Donna Freitas in the Washington Post: On remaking the Catholic Church

Donna Freitas, another Catholic, writes about how liberation theology can remake Roman Catholicism:


As the Catholic hierarchy sweats in the harsh glare of media scrutiny, as they backpedal about investigations into past and current abuse, and get defensive in all the wrong ways, the question "Should the pope resign?" is valid -- the man at the top has been harboring criminals. There is no defense for this. There is no defense for those who shuffled around priests known to be guilty of rape and assault and other forms of abuse, be you the pope, a bishop or cardinal.

But now is also a moment with extraordinary potential for grassroots reform in the Catholic Church, and Catholic theology offers a powerful history and tradition of ground-up resistance and civil disobedience in its feminist, womanist, mujerista, and liberation theologies.

So what can these theologies offer in response to the abuse crisis?

Well, they call for no less than a revolution.

At their core, feminist and liberation theologies are concerned with the abuse of power, righting injustice and discrimination, dismantling oppressive hierarchies, and clearing space for the disenfranchised to have a voice in the tradition and a central role in its transformation. By their very nature these theologies are grassroots and practical--they start and end with everyday Catholics, the very people who have been denied power, who have been oppressed and silenced. In the 1970's, the liberation theologies of Gustavo Gutierrez, Jon Sobrino, and Leonardo Boff were instrumental not only in addressing poverty, but toppling oppressive governmental regimes that perpetuated poverty and forbade dissent. For five decades feminist, womanist, mujerista, and asian-feminist theologians (all types of liberation theology) like Elizabeth Johnson, Lisa Sowle Cahill, Diana Hayes, Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Dorothee Soelle, among many others, have been speaking out about the rights of women and children, and in particular, addressing the problematic implications for all Catholics of an all-male, hierarchical governing body.

For these same reasons--how powerful liberation theologies are in restructuring oppressive hierarchies--the Vatican has issued statements lashing out against them, publicly silencing theologians for speaking out, perhaps most famously with Leonardo Boff. (See the following Vatican documents for examples, "Instruction on Certain Aspects of "Theology of Liberation," "Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation," and "On the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church"--all of which came out of the office of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith during Ratzinger's tenure.) [Editor: links are in Freitas' blog post.]

Isn't the average Catholic today--those of us still in the pews--now also the disenfranchised in the wake of this second wave scandal? The abuse and criminal negligence rampant throughout the hierarchy has marginalized all of us. Staying Catholic does not equal approval of the pope, does not make someone complicit in criminal behavior. Our faith and our tradition are being stolen out from under us by a powerful few who fear responsibility and are terrified of being held accountable for harboring criminals and perpetuating abuse for decades in the process.

But liberation theologies speak directly to us, the marginalized Catholics, and provide us frameworks to move from disgust, dismay, paralysis, and disempowerment toward transformation and change.

And if the vast majority of us are now the disenfranchised, it is from this place that we can begin to remake the church. The Vatican is so embattled and its power undermined by the scandal that the center of the Catholic Church has shifted sideways as a result--if we claim it from this place on the margins. If we speak in large numbers from this place as Catholics who are the Church.

We have strength in numbers. There are far many more of us than them. And liberation theologies empower the average Catholic to enter into theological discourse. They take theology from the hands of the few, from the pope, the cardinals, and the bishops, and put the task of theology into our hands. They anchor the Catholic Church in the laity and its ordinary priests and nuns, effectively dismantling the hierarchy's power and redistributing it on a grassroots level, where it obviously belongs if the hierarchy's behavior tells us anything at all.

These frameworks of resistance and reform are the very structures that empowered me to stay, to remake my own place and sense of Catholic identity in a way that gave me a strong voice and solid place to stand. I do not speak as a Catholic approving of the hierarchy--absolutely not. I speak as a Catholic disgusted by it, certainly, but who also knows that reform must happen from within and will happen via those of us who stay and make it happen. I speak as a Catholic empowered by liberation theologies.

We are living in a different world than in the 1980's when the Vatican lashed out at liberation theologians, requiring their silence. Between today's technologies and the widespread disgust at the Vatican, the places where and opportunities for lay Catholics and disenfranchised victims to speak up and out are many--and the Vatican can do nothing to stop this.

For the Catholic laity, for the theologians and clergy who want change--in not only leadership but overall institutional reform and what the Catholic tradition stands for--now is the time for us to speak up and loudly.

For a particularly powerful, thoughtful, and thorough perspective on reform, please see feminist theologian Mary Hunt's article, "Father Does Not Know Best: How To Fix the Catholic Church" at Religion Dispatches.

Liberation theology is alive and well

Walter Altmann writes for Ekklesia.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, twenty years ago, many critics have been quick to sign liberation theology's death certificate. Most of them did so because they understood it to be an apology for bygone Soviet-style socialism. It seems, though, that this death certificate has been issued prematurely.

It is true that liberation theologians – some more than others – used Marxist categories for socio-economic analysis and for a moral critique of capitalism's evils. However, the core of liberation theology has never been Marxism.

It is rather the compassionate identification with the poor and their struggle for justice, inspired by the life and teachings of Jesus himself, which is at its heart. Instead of concentrating on social analysis, which was seen as a methodological tool, from the outset liberation theology placed greater emphasis on the crucial role of God's people committed praxis – or, in other words, the Christian communities' action inspired by faith and informed by theological reflection.

Liberation theology is spiritually grounded in – and gets its motivation from – the life changing encounter with Christ as liberator and with our neighbours in need. Their suffering is not a result of fate but of systemic injustices and oppression, which can be overcome by transformative action.

If we look at our reality today, we are reminded that poverty has by no means been overcome in the world. On the contrary, the recent international financial crisis, produced by unrestrained capitalist forces governed by greed and private and corporate interests, has increased the number of the poor – or rather, the impoverished – in the world by hundreds of millions.

Liberation theology emerged in the late 1960s in Latin America. The ground had been prepared in the 1950s by Christian base community movements aiming for social, political and economic reforms in society, and for the active participation of laypeople in pastoral activities within the church.

Latin America being predominantly a Catholic continent, the new theological approach was widely linked with pastoral and theological developments within the Roman Catholic Church, although it was from the very beginning an ecumenical endeavour. The very term "liberation theology" was proposed almost simultaneously by the Roman Catholic priest Gustavo Gutiérrez, from Peru, and the Presbyterian theologian Rubem Alves, from Brazil.

It is not surprising that in the seventies and eighties liberation theology had a strong influence on the ecumenical movement, including the World Council of Churches (WCC). The relevancy of its actions in supporting struggles for human rights under military dictatorships in Latin America, in developing effective methods of overcoming illiteracy (as did the exiled Brazilian pedagogue and WCC education adviser Paulo Freire), and in combating racism, mainly in Southern Africa, has been widely recognised.

As a contextual approach, aimed at critically reflecting on the praxis of God's people, liberation theology was never intended to become a static, dogmatic theoretical construction. Its intention was not to highlight a neglected theological theme, but rather to propose a new way of doing theology. It naturally underwent changes over the decades. At the outset it focused on the living conditions of the poor. Later, it incorporated other issues, like indigenous peoples, racism, gender inequalities and ecology.

Nowadays, liberation theology deals with the interpretation of cultures and with anthropological questions, for example the temptation of power. The goal of striving towards a more just society where there is "room for all" persists, yet the way of achieving it has shifted towards civil society action.

The influence of liberation theology goes way beyond the realm of the churches. Its contribution towards overcoming military dictatorships in Latin America and apartheid in Southern Africa has already been hinted at. Today it helps shape Latin American political efforts towards a model of democracy which overcomes poverty and social injustices. Several Latin American presidents – Lula da Silva in Brazil, Morales in Bolivia, Correa in Ecuador, Ortega in Nicaragua and Lugo in Paraguay - have all in different ways had close contact with Christian base communities and liberation theologians.

But, above all, liberation theology continues to be very much alive and well within civil society movements and Christian base communities.

-----------

(c) Walter Altmann is president of the Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession in Brazil and moderator of the World Council of Churches Central Committee.

Palm Sunday (belated)

The Gospel Choir of Saarbrücken has a song available for free download, Freedom is Coming. It is a South African song, sung during the Apartheid era. The lyrics are simple, joyful, and haunting:

Freedom is coming
Freedom is coming
Freedom is coming, oh yes I know


Oh freedom (freedom is coming)
Oh freedom (freedom is coming)
Oh freedom (freedom is coming), oh yes I know

Oh yes I know (oh yes I know)
Oh yes I know (oh yes I know)
Oh yes I know (oh yes I know)

Jesus is coming...
Oh yes I know...

