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NEWS & LETTERS, June -July 2007Our Life and Times by Kevin A. Barry and Mitch WeerthPope’s trip to BrazilPope Benedict XVI visited Brazil May 9-13 in part to help make the Catholic Church "more dynamic" (his words) in Latin America, and in true Ratzinger style succeeded in showing the world exactly why the Church has been "hemorrhaging" followers, as Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes has put it. Before arriving he took a hard line against the historic passage of a law in Mexico on April 24 that legalizes abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. (The law only applies to Mexico’s capital, but it adds Mexico to the short list of countries in Latin America, Cuba and Guyana, where abortion is legal.) The Pope sided with Mexican bishops that have called for excommunicating legislators who voted for the new law, an approach that is at odds with both President Lula’s attitude and liberation theologists, who want the Church to start treating women as human beings. Speaking to the opening of a conference of Latin American bishops, he took up the relationship of Christianity and indigenous cultures, assuring the bishops that "the proclamation of Jesus and of his Gospel did not at any point involve an alienation of the pre-Columbus cultures, nor was it the imposition of a foreign culture." This lie, apparently intended to assure his audience that being more "dynamic" does not include reaching out to women, Blacks, and indigenous peoples, had to be retracted a week later following an outcry from indigenous groups. He then said that "it’s not possible to forget the suffering and injustices inflicted by the colonizers" on the indigenous peoples. In addition to lecturing the bishops on how much creativity would be allowed in their attempts to stem the Church’s slide, the Pope was clearly concerned about his old nemesis, Liberation Theology. He continues to assert that priests who speak out against poverty are being too political, though he has never spoken against the Church’s open support for right-wing dictators in the region. None of the 266 observers invited to the conference are from the estimated 80,000 "base communities" (established by adherents to liberation theology) in the country, and only 30 are women. |
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