ladaria stated that he considers the "no" to women's priesthood "definitive" -- "Christ wanted to confer this sacrament on the twelve apostles, all men, who, in turn, transmitted it to other men. The Church has always recognized herself bound by this decision of the Lord, which excludes that the ministerial priesthood can be validly conferred on women." And to the cardinal "it is a matter of serious concern to see the emergence in some countries of voices that question the finality of this doctrine," that "it is a truth belonging to the heritage of the faith."

But what is a matter of "serious concern" to many other theologians and non-theologians, priests, men and women religious and lay Catholic men and women is this stubbornness of the Church in stopping women from being able to access this responsibility in the communities like men and being able to function as ordained priests in them. It is not true what the cardinal prefect says that "the difference of roles between men and women does not imply any subordination," because the possibility of accessing positions of more responsibility in the service of the Church such as it is organized today -- an organization that is more than debatable and that does not come from Jesus of Nazareth -- necessarily passes through the sacrament of Holy Orders. If women can not access it, they will not be able to be pastors or bishops or -- why not? -- popes. Many small base communities have already solved the problem their own way, although sometimes at the expense of the value of the sacrament of Holy Orders in presiding at the Eucharist, especially in the consecration, which is questionable.

Theologian Jesús Martínez Gordo recently recalled in Religión Digital that the most recent position of the Magisterium with respect to the (im)possibility of women accessing ordained ministry is found in three documents "of unequal value": the Inter Insigniores Declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1976), the Apostolic Letter Ordinatio sacerdotalis of John Paul II (1994) and the Responsum on the authority of said Apostolic Letter signed by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith the following year (1995).

The first is a document in which infallibility or unreformability is not involved, therefore, it does not belong to the deposit of faith. The Responsum on the authority of the Apostolic Letter is a text of the Congregation, its authorship is the responsibility of the Congregation and the Pope is limited to authorizing its publication. In short, the Apostolic Letter of John Paul II aims to "dispel doubts" about it and express a position against the female priesthood, but it does not have dogmatic authority either. This theologian states something obvious: "The degree of authority is lower in John Paul II's text than in those of Pius XII or of Pius IX on the Assumption of Mary and the Immaculate Conception," concluding with all the reason in the world that "seldom in the history of the Church has there been a dogmatic and canonical mess like the one laid out."

Jesus and women

The truth is that in the New Testament we have no clear statement against the priesthood of women. In fact, Jesus did not ordain men or women as priests. Rather, we find evidence - corroborated by other extra-biblical writings of the early Christian churches and frescoes in the catacombs - that women also presided at the Eucharist.

And the truth is that women have been and have returned to being priests in the Church. Not only in non-Catholic Christian confessions, where even bishops abound -- despite the rejection of some sectors that came to "move over" to the Catholic Church because of it, as was the case of some Anglican priests -- but also in the Catholic Church itself. This is the case of the ARCWP and RCWP (Association of Catholic Roman Priests and Roman Catholic Women Priests), which already have about 300 priests and about a dozen bishops who joyfully tend to numerous communities, especially in North America but also in South America and in European countries. It is not that they want "power" like men, but to do what they have felt called to do.

Christian communities are demanding this female service as soon as they hear about it. And the vocations of many women, responding to a well-discerned interior calling -- at least equal to that of men, and in some cases quite a bit better -- show that the priesthood of women is a reality in the Catholic Church, and that it is no more than a matter of time before it is accepted by the hierarchy.

It is true that news like this, which comes from a man named by Pope Francis, bewilders many women and men and they question the renewal of the Church that he has been proclaiming. Above all, they still have to mourn in silence this discrimination in their Church. Others are already beginning not to be silent and to shout aloud in a prophetic voice what they consider legitimate and evangelical. "If they keep silent, the stones will cry out," the Master said.

"Christology and Women": A new book by theologian Consuelo Velez

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Fri, 01 Jun 2018 16:30:00 +0000

By Consuelo Vélez (English translation by Rebel Girl)
Religión Digital
April 25, 2018

The Javeriana Theology Faculty has just published my book "Cristología y Mujer. Una reflexión necesaria para una fe incluyente" ["Christology and Women: A necessary reflection for an inclusive faith", Javeriana Teologia Hoy No. 79, 2018]. It was the fruit of a sabbatical semester but above all it is fruit of my theological and existential experience of recent years. As a woman theologian, I have not been able to be distant from a reality that is easy to verify in society and in the Church: the situation of women has changed lately but much is still needed so that, everywhere, it would be reality that because of the fact of "being women" we are not considered in a subordinate position or in second place or, worse, as sexual objects or someone's property.

Hence the concern to contribute to keeping on changing that situation and specifically from the field of theology and faith experience. In fact Christian revelation has not propitiated this situation -- in the book of Genesis the fundamental equality of men and women is affirmed: "God made them in His own image, male and female He created them" (1:27) -- but it has allowed it and has maintained it by a bad interpretation of the Biblical text and by an accommodation to social patterns where the model has been the masculine.

As the book cover says, it emphasizes the Christological because it's a central field in theology and, therefore, from a good Christological understanding that promotes women, a transformation of all other theological fields can emerge.

Many aspects can be treated in Christology; in the book, I look at some that I consider relevant. First of all, I pause to contextualize the perspective from which Christology is approached. We call that perspective feminist theology. This statement has some prejudices. The word "feminist" is often identified exclusively with positions against life or with the loss of femininity.