Oh freedom...
Oh yes I know...

From the Gospel Choir's site:

From Religion Online:

A South African theologian said shortly before the first universal and free elections in South Africa's history in 1994 about the importance of singing during the struggle for liberation: "South Africans area singing people. During apartheid we did not simply sing because we were happy' we also sang when we cried. We sang in order not to be broken. We sang to survive."

Yesterday, I heard a story about Desmond Tutu. He had been arrested the week before. He was celebrating Mass at his cathedral. White South African soldiers filed into the building. They were armed, and they outnumbered the congregants.

Do you also wish to go away? Jim Wallis writes that when the South African government canceled a political rally against apartheid, Desmond Tutu led a worship service in St. George’s Cathedral. The walls were lined with soldiers and riot police carrying guns and bayonets, ready to close it down. Bishop Tutu began to speak of the evils of the apartheid system -- how the rulers and authorities that propped it up were doomed to fall. He pointed a finger at the police who were there to record his words: "You maybe powerful -- very powerful -- but you are not God. God cannot be mocked. You have already lost."

Then, in a moment of unbearable tension, the bishop seemed to soften. Coming out from behind the pulpit, he flashed that radiant Tutu smile and began to bounce up and down with glee. "Therefore, since you have already lost, we are inviting you to join the winning side."

The crowd roared, the police melted away and the people began to dance. Don’t go away, Paul says. Put on your armor and dance. I am inviting you to join the winning side.

Our seminarian-in-training reminded us that it's almost certain that arrests were made later. If not against Desmond, then against others. And that's part of the point.

The point is that Jesus gives us the grace to resist without violence. Remember how the South African story ends: the oppressors are invited to govern alongside the oppressed. FW De Klerk, the last White President, and one of those who engineered the transition to majority rule, then served as Deputy President under Nelson Mandela.

It's not always going to end happily. Jesus' journey into Jerusalem started with a triumphant ride on a donkey, the roads lined with palms, his supporters cheering him.

The story seems to end with Jesus being crucified. Partly he was seen as a threat to the existing order, probably both by the Roman Empire and the Pharisees.

However, we also believe that's not the true end of the story.

Harriet Tubman

From Moses of Her People, available here:

Harriet looked around, wondering why so many white ladies were gathered there. I think it was Miss Anthony [probably Susan Anthony] who led her forward, saying:

"Ladies, I am glad to present to you Harriet Tubman, 'the conductor of the Underground Railroad.'"

"Yes, ladies," said Harriet, "I was de conductor ob de Underground Railroad for eight years, an' I can say what mos' conductors can't say—I nebber run my train off de track an' I nebber los' a passenger." The audience laughed and applauded, and Harriet was emboldened to go on and relate portions of her interesting history, which were most kindly received by the assembled ladies.

Robin Morgan, a prominent feminist, attributes this quote to Harriet:

Let a statement by the magnificent Harriet Tubman stand as reply. When asked how she managed to save hundreds of enslaved African Americans via the Underground Railroad during the Civil War, she replied bitterly, "I could have saved thousands-if only I'd been able to convince them they were slaves."

Actually, I think that quote is of uncertain provenance. Ralph Luker, blogging on History News Network, explains:

I might not have caught it, myself, but Melissa Spore's comment sounded right to me. So, I wrote to Kate Clifford Larson, the author of Bound For the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero (2004). Larson replies as follows:

I do not think it is an authentic quote. I believe it is from one of the many 20th century fictionalized biographies. It was never recorded at anytime during her lifetime, and interviews with people who knew her after her life never indicated this was something she said. There are many quotes attributed to Tubman that are 20th century creations. This one I believe is particularly peculiar, and in my view, quite racist.

When I contacted Milton Sernett, the author of Harriet Tubman: Myth, Memory, and History (2007), he replied:

I have not found the quotation in question in any of the primary sources that purport to be faithful renditions of Tubman sayings/comments/aphorisms or the like. My impression is that this is a late 20th century quote from a fictionalized account of Tubman's life. ... Whoever wishes to use the dubious quote as a political zinger ought to cite a reliable source.

Nonetheless, many slaves did in fact turn back from the Underground Railroad. Many were worried. Harriet's Wikipedia article, which cites her biographies by Kate Larson and Catherin Clinton, says that she escaped once with her brothers, but they turned back, worried about the dangers ahead. Also, Ben had just become a father.

Harriet, though, was unafraid. She knew she wasn't a slave. She did actually return to her home state, but it was to free other slaves.

She personally helped free hundreds, at least.

People started calling her Moses.

Thanks be to God.

Freedom is coming: Our Lady of Guadalupe and a reflection for Advent 3

A reading from Revelation 12:

A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth. Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born. And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne; and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, so that there she can be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

Our Lady of Guadalupe's feast day is observed on Dec 12. I've written a reflection about her here.

Our Lady is not so well known among Protestants, but I think she has one critical lesson to teach us this Advent. The Woman of the Apocalypse, described in Rev. 12, is commonly associated with Mary. She comes at the end of time, bearing a child - the Messiah, who is to defeat the dragon, associated with Satan.

And in the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mary comes as an Aztec, a member of a tribe that has just suffered genocide, a tribe that is now enslaved by the Spaniards. Mary is Indigenous. As denoted by her maternity band in the image, Mary is pregnant. Therefore, her Son, Jesus, is Indigenous.

My sisters and brothers, God is decolonizing us, preparing us for the kingdom of God. Watch and pray.

Kamehameha and Emma: Reflection for Advent 1

Indigenous peoples and individuals are free and equal to all other peoples and
individuals and have the right to be free from any kind of discrimination, in the
exercise of their rights, in particular that based on their indigenous origin or
identity.
Article 2, Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

(Note: I edited this on 12/3, adding some last-minute updates.)
Do you know what it's like for Indigenous people to have one of their own numbered among the saints?

Tonight, we observe the feast of Kamehameha IV and Emma. Kamehameha was the fourth king in the Kamehameha dynasty, founded about 1810. Kamehameha and Emma were Anglican by birth, but Christianity had come to Hawaii not long before either was born. Christianity started out nearly 2,000 years ago as a small religious cult, and now has over 2 billion followers. Through millennia, Christians have held on to their beliefs in the face of torture and death. They have also evangelized to every corner of the earth. We would not be here today if not for evangelism.

But, even evangelism has a dark side.

In 1778, Captain James Cook of England made the first European contact with the Hawaiian Islands. Soon afterwards, Western merchants came to buy sandalwood, which was abundant on Hawaii and greatly in demand in China. They brought the Hawaiian natives Bibles, guns, and rum.

Kamehameha the Great, the founder of the Kamehameha dynasty and the grandfather of Kamehameha IV, organized the commoners into a labor force to go up the mountain, cut sandalwood, and bring it to the harbor, in addition to their usual subsistence farming. Sandalwood nearly became extinct, and many commoners died from disease, and malnutrition. Meanwhile, the king used the force of the arms he bought from the traders to unite the Hawaiian Islands. He also bought Western luxury goods on credit, driving the island into debt.

Indigenous peoples, in exercising their right to self-determination, have the
right to autonomy or self-government in matters relating to their internal and local
affairs, as well as ways and means for financing their autonomous functions.
Article 4, Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Kamehameha I died in 1819, by which time the island’s population had been halved, to 150,000, from smallpox and other diseases. Christian missionaries started to arrive on the island in 1820. They established a written Hawaiian language, and taught the Hawaiians to read and write. To be fair, many missionaries were concerned with the welfare of the Hawaiian people, who were often being exploited by the merchants, and who suffered from high rates of alcoholism. The missionaries tried to help the Hawaiians start their own industries. And they tried to defend the Hawaiians against exploitation by the traders.

But Christian missionaries were also one of the forces of 19th century colonialism. They tried to impose their standards of modesty, banning the Hawaiians from dancing the hula. They prohibited working on the Sabbath, which interfered with native agricultural production. Many missionaries eventually became advisors to the monarchy. They and many chiefs advised King Kamehameha III to proclaim the Great Mahele, or division, in 1848. The missionaries thought the old system of land distribution was backwards and kept the people in poverty, and they did want to empower the people. The Mahele theoretically allowed commoners to claim land they worked on. However, few commoners were literate enough to understand the declaration, and the immediate result was further centralization of ownership with Hawaiian chiefs.

