Ftom Leonardo Boff to Jon Sobrino
Who knew Leonardo Boff had a website? Okay, Jeff knew :-) and he told me. As I looked through the articles there, I saw one that was an open letter from Leonardo to Jesuit Jon Sobrino ... Jon Sobrino: Comrade in Tribulation, MAR 30th , 2007. It refers to the he denunciation by the CDF of Fr. Sobrino's liberation theology (I had a post about it). I found the letter interesting, so here it is below ...
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Jon, friend and brother: The «notification» from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly, the Holy Office) condemning your opinions about Christ as incompatible with the Christian faith, filled me with deep sadness. I saw at work against you the same method and the same form of argument as was used against me with reference to Church doctrine. The method is one of "pastiche," consisting of taking small phrases and combining them with others, so as to create a meaning that no longer corresponds to what the author has written. Or, it distorts the texts in such a way that the author no longer feels represented by them. I understand and stand with you in your courageous decision: "I find absolutely nothing of myself in any portion of the "notification;" thus it does not seem to me honest to accept it. Moreover, it would be disrecpectful to those theologians who have read my books and have found in them neither doctrinal errors, nor dangerous pronouncements ."
In fact, eminent specialists in the area have, at your request, analyzed your works: Sesboue, from France, Gonzalez Faus, from Spain, Carlos Palacio, from Brazil, among others. They were unanimous in reaffirming their orthodoxy. Why have their opinions not been taken into account? This makes us suspicious that your condemnation is only a pretext for one more strike against the theology of liberation, which, with its commitment to the crucified people, does not please the Vatican.
But what hurts me most is that they selected precisely you for this spurious attack. You are a survivor of martyrdom, when in November 1989 in El Salvador everyone in your community of six Jesuits, together with the maid and her daughter, was murdered by elements of the armed forces.
You had gone to Thailand to substitute for me in a course that I could not attend, thus you escaped being murdered. Your testimony, "The Six Jesuit Martyrs of El Salvador" is one of the most beautiful writings of spirituality and compassion in the Latin American Church. They selected you, whom I consider the most profound Latin American theologian, the one who best articulates spirituality and theology, imbedded with the crucified people, and reflective, the one who (I say this sincerely) presents to a large degree the signature virtues that characterize holiness. They set your work apart from your pained and threatened life, as if they could separate the body from the soul. Only "carnal" authorities who have lost all sense of the Spirit, as St. Paul would say, could perpetrate such a tremendous aggression.
But there is a deeper reason. Your theology troubles the religious authorities who took over the sacred power and are now fossilized within it. You have always insisted that the Church speak the truth about the reality that is so brutal to the poor in our Continent, killing them from hunger and exclusion. That is why the Church has to be a liberator. It must articulate faith and justice, theory and praxis and become fundamentally a Church of the poor and of the crucified peoples.
Don Oscar Romero, also murdered in El Salvador, whom you advised, put it well: "They kill whoever is in their way." You also partake of that destiny. I know you will continue working and writing so that the crucified may be resuscitated. Deep down, I know that you are happy in the Spirit of being able to participate a little in the passion of the suffering people.
Comrades in tribulation, we understand that service in the end is not to the Church, but within the Church to God, to the people, especially the poor; and that one day our theology will be judged, to see if it was just orthodox and not orthopractical, which is what really serves liberation.
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Jon, friend and brother: The «notification» from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly, the Holy Office) condemning your opinions about Christ as incompatible with the Christian faith, filled me with deep sadness. I saw at work against you the same method and the same form of argument as was used against me with reference to Church doctrine. The method is one of "pastiche," consisting of taking small phrases and combining them with others, so as to create a meaning that no longer corresponds to what the author has written. Or, it distorts the texts in such a way that the author no longer feels represented by them. I understand and stand with you in your courageous decision: "I find absolutely nothing of myself in any portion of the "notification;" thus it does not seem to me honest to accept it. Moreover, it would be disrecpectful to those theologians who have read my books and have found in them neither doctrinal errors, nor dangerous pronouncements ."
In fact, eminent specialists in the area have, at your request, analyzed your works: Sesboue, from France, Gonzalez Faus, from Spain, Carlos Palacio, from Brazil, among others. They were unanimous in reaffirming their orthodoxy. Why have their opinions not been taken into account? This makes us suspicious that your condemnation is only a pretext for one more strike against the theology of liberation, which, with its commitment to the crucified people, does not please the Vatican.
But what hurts me most is that they selected precisely you for this spurious attack. You are a survivor of martyrdom, when in November 1989 in El Salvador everyone in your community of six Jesuits, together with the maid and her daughter, was murdered by elements of the armed forces.
You had gone to Thailand to substitute for me in a course that I could not attend, thus you escaped being murdered. Your testimony, "The Six Jesuit Martyrs of El Salvador" is one of the most beautiful writings of spirituality and compassion in the Latin American Church. They selected you, whom I consider the most profound Latin American theologian, the one who best articulates spirituality and theology, imbedded with the crucified people, and reflective, the one who (I say this sincerely) presents to a large degree the signature virtues that characterize holiness. They set your work apart from your pained and threatened life, as if they could separate the body from the soul. Only "carnal" authorities who have lost all sense of the Spirit, as St. Paul would say, could perpetrate such a tremendous aggression.
But there is a deeper reason. Your theology troubles the religious authorities who took over the sacred power and are now fossilized within it. You have always insisted that the Church speak the truth about the reality that is so brutal to the poor in our Continent, killing them from hunger and exclusion. That is why the Church has to be a liberator. It must articulate faith and justice, theory and praxis and become fundamentally a Church of the poor and of the crucified peoples.