But we must repeat it "many times" to see if it can be understood: there are many feminisms and we are referring to the fundamental -- that movement that allowed women today to be citizens and hence we can study, occupy positions reserved for men for centuries and bring everything we are to the building of society and the church in true conditions of reciprocity and fundamental equality.

Once this perspective is put forward, I define some fundamental terms: feminist movement, sexism, patriarchy, androcentrism, kyriarchy, femininity and gender, and then I linger on the developments that have already taken place in so-called "feminist Christology," an already long history, of decades, but quite unknown in our context. One of the values of this book is to approach with a simple language -- as is my style -- the work already done in North America and Europe but, as I have just said, very unknown in our theological centers.

Second, I return to what is closest to our reflection and to which many theologians already refer: Jesus' attitude towards women in which his option for them and their inclusion in the group of his own is recognized quite significantly. Later I refer to inclusive language that allows naming God in masculine and feminine. That is His true face and the language -- as a living entity -- has to express it. In this sense, the title "Wisdom of God" that was left aside, privileging masculine titles such as Logos, Lord, Savior, etc., can contribute to enriching an understanding of God revealed in Jesus, inclusive of both genders.

Another chapter in the book refers to the masculinity of Jesus. No one is denying that Jesus was male, without a doubt, and no one is claiming to change that. But you need to liberate that masculinity from an exclusively male vision to allow us women to identify with Jesus too and be able to be in his image, without being told that because we are not men we can not occupy the places that men occupy because Jesus was male. It is an interesting discussion because it greatly enriches the Christological vision and new horizons of understanding for men and women emerge.

The last chapter refers to the cross of Christ, a theme so central to the experience of the Christian faith, but while it ought to be a redemptive and transforming sign, it has sometimes been a sign of passive resistance and resigned acceptance of the violence that is suffered. In the case of women, it has been a repeated story of the call to forbearance to save family members -- be it father, mother, brothers, husband or children --without taking into consideration that women have the right to their own lives and not for that do they stop being a good mother or a good wife or much less a good Christian. We recover the cross of Christ in its most authentic sense, showing how the cross denounces all violence against women and at no time contributes to their resignation and denial of their fundamental dignity.

In the postscript of the book it is said that it is aimed at women who already conceive of themselves in a different way, capable of questioning traditionally assumed roles and proposing another way of being and acting. But, of course, the book is also aimed at men because, in face of women's new way of positioning themselves, they need to rethink their identity and feel called to contribute to this new social configuration that breaks with the established roles due to biological sex and builds inclusive gender identities and authentic reciprocity between the sexes.

The invitation, therefore, is to read this book but especially to fully understand this patriarchal and sexist reality that has constituted us and of which today we are all still debtors - as Pope Francis affirms - and look for ways of transformation. Hopefully these reflections, which are limited and only explore some fields, can continue to be deepened but, above all, can be lived out to build a truly inclusive, liberating society and church, creator of communion and reciprocity among all.

"If secularism is reducing faith to the private sphere, this weakens the public space": An interview with Teresa Forcades

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Thu, 31 May 2018 16:51:00 +0000

By Jonatán Soriano (English translation by Rebel Girl)
Protestante Digital
May 15, 2018

With Teresa Forcades (Barcelona, 1966) one could talk about many subjects. Degree in Fundamental Theology from the Faculty of Theology of Catalonia, which did not validate her theological studies in the United States because of being partly Protestant, and later a doctorate with a thesis on the concept of person in classical Trinitarian theology and its relationship to the modern notion of freedom as self-determination, the Benedictine nun and doctor in medicine too has experience in public life. Specifically through the Procés Constituent platform, presented in 2013 in Catalonia with the aim of establishing a popular debate to decide what political, economic and social status is wanted for Catalonia, from a pro-independence and anti-capitalist base.

Between 2013 and 2015, Forcades enjoyed a large media presence in the territory, while presenting the platform on a tour together with its other very prominent representative, the economist Arcadi Oliveres. In addition to her demanding discourse, she stood out at the image level, since she appeared in long pants and a veil.

The movement was about to enter the elections to the Parliament on September 27, 2015, but an internal vote resulted in not doing so. "We lost a great opportunity," she states now.

We're reviewing from the Faculty of Theology of the University of Humboldt (Lutheran, by the way), where she teaches, that moment of greatest public exposure.

Question: You've had a Protestant formation.

Answer: Here we aren't so accustomed to it because the Spanish State is one of the most negative examples of Christian ecumenism. Protestantism has not had the recognition that it has in other countries and, therefore, the formation is viewed as dichotomous. I have moved a lot through the United States and Germany and that doesn't occur to them because the theological formation is incorporated in the university and the easiest thing is that you have professors who can be Catholic as well as Protestant, and not even know it. My training is first extra-academic, because of the interest I had while studying medicine in Barcelona and through the Cristianisme i Justicia studies center. That was before the official formation. Then I went as a doctor to the United States and there I began to study at the Catholic seminary of Western New York. I completed the first two years of what would be the degree, which is known there as "Master of Divinity." At the end of those two years I got a scholarship to go to Harvard, which has considered itself non-denominational (not ascribed to any religious confession) for years, despite having been founded in the seventeenth century by Methodists. They are interested, above all, in the possibility of Christian ecumenism and interreligiousness. At Harvard, the formation was divided into three blocks. The first was philosophy, the second was focused on the Bible, and the third on interfaith dialogue. There were Catholic teachers but they were a minority. In fact, I think I only had two. We are talking about the years between 1995 and 1997, and at that time the Harvard Divinity School was part of the Theological Institute of Boston, along with the Episcopal Theological School, the Holy Cross Orthodox School of Theology, the Jesuits' Boston College and the Weston Jesuit School of Theology. This, in practice, meant that in all of them you could do cross registration, that is, they gave you the degree of the institution with which you had 50% of the training and in my case it was Harvard, although I took classes in all the others because I had a very big interest. Therefore, my first degree in theology is non-denominational.