And in 1850, the law was amended to allow foreign ownership. Perhaps unsurprisingly, by 1890, 75% of all privately owned land was owned by foreign businesses, and much of it was devoted to sugar cultivation. Eventually, five former missionary families came to own the sugar industry. They dominated many other aspects of Hawaiian industry, and came to hold much political power as well. The Big Five sugar producers got the most fertile land, and diverted much of Hawaii’s limited fresh water for refining sugar.

Additionally, Kamehameha III saw the native Hawaiian population halved again, to about 75,000, from a smallpox epidemic. He survived two coup attempts by Westerners, and died in 1855.

1. Indigenous individuals have the rights to life, physical and mental
integrity, liberty and security of person.
2. Indigenous peoples have the collective right to live in freedom, peace
and security as distinct peoples and shall not be subjected to any act of genocide or
any other act of violence, including forcibly removing children of the group to
another group.
Article 7, Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

And so, Kamehameha IV became king when things were bad and getting worse. He was the nephew and adopted son of Kamehameha III. Born in 1834, and educated by Anglican missionaries, he ascended to the throne in 1855, at age 20.

Queen Emma was born in 1836, and was the granddaughter of John Young, a friend and military advisor to Kamehameha the Great. She married Kamehameha IV in 1856, and they had one son, Albert.

Beginning at least with King Kamehameha I, the people were accustomed to royalty who ruled with pomp and power and lived in luxury. In contrast, Emma encouraged her husband to create public hospitals and long-term care facilities, to care for a population being decimated by foreign diseases. The legislature denied them funding, but they went around the island with a notebook, soliciting funds from rich and poor alike. The Queen’s Medical Center in Honululu was the fruit of this campaign, and it still stands today.

In 1860, Kamehameha and Emma petitioned the Church of England to help them establish an Anglican church in Hawaii. The Church sent two priests and a bishop, and the king and queen were confirmed in 1862.

But in 1863, Albert died, at age 4. Kamehameha felt he was responsible, and he was already in ailing health. At the funeral, he preached a sermon that expressed a deep, profound faith, but it seemed that he had lost the will to live. He died without an heir at age 29, on November 30, 1863. Emma declined to rule, retreating to focus on good works. I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest that both of them were in despair at having failed their people.

Good works alone could not save Hawaii. Kamehameha’s brother succeeded him, but also died without a successor, ending their dynasty. Hawaii then had three elected monarchs. Kalakaua, the second elected monarch, was forced by a militia allied with descendants of the missionaries to sign a document now called the Bayonet Constitution. The Constitution denied the vote to many native Hawaiians and stripped Kalakaua of his executive power. The Constitution’s author was Lorrin Thurston, the Interior Minister, a child of missionaries, and a powerful businessman. Lili’uokalani, Kalakaua’s sister and successor, tried to abrogate the Bayonet Constitution and draft a new one. She was deposed when John Stevens, the U.S. Department of State Minister, called in the marines, allegedly to protect American civilians. Later, as you know, Hawaii was annexed to the US.

1. Indigenous peoples have the right to manifest, practice, develop and
teach their spiritual and religious traditions, customs and ceremonies; the right to
maintain, protect, and have access in privacy to their religious and cultural sites; the
right to the use and control of their ceremonial objects; and the right to the
repatriation of their human remains.
Article 12 part 1, Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Wikipedia defines colonialism as the “extension of a nation’s sovereignty over territory beyond its borders by the establishment of either settler colonies or administrative dependencies in which Indigenous populations are directly ruled or displaced.” Colonialism necessarily entails oppression: establishing political, physical and psychic dominion over Indigenous people. And often, they internalize that oppression, and perpetuate it on others.

Jesus said in tonight’s Gospel, what you did to the least of these, you did to me. He said elsewhere, sell all you have, give to the poor, and you will enter the Kingdom. Instead, the church established in Jesus’ name to serve those on the margins has been an historical agent of colonization, racial prejudice, and environmental destruction, in Hawaii, and in Indigenous communities all over the world. Empire has colonized the church. Empire has turned the church into an instrument of colonization.

Now, lest we think it’s only churches that support empire, or that religion is the sole force for oppression and conflict, we should remember that staunchly atheist Russia colonized many other countries during the Soviet era. Ask Ukrainians about the Holodomor, a genocide perpetrated during the Stalin era, or ask Tibetan exiles about China. If you could somehow remove everyone’s religion bone, the justifications for colonization would change, but they would still be there. It is sadly a part of the human condition to exert dominance over others, to bend them to what we think is best for them. Empire doesn't need religion to colonize.

But it is also clear that, while churches in imperialist countries should have vigorously denounced colonization, they supported it instead, with enthusiasm. The church identifies itself foremost with the oppressed and the marginalized, and yet it’s a terrible irony that the church has disenfranchised, or helped to disenfranchise, Indigenous peoples all around the world. Malcolm X criticized the church for being so intertwined with the dominant culture that it couldn’t confront racism. Is it the same way with Indigenous peoples’ rights? Are we doomed to always conquer and colonize? Is there hope for us?

1. Indigenous peoples have the right to the dignity and diversity of their
cultures, traditions, histories and aspirations which shall be appropriately reflected
in education and public information.
Article 15 part 1, Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Native Americans often speak of transformation in their myths. The Anglican Indigenous Network has spoken several times of its calling to transform the life of the church. They believe that “God is leading the Church to a turning point in its history and that the full partnership of Indigenous peoples is essential.” Indigenous peoples in the Network have pledged to contribute their “vision and gift to transform the life of the Anglican community.”

Thousands of years ago in Israel, there was a tribe that derived its identity from its land, and that maintained a unique identity, heritage and history. That tribe was subject to military conquest, colonization, economic exploitation, and cultural destruction by many conquerors over the centuries, and at last by the Roman Empire. Jesus is a member of this tribe. Jesus is Indigenous.

And I think Jesus is waiting to transform His church. At our baptisms, we are asked, “Will you seek and serve Christ in every person, loving your neighbor as yourself?” We are not asked to run around bringing Jesus to others, because we do not have Jesus. Rather, we are called to go to others, to serve the Christ that is in them.

If there is hope for the church, if we are to advance the Kingdom of God, rather than the kingdoms of this world, then we must help lead this nation and the world away from empire and towards freedom. Can you imagine a church, country, a world that has renounced empire and colonization? We can start by acknowledging the needs, rights and the voices of Indigenous peoples in our midst and around the world. We can start by letting Jesus transform, redeem, and decolonize us.

The rights recognized herein constitute the minimum standards for the
survival, dignity and well-being of the indigenous peoples of the world.
Article 43, Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Modern reformulation of the Apostles' Creed from a Latin, modern perspective:
I believe and I live in God the Just One, the Liberator,
who created the world and my neighbor,
and in Christ of Nazareth, his only son,
and my only head,
who was born of a woman like my mother,
suffered under the oppressor's might,
was despised, marginalized, and crucified.

He descended upon the mechanisms of power,
staged a coup d'état,
and is in command, together with God the Just One, the Liberator,
And soon, when everything is under control,
he will pass judgement on rich, poor, and indifferent.

I believe in the church, which lives in the world and for it,
in liberation from alienation,
in the equality of human being,
in the Prince of Peace,
and in the new life dawning on the horizon of history.

Harvey Milk

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. - John 15:13 (NRSV)

From Robert Lentz:

Harvey Milk was the first openly gay person to be elected to high public office in the U.S. He was not a professional politician, but ran for City Supervisor in San Francisco because he felt ordinary people were being pushed aside there by monied interests. "It takes no money to respect the individual," he said. "The people are more important than words." As supervisor he fought consistently for the rights of all of those without a voice. These people included blue-collar workers, the elderly, racial minorities, and gay men and women.

The day of his election, Harvey tape-recorded his last testament, in which he acknowledged that he would most probably die violently. The last words of that message were "You gotta give them hope."

Do you know what it's like for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people to have one of their own numbered among the saints?

Harvey Milk is a martyr to the LGBT community, and Harvey Milk School in New York is named after him. He was Jewish, and I'm not aware that he was particularly religious. He's not on the Episcopal Church's calendar of Lesser Feasts and Fasts. However, he's a saint, and I'm going to prove it.

He came to be known as the Mayor of Castro Street; the Castro is a prominent gay neighborhood in San Francisco. It didn't used to be that way, having been Scandinavian from 1910-1920, and then Irish working class from 1930-1960. In 1975, Harvey opened a camera store, and began a life as a gay activist.