Don Oscar Romero, also murdered in El Salvador, whom you advised, put it well: "They kill whoever is in their way." You also partake of that destiny. I know you will continue working and writing so that the crucified may be resuscitated. Deep down, I know that you are happy in the Spirit of being able to participate a little in the passion of the suffering people.
Comrades in tribulation, we understand that service in the end is not to the Church, but within the Church to God, to the people, especially the poor; and that one day our theology will be judged, to see if it was just orthodox and not orthopractical, which is what really serves liberation.
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posted by crystal | 3:51 PM
12 Comments:
This comment has been removed by the author.
Crystal,
Thanks for the tag. That's one of the things that bugs me about this CDF notification on Sobrino after all these years, and his censure by the OD Salvadoran bishop Saenz Lacalle. Sobrino was the real target of the White Hand death squad that murdered those 6 Jesuits and their housekeepers in 1989. If he hadn't sat in for Leo Boff at that conference, he would have literally had his brains blown out like Ingnacio Ellacuria, Martin Baro, and the others.
It riles the spirit inside, doesn't it? On the one hand I am so encouraged to feel even at this removed distance the grand spirit at work in Sobrino, and on the other am once again so dishearted by the institution of which I am a part.
I do love Boff's comment near the end, about Sobrino's being happy "deep down," to share even a little in the passion of his suffering people.
Thanks Jeff, Crystal.
Jeff,
thanks for sending me the link to his site. I think about those Jesuits often - we spent one week of the online retreat dwelling on their lives and deaths.
Hi Denny,
Yes, it's inspiring and frustrating at the same time.
Crystal,
I am struck by the ending statement "service in the end is not to the Church, but within the Church to God, to the people." I have also been thinking about Amy's (Open Book)comment that working for the Church is detrimental to one's faith, that one begins to see the politics and stupidity that goes on there. The puffed up egos become more obvious, the greed and power struggles become more visible.
But like her, I know that this is nothing new, it has been going on for many centuries, most likely even before Christ in the Jewish community. And at the same time there have always been saints, always been men and women that have found God and exhibited their spirituality in the Church despite the Church. How does one explain this?
Perhaps the greatest blow against my faith came when I discovered that the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the tilma had been retouched. Do they really believe in God? Or are they like so many advertising executives that try to make some soap product look better by improving the box it comes in? If they don't believe, should I?
I guess the only explanation that I have been able to come up with for some of this is that Christ promised the Church would prevail, not that every member would be wonderful and spiritual. He also said something about letting the weeds grow along with the wheat, that they would in the end be separated. I think that maybe we need to keep this in mind as we go through life, and maybe turn our attention to the wheat and be guided by that and not to the weeds that grow alongside.
One of my major failings (among many) is failing to recognize that maybe the weeds need our prayers more than anyone else. I forget that a true conversion would be much better that getting revenge for what they have done. It grates on me to pray for the priests that abused children (or adults), and even more so for the bishops that helped them continue but I have to admit that it would be far better for them to see their error and be reconciled with God then to have them kicked out of the Church. So I am beginning to pray for them, somewhat grudgingly, but still I pray for them. Perhaps the CDF needs our prayers even more.
My goodness, I think that my wife's prayers for me are having some strange effects, and her name isn't even Monica.
Love and Hugs,
Mike L
Hi Mike,
When I first joined the church, I had never benn a christian before and it wasn't long before I was disillusioned. I thought everyone at church would be wonderful and holy, but they were just people like those you'd find at work or school. There was political infighting between the RCIA facilitators and the priest and all the people I knew thought of chirch as a social club .... no one ever talked to me about God. I had unrealistic expectations and it took a long time to see that, like you said, the church is more than the sum of its parts.
maybe the weeds need our prayers more than anyone else. I forget that a true conversion would be much better that getting revenge for what they have done.
... I think you're right. Is it St. Basil who said that God doesn't want the bad person to die, but to have a change of heart? It seems like the best way to get someone to change is to be their friend, not to exclude them (not that I'm able to do this myself :-)
While Sobrino's brush with martyrdom makes this attack on him most repugnant, it is an overlooked aspect of his work that makes this, in my mind, even more foolish.
I've only read one book by Jon Sobrino: his Spirituality of Liberation: Toward Political Holiness (originally published in Spanish as Liberacion con espiritu in 1985). In it he goes to great lengths to accept some Vatican critiques of Liberation theology, and as such makes an overt attempt (and, I think, a successful one) to emphasize the spiritual dimension of liberation theology, arguing that the spirituality - which comes from his own Roman Catholic devotion to the "religious" life - of liberation theology cannot be seperated from the politic without killing the movement.
That the author of such a work, who made such a compelling defense of the orthodox Roman Catholic nature of his understanding of liberation theology, could be made subject to such an action makes me sick to my stomach.
I am not Catholic, and have no business commenting on internal Catholic affairs, but from the outside this looks like a Mother church eating her young.
Hi Chris,
Not being Protestant never stops me from commenting on non-Catholic stuff, so feel free to have at it.
It does seem like Benedict has been taking one step after another to undo some of the good of Vatican II - liberation theology, ecumenism, revised liturgy, etc. It's disheartening.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sandalstraps,
Good comments. I respect your point of view, and I think it's pretty much on the mark. I haven't read the work you cited by Sobrino, but I have no doubt that he was perfectly apt at defending the orthodoxy of his views.
I know you are very busy with your own schoolwork and everything else, but if you ever get the chance, you might want to read his Jesus the Liberator, where he interacts in an interesting way with the theology of Bultmann, Pannenberg, Moltmann and their views on "The Kingdom of God". You might find it interesting. The liberationists owe a lot to Moltmann.
Jeff,
Sounds interesting. Thanks for the tip, I'll have to check it out!
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