This caused that, when I returned to Barcelona to enter as a nun and I wanted to do a degree specializing in Catholic theology and then a PhD, the Faculty of Theology of Catalonia told me that they couldn't validate my studies because they were from a Protestant university. My reaction was to do a medical doctorate, because I didn't want to sit down again in the first course to be taught who Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were . Later there was a change in the Dean of the Catalan faculty and a Jesuit took office, so I wrote to the Jesuits with whom I had studied in the United States so that they would inform those in Catalonia that they would indeed recognize my degree. Finally, the faculty did not recognize the degree but I had the right to take an exam to demonstrate my knowledge. I'm explaining all this to make clear the difficulties of theological dialogue that we still have. In the end they agreed to give me an exam for which I had to prepare 50 subjects, although I would only have to be examined on one between two chosen at random, which were "Easter" and "justification by faith." I chose "justification by faith" because I had studied in a largely Protestant faculty. From there, I was able to do a specialized degree in Fundamental Theology, which deals with the dialogue between faith and philosophy, with contemporary thinking and all those questions that aren't limited to dogmatic discussion but have to do with apologetics.

Q: How has that Protestant formation influenced you?

A: The perspective that I found at Harvard didn't have the ecclesiological institution element as something central, so important in the Catholic tradition, but the search for the sense of faith at the individual level, which has been characteristic of Protestantism throughout the years. That confronting, asking what you think, how you live and what God is for you. These questions have also existed in the Catholic tradition but have not characterized its perspective. To me this seemed liberating, very appropriate for a 21st century Christian faith that, inevitably, should have that personal component.

Also the study of biblical languages so in depth. In Catholicism it is also studied, but the mastery of Greek and Hebrew isn't presupposed in Catholic theology if you don't devote yourself to being a biblist. This preponderance of the original languages is something that I would not have today had I not studied at a Protestant faculty.

When I was working as a doctor in New York, I decided to attend a Protestant Episcopal church instead of a Catholic one. It's not that I had a crisis of faith, but that I wanted to open my mind. There I attended three years and one of the great novelties was to see a woman presiding. I looked around to see what faces the men were making, in case they were upset, but no one seemed to be because it was normal. In addition to being a pastor, Susan was a clown in the children's section of a hospital, so she had an intense communicative capacity, and for me it was very important to know her.

Q: But you have not considered being a Protestant.

A: No. At fifteen, I read the gospel and for me it was an experience of conversion. Then I read Leonardo Boff and Liberation Theology and Las Moradas by Saint Teresa and I was completely in love, and am up until now. It's like feeling in continuity with a whole tradition that has been one of political commitment to social justice and, later, the mystique of having your eyes open and touching the ground with your feet. In just one case I thought about becoming a Protestant. Specifically a Quaker. I was moved by the actions of Margaret Fell and George Fox in the 17th century. I have never known a Quaker community but that trajectory of pioneers in the field of pacifism, in humanizing prisons, in community instead of individual biblical interpretation without being mediated by some power structures that are distant, in the rights of women ... all this impressed me, although it didn't provoke a serious consideration of the abandonment of Catholicism, which I have rooted in my heart.

Q: Change of subject. How has the Procés Constituent experience been to date?

A: From the beginning it has been a cause for controversy because I was dressed as a nun and with a veil. Controversy between some members of Procés Constituent but, above all, with other groups with whom we entered into alliances or political conversations. There were people for whom the fact of being dressed as a nun -- and being one -- was a factor of trust, and for others, it was a contradiction due to the fact of being on the left. In our country, there are people who think that, because of being on the left, we should be against religions in general, but very specifically oppressive religions, which is the view that has been held about Catholicism because it has had, and still has power. The most acute part of this tension was experienced at the time I said I would go up for the elections (to Parliament on September 27, 2015). There were people who didn't accept it because they thought that going up for an election was something unlike a nun. It's not that I considered it proper for a nun, but it was an exceptional and temporary event. In fact, this had already happened during the democratic transition with parish priests who became mayors of towns. In my case, it was not only the factor of belonging to a religious community but also the factor of being a woman and a religious.

Q: And now, would you fit into politics?

A: No. But I didn't fit then either. It wasn't about entering the party game, but about promoting a popular constituent process. I'm very skeptical of party politics. A democracy reduced to parliament seems to me a shame. It's not about which party you like or which one you feel good in. The motivation, in my case, was the conviction that in Catalonia there was an opportunity to promote a reflection at the popular level about the definition of a new constitution and the relationship that one wants to have with the Spanish State. But we didn't want to take advantage of it. The idea of participatory democracy instead of an exclusively representative democracy is advancing in some countries but it's one of the main challenges for Western democracies.

Q: How do you perceive the current approaches of secularism?

