from ouko joachim omolo
Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News
BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2011
As the world marks international democracy day today, the big question we are asking, is whether the church democratic. Given that democracy is a form of government in which all people have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives, the answer to this question in that perspective is not.
The traditional position of the Roman Catholic Church for example, as articulated by Pope Leo XIII before the Second Vatican Council, has been that governments should have care for religion and “recognize the true religion professed by the Catholic Church.” It means, in practice, that legitimate government must specifically endorse Catholicism and must put Catholic principles and morals into practice through the laws.
Church was viewed as the only channel through which perfect happiness is obtained whereas the goal of the State was the temporal happiness of man, and its proximate purpose the preservation of external juridical order and the provision of a reasonable abundance of means of human development in the interests of its citizens and their posterity.
The temporal goods on this world were to be used only with the view to attain this perfection happiness to be realized only after death, and consequently a proximate purpose to earn in this life his title to the same. In the pursuit of this latter purpose, speaking in the abstract, he had a natural right to constitute a social organization taking over the worship of God as a charge peculiarly its own.
This could explain why the church has been to slow to embrace liberation theology. This is because liberation theology, a term first used in 1973 by Gustavo Gutierrez, a Peruvian Roman Catholic priest, is a Christian movement in political theology which interprets the teachings of Jesus Christ in terms of liberation from unjust economic, political, or social conditions.
Even though it has been described by proponents as “an interpretation of Christian faith through the poor’s suffering, their struggle and hope, and a critique of society and the Catholic faith and Christianity through the eyes of the poor”, but the fact that it has been characterized by Marxism is the reason why the church has not fully embraced it.
This is probably because the Marxian analysis begins with an analysis of material conditions, taking at its starting point the necessary economic activities required by human society to provide for its material needs.
As the word itself signifies, the fact that materialism is a philosophical system which regards matter as the only reality in the world, which undertakes to explain every event in the universe as resulting from the conditions and activity of matter, and which thus denies the existence of God and soul, and therefore cannot lead to perfect happiness could well explain why liberation theology is a threat.
Materialism is diametrically opposed to Spiritualism and idealism, which, in so far as they are one-sided and exclusive, declare that everything in the world is spiritual, and that the world and even matter itself are mere conceptions or ideas in the thinking subject.
Traditionally the church believes that perfection is not of this world, but the next, that is why a perfect or “pure” Socialism is quite unlikely to exist. This is a system of social and economic organization that would substitute state monopoly for private ownership of the sources of production and means of distribution, and would concentrate under the control of the secular governing authority the chief activities of human life.
The term is often used vaguely to indicate any increase of collective control over individual action, or even any revolt of the dispossessed against the rule of the possessing classes.
Here are some quotes of the traditional teaching of the Popes:
PIUS IX (1846-1878): “Overthrow [of] the entire order of human affairs”
“You are aware indeed, that the goal of this most iniquitous plot is to drive people to overthrow the entire order of human affairs and to draw them over to the wicked theories of this Socialism and Communism, by confusing them with perverted teachings.” (Encyclical Nostis et Nobiscum, December 8, 1849)
LEO XIII (1878-1903): Hideous monster “…communism, socialism, nihilism, hideous deformities of the civil society of men and almost its ruin.” (Encyclical Diuturnum, June 29, 1881)-Click here for his encyclical on capital and labour-Leo XIII – Rerum Novarum
BENEDICT XV (1914-1922):-The condemnation of socialism should never be forgotten
“It is not our intention here to repeat the arguments which clearly expose the errors of Socialism and of similar doctrines. Our predecessor, Leo XIII, most wisely did so in truly memorable Encyclicals; and you, Venerable Brethren, will take the greatest care that those grave precepts are never forgotten, but that whenever circumstances call for it, they should be clearly expounded and inculcated in Catholic associations and congresses, in sermons and in the Catholic press.” (Encyclical Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum, November 1, 1914, n. 13)
PIUS XI (1922-1939):- Socialism, fundamentally contrary to Christian truth
“… For Socialism, which could then be termed almost a single system and which maintained definite teachings reduced into one body of doctrine, has since then split chiefly into two sections, often opposing each other and even bitterly hostile, without either one however abandoning a position fundamentally contrary to Christian truth that was characteristic of Socialism.” (Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, May 15, 1931, n. 111) Socialism cannot be reconciled with Catholic Doctrine.
JOHN XXIII (1958-1963):-“No Catholic could subscribe even to moderate socialism”
“Pope Pius XI further emphasized the fundamental opposition between Communism and Christianity, and made it clear that no Catholic could subscribe even to moderate Socialism.
