Saturday, 8/23/14
When I was writing this yesterday I couldn’t find today’s
Mass readings. So, forgive me for filling in with something else
We are all delighted with our new pope, and we wonder in
what direction he will take us. For clues it might help to note that he has
long been in favor with his fellow Latin American bishops.
Up to fifty years ago the bishops of central and south
America had never come together as a group that looked after their common
interests. Each of the thousand bishops down there strove to stay in good with
Rome. But then they were given a good shaking by a number of French Theologions
who had been through hard times and imprisonment under the Nazis. Outstanding
among those were the Dominican, Father Yves Congar, and the Jesuit, Henri de
Lebac.
Those two, had been silenced by Rome, but then Pope John
XXIII summoned them to be the principal consulters for his Second Vatican
Council. With encouragement from them, the bishops of Central and South America
formed an organization they called CELAM, for Conference, Episcopal. Latin,
America. CELAM often sided with underdogs who were being pushed around by
governments with whom both America and the Vatican had been doing business.
In recent months Pope Francis showed favor to three prominent
priests who had been out of favor with their governments and with Rome. They
were the Maryknoll Father Miguel D’Escoto of Nicaragua, Archbishop Oscar Romero
of San Salvador, and the Dominican Father Gustavo Gutierrez of Peru..
On a 1985 visit to Nicaragua Pope John Paul II
excommunicated Father D’Ecoto for siding with that Sandinistas government opposed
my President Reagan and Major Oliver North. Pope Francis has now allowed Father
D’Escoto to offer Mass for the first time in thirty years.
In 1980 Archbishop Oscar Romero was gunned down while he was
offering Mass, and the Vatican was saying he could not be called a martyr who
died for the Faith since those gunmen were soldiers of a government tolerated
by the U.S. and the Vatican. Francis says that is ridiculous, Archbishop Romero
is a great martyr.
In 1979 Pope John Paul II at the Pueblo conference of CELAM
condemned Liberation Theology as “godless Communism,” but Francis has recently
called in Father Gustavo Gutierrez, the founder of Liberation Theology. The two just had a fine old chat.
1 comment:
You might be interested in our music video honoring Oscar Romero, as we wait in hope for his beatification http://youtu.be/21CN815v2G0
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