A: When I was at Harvard, public theology had become fashionable, which has to do with theological reflection taking place in the public space. And I totally agree with this approach because I was also trained in it. If secularism means relegating faith to the private sphere, not because the person chooses so but because that's how it's regulated, I believe that this is incompatible with Christianity and the other great religions. If it is believed that the condition to have a plural society is that faith is reduced to the private sphere, I think that this weakens the public space and implies a violation in terms of rights. But it is also impossible for there to be cohesion and social development because this is a substantiation of non-religiosity. That is to say, from a point of view of ethical and political reflection, an artificial identity of the citizen is being constructed. The citizen is allowed to be in the public space according to the criteria that the State says. This is closer to totalitarian thought.

In the United States, I was in consultation with a colleague who wore a yarmulke, another with a Sikh turban, and a colleague wearing a veil. That was normal and we were visiting a public hospital. We were showing our beliefs in the public space and, for me, it was an enrichment.

Q: What do we have to move towards?

A: I'm arguing for the public character of theology and religion in a secular context conceived as a separation between religious institutions and the State. I'm interested in the arguments of John Locke about what the separation between Church and State means. Locke defends this separation, but reaffirms that the State can "judge religions" even if it is to declare them all equally valid. Maybe they are or maybe they aren't, but it's not the State that should determine it. How can a representative of the State argue with philosophical consistency that all religions are equal? The State can't be put above religions but it must guarantee that this debate can take place without favoring one religion to the detriment of the others. I think this is the idea that can help us most today.

On the other hand, we have the French Revolution and the Goddess of Reason who substantiates, in the name of the State, a notion of good. And the notions of good we must build among all, in a plural society, but avoiding the possible imposition of some over others. If we need something at the social level, it's the motivation toward personal sacrifice for the common good, but that's not so easy to achieve. It can't be presupposed. Throughout history there have been national or nationalist motivations or religious motivations that have led to facing up to injustice. Religion has played a role in the capacity for social cohesion. Getting to that is the challenge of 21st century society, but it's not done by relegating religion to the private sphere.

Q: But the reality is not very hopeful at this time.

A: In our context there is a struggle of privileges, still established, of the Catholic Church with the Spanish State. There is still the 1953 concordat with the Vatican. There is a government that gives medals to the Virgin and that shapes the public presence in such a way that it reminds us of that alliance of the past. On the other hand, there are city councils and political representatives who rebound against this and act in a prepotent or discriminatory way against religions in general and, very particularly, against Catholicism.

It's an interesting moment because it's a moment of transition. It's necessary to find a way to make this debate public and alive because it's a moment in which, as a society, we can orient ourselves in a new way. After 40 years of National Catholicism that was about disparaging other religions and Christian traditions, then came the rebound, a relative one because the concordats are still there, and now we're in a moment where there are voices for a secularism that I don't I think is positive because it aims to promote and defend from the institutions a model of an areligious citizen.

Toribio, a cardinal who smells of sheep and mines

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Wed, 30 May 2018 15:49:00 +0000

By Victor Codina (English translation by Rebel Girl)
Religión Digital
May 23, 2018

On Pentecost, Pope Francis named 14 new cardinals, many of them from marginal areas. Among them, Toribio Ticona, a Bolivian emeritus bishop from a poor peasant jurisdiction who, before being bishop, was a peasant, bootblack, miner, bricklayer, and newspaper vendor.

Many were surely surprised with this nomination that breaks the traditional image of cardinal princes of the Church, members of noble families and bishops of great world capitals. Toribio responds to another image, that of the poor and simple pastor, always close to the peasant and mining people.

I have met him several times and I especially remember an occasion when he invited me to a meeting of the Church Base Communities in the mining district of Siglo XX. Toribio was the one who served at table.

This nomination is not casual; it responds to Francis' concern to reform the Church, to go back to a poor Church and for the poor, a Church that goes out to the borders and is a field hospital, where the pastors aren't taskmasters or feudal lords, but servants who smell of sheep, who break recalcitrant clericalism and build a Church People of God.

This designation is also a criticism of a society that builds walls to defend itself from poor migrants and where the representative of the most powerful country calls foreign immigrants "animals", a world where wealth, consumption, prestige and power are valued, and one escapes with the "bread and circus" of princely weddings and spectacular sports championships.

In the face of this false and unjust world, Toribio's nomination means that there are other values more important in life, such as honesty, work, simplicity, justice and solidarity with the poor.

Finally, this nomination reminds us of the gospel of Jesus who came not to be served but to serve. He washed his disciples' feet and said that the most important in the Kingdom of God are the little ones and the poor.

Pope Francis' teaching seems made for what Peru needs today

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Thu, 18 Jan 2018 22:08:00 +0000

By María Rosa Lorbés (English translation by Rebel Girl)
Observatorio Social-Eclesial
December 15, 2017

Miguel Cruzado, a Jesuit from Piura, receives us to talk about the Pope and his upcoming visit. Father Cruzado, despite his youth, has had a distinguished career in the Peruvian and universal Church. He was the provincial superior of the Society of Jesus in Peru in 2010 and several years later was named by the Father General as his General Counselor and Regional Assistant for Southern Latin America and had to move to the Jesuit General Curia Community in Rome. He returned again to Peru and was just named director of Fe y Alegría a few days ago.

What do you think is the most important aspect of the Pope's visit? How do you feel about this great ecclesial event?