"We must destroy the myths once and for all. We must continue to speak out and most importantly every gay person must come out. As difficult as it is, you must tell your family, you must tell your relatives, you must tell your friends, you must tell your neighbors, you must tell the people you work with, you must tell the people in the stores you shop in, and once they realize that we are indeed their children and that we are indeed everywhere, every myth, every lie, every innuendo will be destroyed once and for all. And once you do you will feel so much better."

I find it interesting, by the way, that the LGBT community in the US has co-opted the term "queer" to refer to themselves. "Queer" used to be an insult. Many older LGBT folk - and some of the younger ones - I know are still uncomfortable with it.

In contrast, gays in Asia, specifically Taiwan, Hong Kong, and parts of mainland China, co-opted the term "Tong Zhi". Tong Zhi is Mandarin for "comrade", as in Comrade so-and-so. It is a polite salutation, rather than an insult. If anyone asks to illustrate how Asians think differently from Westerners, I sometimes give this as an example.

However, there's a time and a place for everything. There's a time to fit in. There's also a time to confront.

In Harvey's time, the police, the psychologists, and the priests were the main enemies of the LGBT community. Police made sting operations and arbitrary arrests. Psychologists propagated theories of impaired sexual development. Priests called homosexuality an abomination. Harvey confronted them.

Of course, he did not personally confront them with violence. For the most part, violence against the police would have been a bad idea, although Stonewall, where gays, lesbians and crossdressers fought back against the police at a raid and taunted them. This was before Harvey's time.

Harvey instead confronted his adversaries in the public square, in politics. People said he was mad to run for public office as an "avowed homosexual." He did anyway. Eventually, he became city supervisor of San Francisco. Once there, though, he acted as a comrade as well as a confronter.

"Our cities must not be abandoned. They’re worth fighting for, not just by those who live in them, but by industry, commerce, unions, everyone. What we need is a neighborhood where people can walk to work, raise their kids, enjoy life. That simple."

His time in office was sadly short. Late in 1978, the conservative board member Dan White resigned from his post. He was a vociferous opponent of George Moscone, the liberal mayor. However, he apparently changed his mind, and asked Moscone to reinstate him. Moscone, under pressure from other liberals on the board, refused him.

On November 27, 1978, White came to City Hall and demanded to speak to Moscone. Moscone refused him. White had crawled in through a window to avoid the metal detector, because he was carrying his policeman's service revolver and ten extra rounds. He shot Moscone, and then he went to Harvey's office. He confronted Harvey angrily, and shot him five times.

That night 40,000 people, men and women, old and young, gay and straight, kept candlelight vigil outside City Hall. A recording that Harvey made was played:

"This is to be played only in the event of my death by assassination.

I realize that a person who stands for what I stand for, an activist, a gay activist, becomes a target or a potential target for somebody who is insecure, terrified, afraid, or very disturbed themselves.

Knowing that I could be assassinated at any moment or any time, I feel that it's important that some people know my thoughts.

I stood for more than just a candidate. I have never considered myself a candidate. I have always considered myself part of the movement, part of the candidacy. I wish I had to explain everything I did. Almost everything was done in the eyes of the gay movement."

He also said, "If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door."

"...Gay brothers and sisters,...You must come out. Come out...to your parents...I know that it is hard and will hurt them but think about how they will hurt you in the voting booth! Come out to your relatives...come out to your friends...if indeed they are your friends. Come out to your neighbors...to your fellow workers...to the people who work where you eat and shop...come out only to the people you know, and who know you. Not to anyone else. But once and for all, break down the myths, destroy the lies and distortions. For your sake. For their sake. For the sake of the youngsters who are becoming scared by the votes from Dade to Eugene."

Many LGBT people I know have been colonized by the church in some way. To colonize a country means to come and settle among and establish political control over the indigenous people of an area. To colonize a people means to discredit their worldview and their epistemology (way of knowing things), and to establish a foreign one. Many LGBT people have been colonized by religion.

So, many of them are in the closet to themselves and/or to their religious communities. They put up with abuse to stay in the good graces of a God they think despises them for their sexual orientations or gender identities. Many have left and would rather die than return. Perhaps Harvey was one of the latter.

And yet, I believe Harvey has something to teach Christians about the Resurrection. There's no evidence that he believed in God. And yet, he was not afraid to lay down his life for his friends. He knew he was likely going to be killed at some point - he premeditated his tape recording, just as Dan White arguably premeditated his murder. He went willingly. He was not a Christian, and yet his actions were those of one who believes in the Resurrection. As a universalist Christian, I believe that the Resurrection is for all people, everywhere.

Whether Harvey knew it or not, he was serving Jesus Christ, foreshadowing Christ's actions. Harvey was paving the way for LGBT people to come out in political life. Lentz' icon shows Harvey Milk as a servant of God, paving the way for LGBT people to come out in religious life.

But through Harvey, Jesus is decolonizing the LGBT community. To decolonize a country means to withdraw from a colony, leaving it independent. To decolonize a people means to cease to poison their hearts and minds and souls against themselves. Jesus doesn't set us free from homosexuality. Jesus sets LGBT people and the church free from homophobia and transphobia. Jesus decolonizes, and sometimes he uses servants who do not know Him to do so.

Sojourner Truth

I included a collection of diverse names of people who worked and some who gave their lives in the cause of civil justice an freedom. The names are placed behind the image of Sojourner Truth. The bottom section of the paining is mad e up of a repeated phrase from the famous speech she gave in 1851 at a women's rights convention in Akron, Ohio. I used symbols to convey a sense of ancestral histories and cultural perspectives.
James Watkins, Kalamazoo, Michigan
Bachelor of Fine Arts, Western Michigan University

Do you know what it's like for people of color to have one of their own numbered among the saints?

One of the major themes in the Bible is that God liberates. God brings the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. Repeatedly, God sets the Israelites free from foreign slavery. They turn repeatedly to other gods, but they are finally willing and able to worship God alone.

However, people of color, and particularly indigenous peoples, will tell you that being physically free is only part of the problem. I told you earlier this year about Harriet Tubman, a conductor of the Underground Railroad, who always had to bring a gun along to shoot any of the escaping slaves who wanted to return to their masters. Sure, many slaves did a simple economic calculation and decided that returning and being punished was a bit better than being caught, tortured, and killed.

But it's more than that: slavery blights the mind and soul as well as the body. There are large parts of us that want to remain slaves. Additionally, religious establishments over time have manipulated images of God to justify the status quo of oppression. When the Spaniards came to Mexico and Latin America, for example, they conquered the native peoples, and justified it through false interpretations of the Gospel.

For example, Saúl Trinidad and Juan Stam, writing in Faces of Jesus: Latin American Christologies, outline a few depictions of Christ in Latin America that are defective, and that are intentionally or unintentionally used as the "opiate of the people," to keep people from challenging oppressive social conditions. There is the Santa Claus Christ, the dispenser of gifts. Accept Christ, and you get gifts, such as healing at a service. There are some Evangelicals who preach a gospel of prosperity - accept the Gospel and God will reward you financially. Or the magic potion Christ, the Christ who miraculously cures problems, as in this sermon quoted in the book:

Christ seeks to enter into the human heart, says the evangelist. When Jesus enters a sinner, there is direct contact with God. Jesus takes over that person's interor life, and he or she receives the supernatural power to conquer temptation ... God provides for your needs ... Are you sick? Sick with sin, sick from nerves, sick from anything? Then know this, that God has prepared for you a perfect heaven, a place of peace, love, happiness, and justice.

Another, and slightly related, false image is the passport Christ, where acceptance of Christ is a "lottery ticket" to escape to heaven from earth. Also linked to this is the asocial Christ, the dualistic Christ who demands withdrawal from the world. Certainly, conservative American Evangelicals also preach this sort of Christ.

Well, Jesus does give. But Christ doesn't give trivialities. And Christ also demands: service, sacrifice, discipleship. Liberation from material and physical deprivation is important, but it must come alongside spiritual liberation.

Sojourner Truth's story is one of spiritual liberation. Like Harriet, she was born a slave, named Isabella Baumfree. A year before New York mandated emancipation, her owner, John Dumont, promised her freedom. However, he was a harsh and cruel man, and he reneged, claiming that a hand injury made her less productive.

She spun him 100 pounds of wool to fulfill her sense of obligation. And then, she escaped with her infant daughter Sophia. She left behind Thomas, the man Dumont forced her to marry, and her other children Peter, James and Elizabeth, who were bounds as servants until they were 20.

