same article in
http://www.tikkun.orghttp://www.matthewfox.org/sys-tmpl/htmlpage18/Fox doesn't like him....a major reason follows
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Cardinal Ratzinger (with the complete approval of John Paul II) brought back the Inquisition. That is what he did over a twenty-three year period. One prominent and elegant theologian, Father Bernard Haering, who was the first one attacked by Ratzinger, had also been interrogated by the Nazis during the second world war. He reported that his interrogations in Ratzinger’s office were far more scary. The attitude of Ratzinger has been that he alone (or the pope in his name) knows theology and all real theologians can find work elsewhere. It is truly scary, such a power trip. He denies women any role of leadership even though the best scholarship today makes clear that women were leading from the get-go in the early Christian movement. Some of them worked closely with Paul.
Another theologian, Brazilian Father Leonardo Boff, a champion of liberation theology, wrote about the torture that the Sacred Congregation of the Faith (called “the Office of the Holy Inquisition” until 1965) puts a theologian through today. It is more psychological than physical as in the days of the rack, he points out. But it is deadly. Many theologians have died or suffered from heart attacks and stress because of the unleashing of hatred shouted by those who are sure, because Ratzinger has said it, that they are teaching “heresy.”
I went through this experience personally on a number of occasions when people would not just show up and protest at my talks or lectures with shouts and signs and pickets but also spit on me as I was leaving the speaking venue. This happened for example at the Cathedral in Seattle where Ratzinger’s ideologues gathered to attack Archbishop Hunthausen who, among other things, had refused to pay his taxes because of his moral opposition to the Vietnam War. I was invited to lecture on Hildegard of Bingen—they put her wonderful twelfth century opera on in the Cathedral—and I was spit on by members of CUFF—Catholics United for the Faith—as I exited the auditorium where I spoke. It was they who mailed a large dossier in to Ratzinger about my work. Though they are not theologians but religious hooligans, they were listened to by Ratzinger. Archbishop Hunthausen was mercilessly hounded by Ratzinger who took most of his powers away from him—a tactic he employed with many prophetic churchmen in Latin America as well, some of whom had their dioceses cut up or taken away from them and given over to right wing clergy. (An example is Cardinal Arns who stood up for years practically alone to the military dictatorship of Brazil.)
Being stuck in one’s ideology and refusing to come up for theological air has many painful consequences. For example, Ratzinger believes that God revealed to him that no one should use condoms—how many Africans (and others) are dying because of that private revelation? Or that no one should practice birth control? (How many species are dying and how many women are kept in poverty because of that private revelation?) Or that gays and lesbians are “evil” in their love lives?
The bishop who replaced the saintly Oscar Romero in El Salvador, who was murdered by the military while celebrating Mass, is a member of Opus Dei. Romero, who worked with the peasants and poor against the military regime and who died a martyr, has not been proposed for canonization by Ratzinger and company. But Escriva was canonized and in record time.
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