It makes me very enthusiastic because I think it's very important that some of Francis' central themes be developed, heard and debated in Peru, both in the Church and in society. There are societies, hemispheres, realities where Francis' teaching, although important, may not seem urgent. In Peru, it goes to the heart of what we're experiencing today -- the importance of Christian discernment in a church with pastors who don't accompany their faithful very much, the situation of the poorest in the face of the naturalization of social inequalities, public responsibilities in the midst of the tremendous ethical crisis that we are experiencing today. It's as if Francis' teaching were made for what Peru needs now.

At this moment, before the coming of the Pope, people are looking more towards the Church; it's in the display window. What do you think the average Peruvian sees when he looks at that Church?

Unfortunately, I believe that in recent years the Church, myself included, has been moving away from real life, from the important issues of people's lives. Especially the poorest and the youngest. In fact, as we know from various studies, the ones who leave the Catholic Church are the poor and the young adults. We're losing people because we don't have a message that's close to their lives.

It concerns me not only because they are the majority of the population in our country, but also because they are the ones who we want to accompany especially as Church. God is without a doubt in the working class and youth worlds of Peru; their alienation from the Catholic Church expresses our inability to hear Him and recognize Him in their midst. Alienating ourselves from the lives of the people is alienating ourselves from God Himself.

We have reached a point where we aren't even controversial; we arouse more indifference than debate. Not only are we decreasing, we are, moreover, less and less relevant to people's lives. For example, for young people with future reference points, for families with openness to the challenges of distances and ruptures between their members, special situations that are sometimes painful, for professionals with criteria to discern ethical life, the political and economic options in society. The Church is a weak voice among many others, one that is losing legitimacy, mostly it's not even a voice that is sounding.

We need Pope Francis...

In that sense, I think that the Pope's visit could help us to focus as Church on the relevant issues we are experiencing as a society. The Pope has something of this spiritual grace of a pastor who feels and acknowledges what people are experiencing, and reacts to it. I think Francis will get what we are experiencing in Peru and know how to respond to what we need to attend to today from the Gospel. Even though he comes with already prepared texts, you have to also pay attention to his spontaneous words, the unforseen reactions. That's where we should be revitalized as the Catholic Church, since they aren't idle reactions for a photo, a video, they're reactions of someone who feels what the people are living, linking it to what is most authentic in Christian tradition, the Gospel.

So, as believers and as citizens, what should we expect from this visit -- to be content, unsettled, or called to change?

I hope and am convinced, because of Francis' charisma and because he knows Peru, that this visit can give us back a bit of hope, both to the Church and to society. We're a bit down as Church and society. We've been hit again and again. The corruption is showing the worst of us. We don't recognize clear voices that help us orient ourselves as a nation. In the Church, we haven't had a clear word, in which we recognize ourselves as a community, in a while. I think the enthusiasm and joy with which Francis lives can help us lift our gaze to renew ourselves and seek common horizons.

But Francis is coming for a few days. What he can awaken will depend on how the people, all of us, receive the message. It will depend a lot on how the media, pastors, opinion leaders take the key points from Francis' message and promote them to make decisions. The Francis effect depends on Peruvians the day after Francis leaves. It will be very important to get what the Spirit is saying to us during the visit so that it later becomes messages to develop. That's why the "reception" of Francis is very important. "Reception" is a theological concept that implies not just listening but also interpreting for one's own life and putting into practice.

Because of what we've been saying, what do you think the Peruvian Church should do to respond to the Pope's invitation to be a poor Church and for the poor?

It's true that the Church's public voice is losing importance, but at the level of people's daily life, the Church in Peru, thank God, has thousands of laypeople -- men and women, men and women religious, who are this "field hospital Church" that Francis wants. A Church that welcomes people, listens, heals, that doesn't discriminate and helps us to be a little more human and therefore more holy. Unfortunately these things aren't public and appear as movements, partial or private initiatives; they aren't seen as the most visible face of the Church.

In the face of what you're saying, there is in effect a public opinion that doesn't know what the Church is doing at the service of society, sometimes in the most remote corners, a Church that serves the poorest.

I believe that the Church in Peru has a tradition that has become invisible. A tradition of closeness, solidarity, involvement with the poorest and with the working class worlds of Peru, with what is most authentic in us as a nation. It has been made invisible by people who haven't understood it, by narrow political viewpoints, by fearful theological opposition. However, it must become visible because it is real, it exists. It is the Church without communiqués or declarations, the everyday one.

In Fe y Alegría alone, we're talking about 43 religious orders and thousands of laypeople -- men and women -- committed to the education of the poorest in Peru. Half are religious, but the other half are laymen and women, teachers who direct the best public schools in Peru and sometimes have better evaluations than others from private schools in the country. How many health missions to people in indigenous areas carried out by religious, laymen, laywomen, there are in Peru -- tens of thousands. The work for people's rights as well. For example, on the issue of equality between men and women and stereotypes and gender equality, the huge work that is being done and has always been done for the rights and defense of women and girls has not been made visible. It is organized by lots of Christian organizations in Peru, above all in the most wounded areas, where there is the greatest danger. That work didn't begin now, but has been going on for decades.

Today more and more men and women are becoming aware of the role of women and many Christians have collaborated, contributed, and are working on this daily, but it's not visible. Christian voices are becoming more visible and they're in the newspapers, sometimes of our pastors, who instead view with mistrust all these efforts for equity and women's rights for which so many have been fighting for decades, long before these debates began.