She later met Isaac and Maria Van Wagener, a Quaker family. They took her in, and bought her services from Dumont for $20. She lived with them until New York's Emancipation Act took force, and had a life-changing religious experience that made her a devout Christian. Public Broadcasting Service, an American public media service, reports that she was swept up in the Second Great Awakening, a Protestant evangelical movement that emphasized living simply and following the Holy Spirit.

In 1827, newly-free Isabella considered returning to the Dumont farm to attend Pinkster, a celebration of New York slaves. She was saved from joining her ex-master by a frightening vision of God, followed by the calming presence of an intercessor, whom Isabella recognized as Jesus. With Jesus as her soul-protecting fortress, Isabella gained the power to rise above the battlements of fear.

She did not go back. There likely are slaves who escaped, and decided out of fear to return to their masters. Do you know what St. Martin de Porres, a half African saint and healer said when his priory was in debt? "I am only a poor mulatto. Sell me. I am the property of the order. Sell me."Parallel to that, people who have been colonized in modern times, like people in the Global South, often revisit the patterns of oppression they have been subject to upon minorities in their own cultures - a modern equivalent of returning to one's master. But Isabella did not go back. God had decolonized her.

In 1839, her son, Peter, took on a job on a whaling ship. From 1840 to 1841, she received 3 letters from him, although in his last letter he claimed he had sent 5. When the ship returned to port in 1842, Peter wasn't on board, and she never heard from him again.

On June 1, 1843, she changed her name from Isabella Baumfree to Sojourner Truth. And then, she left the Van Wagenens to preach about abolition. And, by the way, she only spoke Dutch until she escaped, and English was a late-acquired second language. And yet, she had the confidence to speak before hundreds of people.

During the Civil War, Sojourner recruited Blacks for the Union Army. In 1864, she met President Abraham Lincoln. In 1865, she rode the streetcars in Washington to help force their desegregation - shades of Rosa Parks.

Truth died on November 26, 1883, at her home in Battle Creek, Michigan. Her remains were buried there at Oak Hill Cemetery beside other family members. Her last words were "Be a follower of the Lord Jesus."

My brothers and sisters, Jesus wants God's kingdom to come about here, on earth. But that can't happen if we oppress one another. And make no mistake, oppression can easily extend beyond physical slavery. Oppression can take the form of empire. Economic and cultural domination can erode a culture's sense of self. That can cause a sense of threat that leads to authoritarianism. Look at Nazi Germany. The Allies exacted punitive reparations after WWI. The Nazis escalated antisemitism to genocide, built a war machine, and started conquering neighboring countries.

Paul, in his letter to Philemon, calls him to receive his runaway slave Onesimus. The Bible on numerous occasions fails to condemn slavery ... as Whites did in Sojourner's time. Sojourner could have gone back to her master. Today, we see formerly colonized countries replicating the patterns of oppression, like sexism, classism and homophobia, that they learned from their colonial masters. That is true colonialism.

But colonialism meets its match in Jesus, because Jesus decolonizes. Jesus decolonizes! Some Christians use Jesus to escape from this world, thinking that heaven will be better. But that way, empire wins. In contrast, empire could never destroy Sojourner Truth's soul. Jesus led her out of colonization and into freedom! And empowered by Christ she went to free others. Sojourner Truth shows for people of color all around the world, a vision of Jesus decolonized, and a vision of Jesus decolonizing.

Women in the Stone Church Meet Sojourner Truth
(Recollections of "And Ain't I a Woman?" speech, Old Stone Church, Akron, Ohio, May 1851)

Patricia Flower Vermillion is Writer in Residence for the Artists in Education program of the Virginia 11 Commission for the Arts. Her poetry has appeared in Theology Today, The Writer, Them a, Poet, and other journals. This poem was published in Theology Today Vol 53 No 1, 1996

Chosen, we are called
to champion uneducated women in chains.
Our horse hair underskirts keep silk
from touching the ground. Belgian lace
collars and bonnets are copied carefully
from Godey's Ladies Book; uniformly
steamed and pressed.

In the Old Stone Church, surrounded by men
who think we are deceived by the serpent
only our corsets keep us from collapsing. Suddenly, church doors open and bold breezes
process down aisles with a black broom woman.
Her unbleached cotton skirt stirs up twigs
and laughter. Queen of scarecrows, she pushes
chairs to a corner then extends herself
while ministers tell us, women-real women
must be cared for and helped into carriages.
When the dark broom rises
mill workers lock arms at elbows
to form whistling walls. She looks up
and sweeps silence across pews-preaches
prophesies, picks walls apart
with sharp straw words. In the end
ministers and mill hands applaud
and stones shout.

Scratched by horse hair skirts
light headed, laced tight
we are culture's captives
while Sojourner Truth
stands seventy two inches, head-to-toe free.

Dorothy Day

Women have had their own numbered as saints for some time now, only they have too often been saints of what I feel is excessive piety. However, Dorothy Day is a saint by activism, and she stands as the equal of any man among the saints.

"What we do is very little. But it is like the little boy with a few loaves and fishes. Christ took that little and increased it. He will do the rest. What we do is so little we may seem to be constantly failing. But so did He fail. He met with apparent failure on the Cross. But unless the seed fall into the earth and die, there is no harvest. And why must we see results? Our work is to sow. Another generation will be reaping the harvest."
—Dorothy Day

Dorothy Day has been declared a Servant of God, the first step to sainthood. Her actual feast day to be is November 29, but I'm moving her up to today to fit in better with the articles I have for this week. Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin co-founded the Catholic Worker movement, and published a newsletter. That newsletter continues to this day. Peter Maurin, a French, working-class, Catholic activist, outlined the beliefs of Catholic Workers in a brief reproduced below.

1. The Catholic Worker believes
in the gentle personalism
of traditional Catholicism.
2. The Catholic Worker believes
in the personal obligation
of looking after
the needs of our brother.
3. The Catholic Worker believes
in the daily practice
of the Works of Mercy.
4. The Catholic Worker believes
in Houses of Hospitality
for the immediate relief
of those who are in need.
5. The Catholic Worker believes
in the establishment
of Farming Communes
where each one works
according to his ability
and gets according to his need.
6. The Catholic Worker believes
in creating a new society
within the shell of the old
with the philosophy of the new,
which is not a new philosophy
but a very old philosophy,
a philosophy so old
that it looks like new.

Day and Maurin were anarchists. Catholic Worker houses were small, non-hierarchical communities. They showed hospitality to all on the margins of society, including undocumented immigrants. Dorothy later worked with Cesar Chavez and the farm workers' movement. As Dorothy said, "The only way to live in any true security is to live so close to the bottom that when you fall you do not have far to drop, you do not have much to lose."

Trinity Stores' site has an elaboration on Dorothy's life, summarized from the book Praying with Dorothy Day by James Allaire and Rosemary Broughton. They state that at the time of the founding of the Catholic Worker newsletter, in 1933, Catholics had been "criticized for a lack of social and political morality." The teachings and actions of the church were not socially conscious. An emphasis on excessive personal piety has long been one of my main criticisms of Roman Catholicism and conservative Evangelicism.

But the Catholic Worker movement instead turns personal piety into a tool for social activism.

We believe this needed personal and social transformation should be pursued by the means Jesus revealed in His sacrificial love. With Christ as our Exemplar, by prayer and communion with His Body and Blood, we strive for practices of

--Nonviolence. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God." (Matt. 5:9) Only through nonviolent action can a personalist revolution come about, one in which one evil will not be replaced simply by another. Thus, we oppose the deliberate taking of human life for any reason, and see every oppression as blasphemy. Jesus taught us to take suffering upon ourselves rather than inflict it upon others, and He calls us to fight against violence with the spiritual weapons of prayer, fasting and noncooperation with evil. Refusal to pay taxes for war, to register for conscription, to comply with any unjust legislation; participation in nonviolent strikes and boycotts, protests or vigils; withdrawal of support for dominant systems, corporate funding or usurious practices are all excellent means to establish peace.

--The works of mercy (as found in Matt. 25:31-46) are at the heart of the Gospel and they are clear mandates for our response to "the least of our brothers and sisters." Houses of hospitality are centers for learning to do the acts of love, so that the poor can receive what is, in justice, theirs, the second coat in our closet, the spare room in our home, a place at our table. Anything beyond what we immediately need belongs to those who go without.

--Manual labor, in a society that rejects it as undignified and inferior. "Besides inducing cooperation, besides overcoming barriers and establishing the spirit of sister and brotherhood (besides just getting things done), manual labor enables us to use our bodies as well as our hands, our minds." (Dorothy Day) The Benedictine motto Ora et Labora reminds us that the work of human hands is a gift for the edification of the world and the glory of God.

