Pope Francis “is a Great Friend of Liberation Theology”

Frei Betto: There is no future for humanity other than socialism.

One of the leading ideologues of Marxist liberation theology, the Brazilian Dominican Frei Betto, was interviewed by the daily Diario Libre in the Dominican Republic. In it he described Pope Francis "as a great friend of liberation theology" and talked about the future of humanity and celibacy.

The son of a journalist and a writer who studied journalism himself, he was in his youth a member of Catholic Action, which was close to the Communist Party in Brazil. His role-model was the Communist leader and later guerrilla Carlos Marighella. Betto also became politically active at the time. At the same time he joined the Dominican Order in 1964, which was aligned to the Marxists in São Paulo. In the year of his entry into the Order, he was arrested and tortured by the military for two weeks because of his political activism. In 1966 he resigned from his profession and was arrested again in 1969, this time for two years.

Consultant of communist dictatorships

After his release, he became the liaison of revolutionary circles of Brazil to the communist regime in Cuba. In 1973, he retired to the Favela district of the poorest and joined as a non-combatant of the communist guerrilla movement Ação Libertadora Nacional Marighellas. The ALN kidnapped the then US Ambassador to Brazil. Betto's role model, the guerrilla leader Marighella, was tracked down and shot by the military in the Dominican monastery of Sao Paulo in 1973.

In the 1980s Frei Betto worked as an adviser to socialist dictatorships, alongside Cuba for Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, Poland, the People's Republic of China and Nicaragua.

In 2003 he said there had been three "traumatic" moments in his life: the overthrow of the Chilean Popular Front government of Salvador Allende, the overthrow of the communist government of Granada of Maurice Bishop, and the collapse of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua.

Past times: Frei Betto with Brazil's President Lula and Cuba's President Fidel Castro

Together with his friend and liberation theologian Leonardo Boff, Betto supported his friend Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and his workers' party in Brazil. When Lula became head of state in 2003, he made Fei Betto a government advisor. UNESCO distinguished the Dominican "for his commitment to human rights and social justice". In the circle of like-minded people they honors each other.

"I believe in a god without religion"

His journalistic work also includes a "New Credo" in which he confesses:

"I believe in the God liberated from the Vatican and all religions existing today and in the future. The God who is above all baptisms, before all sacraments, and who goes beyond all religious doctrines. Free from the theologians, he disinterestedly spreads himself in the hearts of all, the faithful and the atheists, the good and the bad, those who consider themselves saved and those who consider themselves children of damnation, and also those who are the secret, who will face death with indifference.
I believe in the god who has no religion [...]
I believe in the God who hides on the back of atheist reason [...]. "

Already on January 29, 2019, Frei Betto spoke in an interview with the Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano:

"Cardinal Bergoglio was not progressive, but as Pope Francis, he became a promoter of liberation theology. In his social-ecological encyclical Laudato si (2015) he explores the causes of environmental degradation. And his positions on communion for the divorced and the confession for the children of homosexual couples are big leaps forward, even if he has to struggle between all the hurdles that are thrown between his legs. "

Pope Francis "is today the most important head of state"

At the beginning of May, Frei Betto was a guest at the International Book Fair Santo Domingo in 2019. On this occasion, he was interviewed by the Dominican daily Diario Libre, who presented him on May 4th as "Leftist intellectual, Dominican and central figure of liberation theology".

In his replies he defended the socialist regime of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, declaring that "there is no country in the world that has violated human rights more than the US,” and that "the rights" in Brazil are "drastic measures" eliminating the elected left-wing government.

Overall, according to the Dominican, there is "no future for humanity other than socialism.” It could be said that socialism did not work in the Soviet Union, but that did not mean that socialism had failed.

Of Pope Francis he thinks:

The incumbent Pope needed time because before him there were "34 years of conservative pontificates.” However, the election of Francis was a big step forward because:

"The Catholic Church today is a conservative body with a progressive head."