So there is a Church that is close to the people, to the poor, to the most typical of the country and that, moreover, knows how to discern. Being a Christian isn't applying a few rules to fulfill them, it's believing and listening to God. These people who are close to poor people are discerning, trying to listen to what God is saying and asking from people's lives. That is believing in God, not just applying rules, but always thinking about what God is asking of me in this situation. Francis asks us to be a Church on the borders that discerns. That's why I do believe that Francis will help us to know more about this rooted, massive Church, close to the poor, to its own and that is discerning and is linked to so many people.

Making that Church visible is important, and above all, because through this it will be placed at the center of the public agenda, the social problems, the debates that the country doesn't raise.

Yes, above all because it allows you to get closer to the fundamental problems of the country's reality. We have been making the gospel dialogue with the culture, looking for ways to believe and recognize the seeds of the gospel that are proper for Peru. That Church not only works hard but has a word, a theological and spiritual reflection. A Church that discusses fundamental issues in the lives of people. Unfortunately these issues are not always picked up by our pastors, by us priests. We have become too formal and fearful. We are afraid, for example, of talking about the inequalities that exist in society. It seems normal that some Peruvians are condemned to a very low quality education. That is not normal, it's not good and it has been taken as normal. We are afraid to question gender stereotypes that do so much harm. And we contribute to normalizing inequalities between men and women. I hope the Pope helps us lose that fear a little.

Father, you're one of the few Peruvians who knows the Pope. I would like to ask you, what's he like? What would you say about him? How is Francis up close?

The first thing that struck me is that he is attentive to the people around him. He captures details of people. Suddenly, a group approaches that doesn't know what to say and it's as if the Pope has guessed. He reacts naturally, he's not silent, he's not suspicious. He intuits people, he has that grace of a pastor close to people.

Another trait is that, just as he's close he is also very demanding. He encourages us to continue the good we might be doing but also raises high challenges. That's how he is with everybody, with every order. He raises big challenges. His closeness isn't a cheap closeness, it's an expensive, demanding grace. What's surprising is that nobody feels offended, but rather recognized. We feel his trust. He knows we can go further.

The Pope has already made various trips to Latin America. Did any of his comments on his return strike you?

He always comes back happy from his trips in Latin America. And before the trips, yes, one senses that spiritually the Pope is preparing for something decisive. Which you see in the messages he gave when he arrived at his destination. In Latin America, Francis has said things that will always be remembered. He has opened immense doors for the universal Church teaching. Like what was said in Ecuador to indigenous people, in Bolivia to the popular movements, in Paraguay to women, in Colombia to a divided society.

Thank you, Father Cruzado. Do you want to add anything more?

I'll add something as an educator. Francis has had a message every year for educators. He has stressed a complete education for all, that helps people and communities to grow. The school, he has said, is like a small Church in which you grow, you discern, you are welcomed. I hope he challenges us in that respect in Peru and that we move beyond an instrumental view of education, just as techniques to offer and as a place for training people, that he helps us reassess the central role of the teacher in society in general.

At a moment in history, the center of everything is in a woman

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Sat, 23 Dec 2017 23:03:00 +0000

By Leonardo Boff (English translation by Rebel Girl)
Leonardoboff.com (em portugües)
12/17/2017

The Christmas holiday is wholly focused on the figure of the Divine Child (Puer aeternus), Jesus, the Son of God who decided to dwell among us. The celebration of Christmas goes beyond this fact. Restricting ourselves to him alone, we fall into the theological error of Christomonism (Christ alone counts), forgetting that there are also the Spirit and the Father who always act together.

It is worth highlighting the figure of his mother, Miriam of Nazareth. If she had not said her "yes," Jesus would not have been born. And there would be no Christmas.

As we are still hostages of the patriarchal era, it prevents us from understanding and valuing what the gospel of Luke says about Mary: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the energy (dynamis) of the Most High will pitch His tent over you and therefore the Holy Begotten One will be called the Son of God."(Lk 1:35)

Common translations, dependent on a masculinist reading, say "the virtue of the Most High will overshadow you." Reading the original Greek, that is not what is said. Literally it states: "the energy (dynamis) of the Most High will pitch His tent over you (episkiásei soi)." It is a Hebrew linguistic idiom meaning "dwelling not transiently but definitively" upon you, Mary. The word used is skene meaning tent. Pitching a tent over someone (epi-skiásei), as the text states, means: from now on Mary of Nazareth will be the permanent bearer of the Spirit. She was "spiritualized," that is, the Spirit is part of her.

Curiously, St. John the Evangelist applies the same word, skene (tent), to the incarnation of the Word. "And the Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us (eskénosen -- it is the same basic verb), that is, he lived permanently among us.

What conclusion do we draw from this? That the first divine Person sent into the world was not the Son, the second Person of the Holy Trinity. It was the Holy Spirit. The one who is third in the order of the Trinity is first in the order of Creation, that is, the Holy Spirit. The receptacle of this coming was a woman of the people, simple and pious like all the peasant women of Galilee, named Miriam or Mary.