--Voluntary poverty. "The mystery of poverty is that by sharing in it, making ourselves poor in giving to others, we increase our knowledge and belief in love." (Dorothy Day) By embracing voluntary poverty, that is, by casting our lot freely with those whose impoverishment is not a choice, we would ask for the grace to abandon ourselves to the love of God. It would put us on the path to incarnate the Church's "preferential option for the poor."

My sisters and brothers, Dorothy Day is calling everyone who seeks to bring about God's kingdom. The United States proclaims that in the political realm, the Church and State are separate. However, it has failed to separate the State and Business. Those two are not separate, and our State too often operates for the benefit of Business.

Frankly, I am very different from Dorothy Day. I am a capitalist and I believe in the free market for some things, perhaps many things. And yet, her example reminds me that the Church is called to be at the service of the "least of these." At God's table, the poor will sit first. The rich will only get a seat if they relinquish their power and humble themselves (Jesus, I might remind you, instead calls on us to sell all we have and give to the poor).

But too often, the Church has failed to condemn both State and Business when they violate human rights, despoil the environment, and propagate bigotry. The Church has forgotten that the early Christians drew on all those at the margins of society. This is a Church that lives on the margins!

And yet, the Church has been colonized, and it has allowed itself to be an agent of colonialism. Look at how often Christian nations have gone on crusades of empire, at how we today despoil the environment to maintain our lifestyles, at how we abuse and exploit immigrants, at how we treat people of color. A colonized Church cannot truly serve God.

Can the Church be decolonized? Can the Church become an agent of decolonization? Dorothy Day calls us back to our roots, to live with and serve those on the margins. Dorothy Day presents with a vision ... a vision of a Church decolonized.

O God, you made us all unique;
one pattern for each life you found.
Where falling short of your design
you see us, free us
till by love we're bound.

O Christ, you summon into life
our timid faith, our hidden skill.
Where trust or talent are untried,
there tend us. Send us
grace to know your will.

O Holy Spirit, breath of life,
our noblest visions you inspire.
Where hearts are cold or minds are dull,
there shake us. Make us
flames of heaven's fire.

To God, in whom we live and move,
we vow our love and loyalty;
and here ascribe all honour, power
and glory, glory
now and endlessly.

John Bell, Iona Community

Recent NY Times article on liberation theology vs Catholic doctrine

A recent article in the New York Times covers Pope Benny's visit to Latin America. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he was responsible for the suppression of many liberation theologians.

By LARRY ROHTER
Published: May 7, 2007

SÃO PAULO, Brazil, May 2 — In the early 1980s, when Pope John Paul II wanted to clamp down on what he considered a dangerous, Marxist-inspired movement in the Roman Catholic Church, liberation theology, he turned to a trusted aide: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

Now Cardinal Ratzinger is Pope Benedict XVI, and when he arrives here on Wednesday for his first pastoral visit to Latin America he may be surprised at what he finds. Liberation theology, which he once called “a fundamental threat to the faith of the church,” persists as an active, even defiant force in Latin America, home to nearly half the world’s one billion Roman Catholics.

Over the past 25 years, even as the Vatican moved to silence the clerical theorists of liberation theology and the church fortified its conservative hierarchy, the social and economic ills the movement highlighted have worsened. In recent years, the politics of the region have also drifted leftward, giving the movement’s demand that the church embrace “a preferential option for the poor” new impetus and credibility.

Today some 80,000 “base communities,” as the grass-roots building blocks of liberation theology are called, operate in Brazil, the world’s most populous Roman Catholic nation, and nearly one million “Bible circles” meet regularly to read and discuss scripture from the viewpoint of the theology of liberation.

During Benedict’s five-day visit here, he is scheduled to meet with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, canonize a saint, preach to the faithful and visit a drug treatment center before addressing the opening session of a conference of Latin American bishops that will discuss the future of the church in the region where liberation theology originated, prospered and drew so much of his censure. Some liberation theology supporters will be present, others will be at a parallel meeting, and all have been cautioned not to be too aggressive in pressing their views.

In the past, adherents stood firm as death squads made scores of martyrs to the movement, ranging from Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero of El Salvador, killed in 1980 while celebrating Mass, to Dorothy Mae Stang, an American-born nun shot to death in the Brazilian Amazon in February 2005. Compared to that, the pressures of the Vatican are nothing to fear, they maintain.

“Despite everything, we continue to endure in a kind of subterranean way,” said Luiz Antonio Rodrigues dos Santos, a 55-year-old teacher active in the movement for nearly 30 years. “Let Rome and the critics say what they want; we simply persevere in our work with the poor and the oppressed.”

On a cool and cloudy Saturday morning in late April, evidence of the movement’s vitality was plain to see. Representatives of 50 base communities gathered at the St. Paul the Apostle Church on the east side of this sprawling city, in an area of humble workers’ residences and squatter slums.

With four priests present, readings from the Bible alternated with more worldly concerns: criticisms of government proposals to reduce pensions and workers’ rights under the Brazilian labor code. The service ended with the Lord’s Prayer and then a hymn.

“In the land of mankind, conceived of as a pyramid, there are few at the top, and many at the bottom,” the congregation sang. “In the land of mankind, those at the top crush those at the bottom. Oh, people of the poor, people subjected to domination, what are you doing just standing there? The world of mankind has to be changed, so arise people, don’t stand still.”

Afterward, discussion turned to other social problems, chief among them a lack of proper sanitation. A representative of the left-wing Workers’ Party discussed strategies to press the government to complete a sewer project. Congregants agreed to organize a campaign to lobby for it.

In other areas here, liberation theology advocates have strong links to labor unions. At a May 1 Mass to commemorate International Labor Day, they draped a wooden cross with black banners labeled “imperialism” and “privatization” and applauded when the homily criticized the government’s “neoliberal” economic policies, the kind Washington supports.

“We believe in merging the questions of faith and social action,” said Valmir Resende dos Santos, a liberation disciple who brings base communities and labor groups together in the industrial suburbs here. “We advise groups and social movements, mobilize the unemployed, and work with unions and parties, always from a perspective based on the Gospel.”

Since liberation theology first emerged in the 1960s, it has consistently mixed politics and religion. Adherents have often been active in labor unions and left-wing political parties and criticized governments they complain are beholden to modern-day Pharisees.

Supporters see that activism as a necessary virtue to answer the needs of the poor. Opponents say it dangerously insinuates the church into the temporal, political realm, and in recent years they have repeatedly announced the movement’s decline or disappearance.

Some of the distinctions in this debate are finely drawn. John Paul II’s reach extended into human rights and politics, as he discouraged abortion and divorce and encouraged fellow Poles and other Europeans to reject Communism. He is widely credited with helping to bring about the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.

That, some say, differs from the direct, class-oriented political activism embraced by liberation theology. Cardinal Ratzinger once called the movement a “fusing of the Bible’s view of history with Marxist dialectics,” and other critics complain of what they see as its emphasis on direct collective action in Jesus’ name over individual faith.

As John Paul II put it early in his papacy: “This conception of Christ as a political figure, a revolutionary, as the subversive of Nazareth, does not tally with the church’s catechism.”

Certainly at the upper levels of the church hierarchy, liberation theology has been forced into retreat. Bishops and cardinals who supported and protected the movement in the 1970s and 1980s have either died or retired, succeeded by clerics openly hostile to such communities and the values they espouse.

“Base communities can only thrive in areas where there are bishops to encourage them,” said Margaret Hebblethwaite, a British religious writer whose books include “Base Communities: An Introduction” and “The Next Pope.” “If you take away the support of the bishop, it becomes very difficult for them to get anywhere.”

But the movement remains especially active in the poorest areas like the Amazon, the hinterlands of northeast Brazil and on the outskirts of large urban centers like this one, the largest in Brazil, with nearly 20 million people in the metropolitan area. Hoping to draw less attention and opprobrium to themselves, some of these groups simply say they are engaged in a “social pastorate.”

Sparring between liberation theologians and Benedict — whose own theology was formed in reaction to the reach of Nazi ideology — has been long and bitter. In 1984, as the Vatican official charged with supervising questions of faith and doctrine, he declared that “the theology of liberation is a singular heresy.”