And further:

"Francis is a great friend of liberation theology. Francis is certainly today the most important head of state, who has the courage to defend the poorest, and the refugees in Europe, who have the courage to accuse the Geldimperialismus and the Marktvergötterung. "

"The celibacy thing must stop"

On the current celibacy debate Frei Betto raved:

"Yes, that's another problem. As long as the Church does not stop with this obligatory celibacy thing ... that must stop. There was no idea of ​​compulsory celibacy in Jesus' head. (...) The problem lies in the macho tradition that started after Jesus in the Church and imposed this compulsion. It should be like in the Protestant churches that a pastor can marry.”

In contrast to many progressive hierarchists in the Church, one can at least not blame the Brazilian Dominican for disguising his convictions.

On April 10, 2014, Frei Betto was received in audience by Pope Francis. Of the topics discussed, the Brazilian then revealed to have sided with an excommunicated brother:

"I asked the pope about his brother, who was burnt at the stake and asked him to rehabilitate Giordano Bruno officially. I think the Church should finally do justice. "

Pope Francis had given him no negative answer, but said that he would "pray" for Giordano Bruno.

The former Dominican Giordano Bruno had been burned on 17 February 1600 as one of the few heretics, by the Roman Inquisition at the stake in Rome. A total of 97 people were executed in Rome during the 250 years that the actual Inquisition was active, most were felons. After the Italian unification,  Church opponents, especially the Italian Masons, created a myth around Giordano Bruno to make his case an instrument in the fight against the Church. It was (and is) not precisely in line with the historical facts. That was also the reason why the Masons of Italy erected a statue on the Campo dei Fiori, where Giordano Bruno was executed. Militant atheism, which describes itself as a "humanism critical of the Church,” venerates the former Dominican brother as their “heretical anti-saint." This includes the atheist Giordano Bruno Foundation in Germany and Austria.

Frei Betto is in strange company, but that does not seem to have bothered him since his youth.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi

Image: Diario Libre (Screeenshot)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG

Broadcaster of the Archdiocese of Toledo Recommends Liberation Theologian

Leonardo Boff's Book: Francis of Rome and Francis of Assisi. A New
Springtime for the Church?

(Madrid) The television station rtvd of the Archdiocese of Toledo recommends to the audience the writings of Leonardo Boff and other liberation theologians.

The diocesan television station of the Archdiocese of Toledo publishes reading and gift recommendations. Among them are books by Leonardo Boff and Pedro Casaldaliga, two leading figures of Liberation Theology.

"49 or more" (49 o mas) is the name of the new program of the diocesan TV station that wants to recommend "good literature". The book recommended by Boff is called "Francis of Rome and Francis of Assisi" (Francisco de Roma and Francisco de Asis). The former Franciscan wants to connect Francis of Assisi with Pope Francis in a wide arc.

Boff had joined the Franciscan Order in Brazil in 1959. He completed his studies in Munich. He is considered one of the most important and best known liberation theologians. While criticizing the Church as an "institution" and its "hierarchy" as "fundamentalist," he showed open sympathy for communist regimes.

When, under Pope John Paul II, the Congregation of the Faith, under the leadership of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger condemned the Marxist liberation theology, Boff accused the later Pope Benedict XVI. of "religious terrorism".  Boff had been accused not only of Marxism, but more in the dissemination of theological heresies, including syncretism.

When Boff did not abide by the public silence imposed by Rome in 1992, he was dimissed from his order and suspended from his priesthood. At a state, Brazilian university, he received a chair of ethics specially designed for him.

While Boff had called for schism under Pope Benedict XVI., he showed sympathy to the incumbent Pope at the beginning of the pontificate. While Leonardo Boff scattered flowers to the new pope from Argentina, his brother Clodovis Boff, Servite Father and former liberation theologian, expressed himself quite differently:

" We should have listened to Ratzinger ".