In welcoming the coming of the Spirit, she was raised to the height of the divinity of the Spirit. That is why the evangelist Luke rightly says: "Therefore (dià óti) or because of this the Holy One will be called the Son of God" (Lk 1:35). Only someone who is at the height of God can bring forth a Son of God. Mary, for this reason, will be deified similarly to the man Jesus of Nazareth who was assumed by the eternal Son and thus was deified. It is the eternal Son incarnate in our humanity who we celebrate at Christmas.

Behold, at a moment in history, the center is occupied by a woman, Miriam of Nazareth. In her is working the Holy Spirit who dwells in her and who is creating the holy humanity of the Son of God. In her are present two divine Persons: the Holy Spirit and the eternal Son of the Father. She is the temple that houses both.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, so venerated by the Mexican people, with mestizo traits, appears as a pregnant woman with all the symbols of pregnancy of the Nahuatl culture (of the Aztecs). Every time I went to Mexico, I mixed with the crowds who come and visit the beautiful cloth image of Guadalupe. Dressed as a friar, I often would ask an anonymous pilgrim, "Little brother, do you worship the Virgin of Guadalupe?" And I always received the same answer, "Yes, little friar, how can I not worship the Virgin of Guadalupe? Yes, I adore her."

The devotee answered rightly, for in this woman two divine Persons are hidden, the Son who grew in her womb by the energy of the Spirit that was dwelling in her. And both, being God, can and should be worshiped. And Mary is inseparable from them, so she deserves the same worship. Hence the inspiration for one of my most read books, O Rosto materno de Deus (Vozes, 11th ed., 2012. In English translation as The Maternal Face of God, Collins Publications, 1989).

I have always lamented that most women, even women theologians, have not yet assumed their divine portion, present in Mary, by the work of the Holy Spirit. They remain with just Christ, the deified man.

Christmas will be more complete if, together with the Child who shivers from the cold in the manger, we would include his Mother who warms him, supported by her husband the good Joseph. He would also deserve a special reflection, something I have already done in these pages of Jornal do Brasil: his relationship with the heavenly Father.

In the midst of the crisis of our country, there is still a Star like the one of Bethlehem to give us hope and a Woman, bearer of the Spirit that inspires us to find a saving way out.

The domesticated Gospel

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Sat, 23 Dec 2017 21:26:00 +0000

By Victor Codina (English translation by Rebel Girl)
Blog de CJ
December 19, 2017

We often discard gospel texts that are hard for us to understand. For example: that what we do to the poor, we do to Jesus, that the mysteries of the Kingdom, hidden from the wise and prudent, have been revealed to the little ones, that in the Magnificat it is said that God has put down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly, that in the beatitudes it is proclaimed that the poor are blessed and a "woe to the wealthy" is delivered, that God prefers mercy to sacrifices ... It even seems right to us that the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son did not want to participate in the festive feast.

Nor does it persuade us to hear that we have to carry the cross every day, rather we're in tune with Peter when he refuses to accept the passion of Jesus. We don't like to hear that we are to be born again, nor do we fully understand that God dwells in us, or that where there are two or three gathered in His name, He is present. Nor have we taken seriously the fact of not calling anyone father or teacher, because we call priests "father", bishops "his excellency", cardinals "his eminence", and the Pope "his holiness". We also don't like to hear that we have to be vigilant, because the Lord will come when we least expect it. And that resurrection business is so strange to us that we prefer to think that the soul is immortal, as the Greek philosophers and the Roman sages used to say.

To many men it is shocking that some women anointed the feet of Jesus with perfumes and tears, that the woman with the issue of blood touched the fringe of His mantle and that a Syrophoenician woman changed Jesus' plans. Nor do they like that Jesus first appeared to women and charged them to announce the resurrection to the disciples.

In short, we are accommodating the Gospel to our way of life, we are making the Church worldly, we are living a bourgeois Christianity, without cross or resurrection, with an "a la carte" faith. We domesticate the gospel, we mutilate it, we adapt it and make it politically correct. We have transformed Christmas into the celebration of consumption. The salt has lost its flavor, we have become pious Pharisees who fulfill external rites and norms, faith is reduced to a kind of béchamel sauce that coats the outside but doesn't transform life. Can it surprise us that many young and not so young people, men and women, are moving away from this style of Church? Is it strange that Pope Francis is talking about reforming the Church? We can not extinguish the fire of the Spirit.

Jesus hated borders

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Sat, 30 Sep 2017 17:32:00 +0000

by José María Castillo (English translation by Rebel Girl)
Religión Digital
September 26, 2017

A border is the line that separates and divides one nation from another, one country from another, and often one culture from another. Therefore borders separate us, perhaps divide us, and often alienate us from one another. Hence, so often, borders make us oppose each other. It's inevitable.

You'll say I'm exaggerating the negative. It's possible. But no one can deny that history is full of peripeteia and unfortunate events related to what I've just pointed out.

That said, because of my professional formation (or deformation), when I see a problem or a situation like the one we're experiencing right now in Spain, in Europe and the world, I dip into the Gospel and ask myself, "Does Jesus of Nazareth teach me anything that will help guide me in what is happening?".

Jesus gave nationalist signals. When he sent his apostles to proclaim the coming of the kingdom of God, the first thing he told them was not to go to the pagans or to the Samaritan cities (Mt 10:5). And to the Canaanite woman who asked him for healing for her sick daughter, he said that he had only come for the lost sheep of Israel (Mt 15:24). Scholars of these stories look for explanations for these strange episodes. Because, among other things, we know very well that Jesus greatly valued the Samaritans (Lk 9:51-56, 10:30-35, 17:11-19; Jn 4). And it's that, apparently, in Jesus' mind the "lost sheep" were precisely among his people, in Israel. Hence his emphasis that the apostles attend first of all to those who are lost and astray. Jesus' mentality wasn't nationalist. Not at all. It was a humanitarian mentality.