More recently, he said, “it seems to me we need not theology of liberation, but theology of martyrdom,” and argued that the movement will become a valid theology “only when it refuses to accept power and worldly logic” and instead emphasizes “inner liberty.” But that was when his job was to carry out John Paul’s orders, and there is speculation here that his views may have softened somewhat.

That helps explain some of the theological maneuvering that has been going on in Latin America recently.

At the behest of conservatives, the Vatican has imposed sanctions on the liberation theologians Gustavo Gutiérrez of Peru, Leonardo Boff of Brazil and, most recently, Jon Sobrino of El Salvador, a Jesuit born in Spain. But when the Vatican admonished Father Sobrino, in March, Pedro Casaldáliga of Brazil, one of the bishops most committed to liberation theology, wrote an open letter calling on the church to reaffirm its “real commitment to the service of God’s poor” and “the link between faith and politics.”

That drew a sharp rebuke from Felipe Aquino, a conservative theologian whose views are often broadcast on Catholic radio stations here. “In spite of having received the Vatican’s cordial warning, you continue to be incorrigible, poisoning the people with the theology of liberation, which, as Ratzinger noted, annihilates the true faith and subverts the gospel of salvation,” he wrote.

At a news conference here on April 27, the newly appointed archbishop of São Paulo, Odilo Scherer, 57, tried to conciliate the two opposing viewpoints. While he criticized liberation theology for using “Marxism as a tool of analysis,” he also praised liberation theologians for redirecting the church’s mission here to focus on issues of social injustice and poverty.

He also argued that the movement was in decline. Adherents, however, are less sure.

“The force of Latin America’s harsh social reality is stronger than Rome’s ideology, so the theology of liberation still has a great deal of vitality,” Mr. Boff, a former Franciscan friar who left the clergy in 1992, argued in a recent interview. “It is true it doesn’t have the visibility it once had and is not as controversial as it once was, but it is very much alive and well.”

Hélder Câmara, died 1999

Hélder Câmara, 1909-1999

"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist."

His friends called him Dom Helder. His enemies called him the Red Bishop. Even today, the Red specter still haunts our political discourse. For example, if you talk about universal healthcare in the US, some might invoke the specter of "socialized medicine".

His uncompromising commitment to the church of the poor gave us courage to challenge our own culture of middle-class religion. His courage in the face of Brazil’s military regime inspired us to take on the militarism of our own country. And his firm commitment to nonviolence, particularly his political analysis of the "spiral of violence," grounded us in a theory and practice of revolutionary struggle without arms.

Ched Meyers, writing for Sojourners magazine in 1999.

When he died in 1999, the National Catholic Reporter called him a "lover of the poor."

Rosemary Radford Ruether, also a Sojourners writer, tells us that many Latin American bishops came in conservative, and were radicalized by the extreme poverty, violence and suffering. The Roman church has, to its disgrace, silenced many liberation theologians. Câmara focused his seminary on grassroots ministry to the poor, only to see that work and others undone by his right-wing successor.

In the language of Latin Americans who remember the martyrs with the cry "presente!" Helder Câmara, although dead, still lives. He rises again in our remembrance of him to continue to inspire followers.

—Rosemary Radford Ruether

But Pope John XXIII, the guy who started Vatican II, said,

"We are not on earth to guard a museum, but to cultivate a flourishing garden of life."

Professor Jeanette Rodriguez put it a bit differently, "God is always pregnant." Gardens flourish, mothers give birth ... God, in other words, is always at work. God cannot be stopped. Câmara knew that. He was content.

"The Spirit of God breaths life into the Abrahamic minorities that already exist in the womb of all races, all religious, all countries and all human groups. Whoever hopes against hope, like Abraham, and decides to work, even sacrifice for a more just and humane world, belongs to these Abrahamic minorities."

Please pray for:

The poor.

All people who seek to advance God's agenda of liberation.

All the above, especially Roman Catholics, who are persecuted by church or secular hierarchies.

The rich, that our ignorance and selfishness may come to an end.

The Roman Catholic Magisterium is also afraid of something - Sr Joan Chittister

It used to be that if you asked a question about the Catholic church, you got very straightforward answers. No, we did not eat meat on Friday. Yes, we had to go to church every Sunday.

Not any more.

In fact, the answers are getting more confusing all the time. Consider the question of how the newly revised Roman Missal is better than the last, for instance.

They tell us now that Mass texts -- including even hymns -- may not include feminine references to God. And this in a church that has routinely addressed God as Key of David, Door of life, wind, fire, light and dove. God who is also, they tell us, "pure spirit" can never, ever, be seen as 'mother.' Are we to think, then, that even hinting at the notion that the image of God includes the image of women as well as the image of men, as God in Genesis says it does, is dangerous to the faith? Antithetical to the faith? Heresy?

Or, too, we learned that the words of the consecration itself would soon be edited to correct the notion that Jesus came to save "all" -- as we had been taught in the past -- to the idea that Jesus came to save "many." The theological implications of changing from "all" to "many" boggles the mind. Who is it that Jesus did not come to save?

Does such a statement imply again that "only Catholics go to heaven?" And, if read like that by others, is this some kind of subtle retraction of the whole ecumenical movement?

Now, this week, we got the word that the pope himself, contrary to the advice and concerns of the world's bishops, has restored the Tridentine Latin Rite. It is being done, the pope explains, to make reconciliation easier with conservative groups.

But it does not, at the same time, make reconciliation easier with women, who are now pointedly left out of the Eucharistic celebration entirely, certainly in its God-language, even in its pronouns. Nor does it seem to care about reconciliation with Jews who find themselves in the Tridentine Good Friday rite again as "blind" and objects of conversion. It's difficult not to wonder if reconciliation is really what it's all about.

What's more, where, in the intervening years, bishops had to give permission for the celebration of Tridentine masses in the local diocese, the new document requires only that the rite be provided at the request of the laity.

But why the concerns? If some people prefer a Latin mass to an English mass, why not have it?

The answer depends on what you think the Mass has to do with articulating the essence of the Christian faith.

The Latin Mass, for instance, in which the priest celebrates the Eucharist with his back to the people, in a foreign language -- much of it said silently or at best whispered -- makes the congregation, the laity, observers of the rite rather than participants in it.

The celebrant becomes the focal point of the process, the special human being, the one for whom God is a kind of private preserve.

The symbology of a lone celebrant, removed from and independent of the congregation, is clear: ordinary people have no access to God. They are entirely dependent on a special caste of males to contact God for them. They are "not worthy," to receive the host, or as the liturgy says now, even to have Jesus "come under my roof."

The Eucharist in such a setting is certainly not a celebration of the entire community. It is instead a priestly act, a private devotion of both priest and people, which requires for its integrity three "principal parts" alone -- the offertory, the consecration and the communion. The Liturgy of the Word -- the instruction in what it means to live a Gospel life -- is, in the Tridentine Rite, at best, a minor element.

In the Latin mass, the sense of mystery -- of mystique -- the incantation of "heavenly" rather than "vulgar" language in both prayer and music, underscores a theology of transcendence. It lifts a person out of the humdrum, the dusty, the noisy, the crowded chaos of normal life to some other world. It reminds us of the world to come -- beautiful, mystifying, hierarchical, perfumed -- and makes this one distant. It takes us beyond the present, enables us, if only for a while, to "slip the surly bonds of earth" for a world more mystical than mundane.

It privatizes the spiritual life. The Tridentine Mass is a God-and-I liturgy.

The Vatican II liturgy, on the other hand, steeps a person in community, in social concern, in the hard, cold, clear reality of the present. The people and priest pray the Mass together, in common language, with a common theme. They interact with one another. They sing "a new church into being,' non-sexist, inclusive, centered together in the Jesus who walked the dusty roads of Galilee curing the sick, raising the dead, talking to women and inviting the Christian community to do the same.

The Vatican II liturgy grapples with life from the point of view of the distance between life as we know it and life as the gospel defines it for us. It plunges itself into the sanctifying challenges of dailiness.

The Vatican II liturgy carries within it a theology of transformation. It does not seek to create on earth a bit of heaven; it does set out to remind us all of the heaven we seek. It does not attempt to transcend the present. It does seek to transform it. It creates community out of isolates in an isolating society.

There is a power and a beauty in both liturgical traditions, of course. No doubt they both need a bit of the other. Eucharist after all is meant to be both transcendent and transformative. But make no mistake: In their fundamental messages, they present us with more than two different styles of music or two different languages or two different sets of liturgical norms. They present us with two different churches.

The choice between these two different liturgies bring the church to a new crossroads, one more open, more ecumenical, more communal, more earthbound than the other. The question is which one of them is more likely to create the world Jesus models and of which we dream.