The Archbishop of Toledo is Msgr. Braulio Rodríguez Plaza, who is also the Primate of Spain. Although this position dates back only to the 11th century, when the city was reconquered in the wake of the Reconquista, it refers to the fact that Toledo was the capital of Spain before the Islamic occupation of the Visigoths. As local bishop, Archbishop Rodriguez Plaza is responsible for the diocesan television station.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi 
Image: 49 o mas / Youtube (screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

Brother of Leonardo Boff: "We Should Have Listened to Ratzinger"

(Rio de Janeiro) During these days the media duck made the rounds, the prefect of the CDF, Curia, Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller had called for a "reconciliation" with the liberation theology, the brother of the most famous liberation theologians of the world, Leonardo Boff has spoken up, and in a very different sense.

Liberation theology was one of the worst disasters of the Catholic Church. Its inventors are the theologians Gustavo Gutierrez, a Dominican, and Leonardo Boff, a Franciscan. It was created after the Second Vatican Council and is supposed to interpret and respond to the dramatic situation of mass poverty in Latin American countries. That's as far as the noble intention.

In reality, they mingled with the theology with the current fashion and seemingly unstoppable Marxism. First they justify class struggle, then armed struggle which leads inevitably to violence. And many Catholics, including priests, religious and seminarians have followed this siren song. The result has been great suffering and serious cracks and splits in the Catholic Church by priests who bartered the cross with the machine gun. Clerics, who, instead of following the example of the saints, rather imitated the example of Che Guevara and fought in the guerrilla struggle through the cities and the jungle and were eventually shot by the police or military.

For this reason, the Latin American bishops condemned the contagious Marxist theology in 1979. The same was done in detail, explained by the doctrinal congregation, under the leadership of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger at the express request of Pope John Paul II, who was from in the Soviet-controlled Eastern Bloc, and was particularly sensitive to the topic. The CDF studied the phenomenon from the perspective of orthodoxy and the social doctrine of the Church. The condemnation was accomplished with two documents: Libertatis Nuncio (1984) and Libertatis Conscientia (1986). In both, it was noted that liberation theology was in a dependent relationship to the Marxist critique of society and is therefore incompatible with the Gospel message.

Leonardo Boff, today, with other colleagues of the anti-Church boulevard magazine Fatto Quitidiano has this intervention Ratzinger never forgiven. He turned his back on the church and began a personal vendetta against them, including through its Brazilian "Base Communities". A kind Brazilian Don Gallo .

Recently Boff was reported to praise again and speak of Pope Francis effusively. And the media habitually gave him quite a hearing. It had been Boff, who had demanded on behalf of the Council, to the media, that "someone like Bergoglio" should not even be admitted to the conclave. The reason for the Boff did not mention, of course, is that Cardinal Bergoglio had met in Argentina Marxist liberation theology up close and dislikes. Bergoglio rejected the theses of Marxist theology and opposed his brothers in the Jesuit order, who joined Boff and Gutierrez. The result was a still ongoing resentment from parts of the Order against Bergoglio. As Boff has never forgiven him for the condemnation of the theology he created, so have some have the same Jesuits never forgiven Bergoglio.

It is interesting in this context an interview that the Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo was held with Clodovis, the brother of Leonardo Boff. Clodovis, a member of the Servites, contradicted his brother:

"In the two documents published by Cardinal Ratzinger, he defended the original core of liberation theology: the commitment to the poor because of the faith. At the same time he criticized the Marxist influence. The Church can't do this. It's not like a civil society where people can say what they want. We are tied to a belief and if someone professes another faith, he closes himself from the Church. From the outset, it was clear the importance was to make Christ the foundation of all theology. In the hegemonic discourse of liberation theology, however, I have noticed that faith in Christ only appeared in the background. The anonymous Christianity of Karl Rahner was a great excuse to neglect Christ, prayer, the sacraments and the mission in which the focus was only on the change of social structures. "

Clodovis Boff, formerly himself a representative of the Teología de la Liberación , who was already critical of it in 1986 and finally distanced from liberation theology in 2007, added: "In the 70s Cardinal Eugneio Sales withdrew my teaching license of Theology at the Catholic University Rio. Sales told me in a friendly way: "Clodovis, I think you are mistaken. Doing good is not enough to be a Christian. The center is to confess the faith ... " He was right. In fact, the Church was irrelevant for us. And not only Her, even Christ Himself "

Text: Giuseppe Nardi Image: Wikicommons

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