So it draws one's attention that the first time, according to Luke's gospel, that Jesus went to his hometown (Nazareth), they asked him to do the reading in the synagogue. And nothing else occurred to him but to, when reading a text of the prophet Isaiah (61:1-2), just mention the "year of favor" and skip the "day of vengeance" bit. Which caused the confrontation (according to the most correct translation. J. Jeremias) of the people (Lk 4:22). And the worst was that, instead of calming his fellow citizens, he went on to say that God prefers strangers (a widow from Zarephath and a politician from Syria) (Lk 4:24-27) to his Nazareth nieghbors. That made the people furious and it was truly a miracle that they didn't shoot him down (Lk 4:28-30). Jesus hated borders to the point of risking his life to make it clear that he didn't support borders that separate and divide us.

But this isn't what's most striking. One of the most surprising things in the gospels is that the three most notable compliments Jesus gave about faith, he didn't give to his apostles or to his compatriots or his friends. He gave them to a Roman centurion (Mt 8:10), a Canaanite woman (Mt 15:28), and a Samaritan leper who came to thank Jesus, as opposed to the nine Jewish lepers who were just satisfied with fulfilling "their law" (Lk 17:11-19).

Jesus, on dying, "handed over the spirit" (Jn 19:30). Did he leave this life? Of course he did. But something much deeper: he "handed over" ("paradídomi") the "Spirit". For the 4th gospel, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, everything happened in that moment (H. U. Weidemann). And from that moment, which changed History, the myth of the Tower of Babel, the many languages, our divisions and inability to understand one another and live together as one and in peace, ended. It's the pinnacle of the Gospel. And if the God thing is good for anything, what good is it to us if each passing day it becomes more unbearable for us to live united together? Is it that Spain and Catalonia are more important than the Gospel of Jesus? From what we're seeing, for many Christians and quite a few priests, that's how it is. Or that's the impression they're giving.

Interview with Dom Pedro Casaldáliga

noreply@blogger.com (Rebel Girl) — Sat, 30 Sep 2017 16:03:00 +0000

by José M. Vidal (English translation by Rebel Girl)
Religión Digital
September 26, 2017

He was always like a small thin reed, but with iron health and steel nerves. Today, at 89 years old, Dom Pedro Casaldáliga (Balsereny, 1928), the poet-bishop of the marginalized, remains a reed but doubled over by Parkinson's. From his wheelchair, he administers his silences and husbands his words which, from time to time, continue to flow like prophetic darts -- laconic and right on. He doesn't want Catalan independence, he asks young people to move on to action, and he asserts that Francis is "a blessing from God".

Padre Angel (L) and Dom Pedro Casaldaliga (R)

in the chapel in Sao Felix do Araguaia, Brazil

Don Pedro, do you like to receive visits?

Some, yes.

As a Catalonian and Catalonia International Prize winner, what do you think of the [independence] process?

We'll see what happens with independence. I would prefer that it not be. There are wise people who are going to approach the matter differently. It's not a natural process. It makes no sense.

Did you know Tarancón [Cardinal Vicente Enrique y Tarancón]?

Yes, when I was a seminarian in Barbastro and he was bishop in Solsona. He was a worthy figure with the vocation of intermediary during that difficult time in Spain.

Where do your hope and strength come from, despite everything?

Relying on somebody.

Who is that somebody?

It could only be Him.

What nourishes your hope?

The Resurrection of Christ.

If you could change just one thing in the world, what would it be?

That everyone who has power would stand in the right place: life.

And what would you change in the Catholic Church?

Put power in the people's hands. Otherwise, it becomes a problem. In the Church, the crucial thing is giving one's life for others and a gospel devotion to the Beatitudes.

Did you have problems with the hierarchy?

Yes, I did.

What did you do and what should be done in those cases?

Continue to stand firm on the side of the poor and always bear witness.

Would you order the churches to be open 24 hours?

Yes, so the people might come in, sleep, eat, and pray, if they want.

Some advice for young people.

That they remain rebels with hope, despite the despair. And always on the side of the poor and excluded. We've been talking about consciousness raising for years. That time is over. It's time to act and respond to specific calls.

What do you say to Father Ángel [García Rodríguez] who came to see you from Madrid?

That he keep on being a prophet and looking out for peace, which is lived out and is a process.

What do you think of Pope Francis?

A blessing from God.

Are you, like him, a blessing from God?

We're all blessings from God, if we are listening and if we are committed to interchange and dialogue. Because the problem is how to live daily life in the midst of this violent world.

Do you regret anything?

Not having enough attitude of dialogue.

What are you most proud of?

The many people who still accompany me on the journey and having given my life to the excluded, the marginalized, the little ones.

Your favorite saints?

Saint Francis of Assisi (when I went to Rome, I wanted to go to Assisi to see Father Arrupe, but I couldn't).

And poets?

Antonio Machado, Saint John of the Cross (his "Spiritual Canticle" comes first), Espriu, Neruda and Maragall.

Thank you very much, Dom Pedro.

You're welcome. We have talked. Now it's about doing.