The reason is that Socialism is founded on a doctrine of human society which is bounded by time and takes no account of any objective other than that of material well-being. Since, therefore, it proposes a form of social organization which aims solely at production- it places too severe a restraint on human liberty, at the same time flouting the true notion of social authority.” (Encyclical Mater et Magistra, May 15, 1961, n. 34)
JOHN PAUL II (1978-2005): Socialism: Danger of a “simple and radical solution”
“It may seem surprising that ‘socialism’ appeared at the beginning of the Pope’s critique of solutions to the ‘question of the working class’ at a time when ‘socialism’ was not yet in the form of a strong and powerful State, with all the resources which that implies, as was later to happen. However, he correctly judged the danger posed to the masses by the attractive presentation of this simple and radical solution to the ‘question of the working class.’” (Encyclical Centesimus Annus ? On the 100th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, May 1, 1991, n. 12)
BENEDICT XVI (2005 – present):- “We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything” The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person ? every person ? needs: namely, loving personal concern. We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need. …
In the end, the claim that just social structures would make works of charity superfluous masks a materialist conception of man: the mistaken notion that man can live ‘by bread alone’ (Mt 4:4; cf. Dt 8:3) ? a conviction that demeans man and ultimately disregards all that is specifically human.” (Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, December 25, 2005, n. 28)
Pope Benedict XVI (as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) became one of liberation theology’s staunchest critics in the 1980s as head of the Catholic Church’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith. He silenced theologians associated with such scriptural interpretations and appointed traditional bishops.
Some scholars believe it’s because he objected to Marxist-inspired political analysis that some theologians embraced. Others say Ratzinger objected to the independence of base communities, small groups formed to study the Bible and relate it to their own experience of oppression.
Some scholars say Ratzinger and others successfully stifled a movement that was already headed toward extinction because it addressed specific historical and economic situations that have been altered by global capitalism and other factors. Some also say that it was weakened because it relied on a method of scriptural interpretation that has been overtaken by new developments in biblical criticism.
Ratzinger also argued that liberation theology is not originally a “grass-roots” movement among the poor, but rather, a creation of Western intellectuals: “an attempt to test, in a concrete scenario, ideologies that have been invented in the laboratory by European theologians” and in a certain sense itself a form of “cultural imperialism”. Ratzinger saw this as a reaction to the demise or near-demise of the “Marxist myth” in the West.
The good news is that liberation theology is still practiced in rural and middle-class villages in Latin America, and it is studied widely in seminaries in the United States and elsewhere. Some scholars say it has taken new life in feminist, Latino, black and Asian theologies throughout the world. The emphasis has shifted from the poor to those marginalized by race, ethnicity or gender. The focus is less on supporting socialist revolution than critiquing mainstream civil society.
Liberation theology matters because it provides a useful lens for looking at the challenge of how members and leaders of a global church respond to changing political and social environments.
Strictly speaking, liberation theology should be understood as a family of theologies – including the Latin American, Black, and feminist varieties. All three respond to some form of oppression: Latin American liberation theologians say their poverty-stricken people have been oppressed and exploited by rich, capitalist nations. Black liberation theologians argue that their people have suffered oppression at the hands of racist whites. Feminist liberation theologians lay heavy emphasis upon the status and liberation of women in a male-dominated society.
Gustavo Gutiérrez is Latin American Catholic priest who grew up in grinding poverty in Peru, is why employed Marx’s critiques of ideology, class, and capitalism as part of his theological analysis of how Christianity should be used to make people’s lives better here and now rather than simply offer them hope of rewards in heaven.
While still early in his career as a priest, Gutiérrez began drawing on both philosophers and theologians in European tradition to develop his own beliefs. The basic principles that remained with him through the changes in his ideology were: love (as a commitment to one’s neighbour), spirituality (focused on an active life in the world), this worldliness as opposed to otherworldliness, the church as a servant of humanity, and the ability of God to transform society through the works of human beings.
Even though Catholicism today is very concerned with the persistence of poverty in a world of plenty, but it does not share Gutiérrez’s characterization of theology as a means for helping the poor rather than for explaining the dogma of the church.
Pope John Paul II in particular expressed strong opposition to “political priests” who become more involved with achieving social justice than ministering to their flocks — a curious criticism, given how much support he provided the political dissidents in Poland while the communists still ruled. Over time, though, his position softened somewhat, possibly because of the implosion of the Soviet Union and the disappearance of the communist threat.
It is to be noted that liberation theology however, is not Gutiérrez’s creation. The liberation-theology movement was partly inspired by the Second Vatican Council. Vatican II as Foundational for Liberation Theology -Page 146 of the Fortress Introduction to Contemporary Theologies says that Vatican II “provided inspiration to reform-minded Catholics and opened the door to laity and clergy alike to engage in radical social and political involvement.”
This is an important point because liberation theology does not ask what the church is, but rather what it means “to be the church in a context of extreme poverty, social injustice and revolution.
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