There are many more questions ahead of us as a result of this new turn in the liturgical road than simply the effect of such a decree on parish architecture, seminary education, music styles, language acquisition and multiple Mass schedules.

The theological questions that lurk under the incense and are obscured by the language are far more serious than that. They're about what's really good for the church -- ecumenism or ecclesiastical ghettoism, altars and altar rails, mystique or mystery, incarnation as well as divinity, community or private spirituality?

From where I stand, it seems obvious that the Fathers of Vatican Council II knew the implications of the two different Eucharistic styles then and bishops around the world know it still. But their concerns have been ignored. They don't have much to do with it anymore. Now it's up to the laity to decide which church they really want -- and why. Which we choose may well determine the very nature of the church for years to come.

[Editor: this gets tagged under liberation, because Sr Joan is presumably in favor of letting ordinary people participate in the making of liturgy - which, after all, means work of the people. When "ordinary people" includes historically disenfranchised groups, such as the poor, people of color, women, etc, liberation happens.

Joan Chittister for Pope!]

Easter!

Christ Enthroned, by Robert Lentz

"This icon depicts the Christ in eschatological glory. The blue spheres around him, without beginning or end, represent eternity, and the red squares represent time. The Greek letters in his halo signify “I am who I am,” God and human. Christ bridges time and eternity.

The Old Testament prophets had fantastic visions of God in glory, and their imagery was repeated in the New Testament. Six-winged seraphim surround Christ’s throne, and Ezechial’s winged beasts emerge from the four directions, now representing the four evangelists. All except for Christ are painted as though transparent, to emphasize that they are spirits. Christ is painted with bold colors, because he is human. Material creation is enthroned in the highest heavens. This is the core of our faith as Christians.

Misguided emphasis has sometimes led Christians to spurn the material world. This world of ours is called to inconceivable glory, however -- both because it was created by God, but also because it was assumed into God’s very person. Because of Christ, there is no thing nor any person in this world that does not command our respect. As St. Gregory of Nyssa said many centuries ago, if only we would take off our shoes -- referring to the story of Moses and the burning bush -- we would discover that all ground was sacred."

For I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered
or come to mind.
Isaiah 65:17

I've already said that I was agnostic on the traditional take on the Resurrection: that Christ died, and literally was resurrected on the third day. I simply don't think we can know with absolute certainty. The Resurrection also gets us into the question of why Jesus had to die for us. Was He sacrificed because God is angry at us, and would only be placated by a blood sacrifice? I don't find this theology, penal substitution, consistent with the way I read the Bible and with my experience. However, many Christians are practically married to it. Canon Jeffrey John, Dean of St. Alban's in the UK, stated publicly that he didn't believe in penal substitution, and two Evangelical bishops were willing to attack him without even reading the full transcript of what he said.

Obviously, Resurrection and atonement are much too hard to deal with, so I'm going skip right to the Eschaton. The Eschaton (noun) is the final event in the divine plan, the end of the world. It derives from the Greek, eskhaton, neuter of eskhatos, meaning last. Some conservative Evangelicals have read the Bible and determined that Christ will come, riding on the clouds, amidst the sound of trumpets. We'll be raptured, and meet him in the air. There's debate about the specific timings of the tribulation, and the thousand-year reign of Christ, or millenium. This diagram explains it all.



...personally, I think it all looks a bit superstitious.

In my reflection for MLK, I quoted James Cone, who said that African-Americans couldn't find justice in this life, and so looked forward to the Second Coming to find it. In so doing they refused to let injustice have the last word. They trusted God. Mainline Protestants in America may have lost sight of that trust. We're generally middle-class Whites. We can insulate ourselves from the sufferings of the world, if we wish. There's a trait in social psychology called belief in a just world. It's divided into belief in immanent justice, and belief in ultimate justice. The former means believing that the world is just in its present state. It is associated with such actions as blaming the poor for their own plight. In other words, it is willful ignorance. For example, just by being American and breathing, we participate in an economic system that exploits the poor, especially those in the Global South. Think clothing, coffee, and chocolate. As the bumper sticker says, if you aren't outraged, you haven't been paying attention. However, walking around in a permanent state of outrage isn't too good for your mental health.

Belief in ultimate justice, then, is what really gets us through the day. It worked for African-Americans. It worked for the Latin Americans involved in liberation theology. It works for me. Although I'm a skeptic, I know that, through Christ, God has defeated sin and death. The Resurrection sustains us until we get to the Last Judgment. It continues to sustain us, because it's not an event that happened just once in history. The Resurrection is now, and always. It is Oscar Romero saying, "If they kill me, I will be resurrected in the Salvadoran people." It is Joan of Arc saying, "Hold the cross high, so that I may see it through the flames!" It is Harvey Milk saying, in the tape he recorded in the event of his assasination, that you "gotta give them hope."

Christian martyrs over the years have trusted that one Resurrection isn't the end of the story, that God will accept their sacrifices of justice, mercy and humility (Micah 6:8), and that God will return to set things straight. There's no evidence that Harvey Milk was particularly religious, but it seems he did the same. He probably didn't call it the Resurrection, but he seems to have trusted in it anyway.

Jesus said that he did not know the appointed time of the Last Judgment. It is not for human beings to know or to worry about. It's all set, it's all planned out. All we have to do, then, is to strive to bring about God's reign here on earth. As Micah says (NRSV), "He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" Do this, and trust Jesus that, on the Day of Judgment ...

Luke 24:1-12

On the first day of the week, at early dawn, the women who had come with Jesus from Galilee came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again." Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.


... all the tombs will be empty.

Martin Luther King Jr, assasinated March 4, 1968

Martin Luther King Jr was assasinated this day, 1968. He is only one of three Americans to have a holiday named after them. The other two are Presidents, which indicates that King's achievements in racial reconciliation and nonviolent resistance to evil were truly extraordinary.

Of course, America was not always so hot about King. The FBI started wiretapping his phones in 1961, looking for evidence of Communist influence in the Civil Rights movement. They found none, and accused him of having affairs, instead, a charge which unfortunately seems to be true. And, of course, racists threatened him with violence or death.

The icon, by Robert Lentz, depicts King in jail. The inscription he holds reads, "How long will justice be crucified and truth buried?", which is from his speech in Albany, Georgia in 1961. When he was in one such jail, a number of White clergy wrote to him, counselling moderation and obedience to the law. They called his protest activities "unwise and untimely." To my shame, the list includes the then Episcopal Bishop and Bishop co-adjutor of Alabama, CCJ Carpenter and George Murray, respectively.

Martin Luther King told them very nicely that they had no idea what they were talking about, no idea what African-Americans had been going through. He said that the laws were unjust, and that they needed to be protested. And he warned that if Whites continued to dismiss him and his followers as "rabble-rousers", that African-Americans would take to violence.

As it turns out, America was de-segregated without large-scale violence. But the economic disadvantages that had accrued over decades persisted. King, once again, went to bat for his people. America, once again, resisted. Martin accused Congress of demonstrating "hostility to the poor," of "military funds with alacrity and generosity," but "poverty funds with miserliness." America accused him, incorrectly this time, of Communism.

Today, our priorities are still wrong, with the last Congress passing tax cuts for the rich and cutting social programs. Income and wealth disparities between African-Americans and Whites still exist. Wealth, being income that is accumulated over generations and passed down, is the bigger problem.

Martin's job, then, isn't complete. We draw icons of our saints and put halos around their heads, but they are still human. Ending injustice is not a human task. As James Cone, a renowned Black liberation theologian says,

"King's emphasis on the eschatological hope of freedom as defined by "the coming of the Lord" was not derived from white theologians and philosophers, but from his own religious tradition. These words of faith and hope were derived from the black tradition as defined by our pain and suffering. People who have not lived in the context of hundreds of years of slavery and suffering are not likely to express an eschatological hope of freedom. Hope in God's coming eschatological freedom is always derived from the suffering of people who are seeking to establish freedom on earth but have failed to achieve it. In their failure to establish freedom in their existing present, black people prevented despair from becoming the defining characteristic of their lives by looking forward to God's coming, eschatological freedom."

And so, this post starts with an icon of and a story about Martin. But, it ends with an icon of Jesus Christ, Liberator, by Robert Lentz. Here, Jesus is an African man, dressed in African colors: burnt orange for the Masai, white for the peoples of the Sahara. Human effort is good and I will give my best, but ultimately, I put my trust in Jesus Christ.