Vatican watchdog body examining case of Spanish theologian

[lovuian]

http://english.pravda.ru/news/world/12-03-2007/88215-vatican-0

he Vatican office that safeguards doctrinal correctness is examining a Spanish Jesuit who is a prominent champion of liberation theology, a Vatican official said Monday.







Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi declined to give any details about the probe by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith into the work of the Rev. Jon Sobrino, a renowned theologian.

He said the congregation would report its conclusions soon, and this would lay out the case.

Spanish daily El Mundo reported last week that Sobrino would be banned from teaching in Catholic institutions and would not be allowed to publish.

The newspaper said the Vatican accuses Sobrino of distorting the name and history of Jesus Christ. Liberation theology promotes social, political and economic awareness among the poor.

Before becoming pontiff two years ago, Pope Benedict XVI, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, led the congregation's crackdown on theologians the Vatican judged to be perilously straying from Church doctrine.

During his two-decade tenure at the congregation's helm, Ratzinger, who is a theologian, worked to cripple support for the "liberation theology" movement, especially popular in Latin America, for its alleged Marxist leanings.

Sobrino has been based in El Salvador for decades and was closed to the Salvadoran archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, an insistent critic of human rights abuses in the country. The churchman was slain in 1980 while celebrating Mass.
more...

Helping the poor and critic of human rights abuses
thats something to excommunicate a person and lets hope they don't try to burn him at the stake

[OneBlueSky]

1. liberation theology -- which is what Christianity SHOULD be all about -- scares the shit out of . .

the Catholic Church . . . and, as manifested in Latin America, the U.S. government . . .

[Kutjara]

2. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Or, as it was formerly known, the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Everything old truly is new again.

Get your tickets now for the auto da fé, excommunications, and burnings at the stake.

[ngant17]

3. The original Jesus Christ was probably a independent radical

from the Essenes, who was killed by the Jewish orthodoxy for rebelling against the authorities.

Everything about him since then has been so vastly distorted(i.e. Christmas/Mithra, Easter/Ishtar, virgin birth, ect.) that it might be better to re-invent him as he perhaps originally was -- a revolutionary theologian.

In that sense, Sobrino should be rewarded by the church instead of condemned.

[Perky]

4. Benedict better walk softly over this one...

Look, the RCC has the right to protect its doctrine against heresy. I hav no concern about their right to do tghis.

But this smacks of a a purge of liberationists when the college of Cardinals may well go with a SOuth American the next opportunity they ave.

WJile ther has been so melding of marxist though with some liberationists, it is largely on the periphery. Liberation Theoolg has substantial doctinal merit when it stands on its own.

This is they type oc fight Rome should not want. IT is the stuff of schism. Itg certainly has the power to erode confidence in the pope in the one geographic area whre there is real church growth. ANd suggest a very Euro-centric fear of Soviet style communism.

[GeorgeGist]

5. Why bother...

all souls are free and never join religions.

[Selatius]

6. Liberation theology is, in laymen's terms, Christian Socialism.

If Liberation Theology were to become popular, the current power structure would be in danger of becoming obsolete. It would not just threaten the Church hierarchy but also the power structure of the business world as well. The reaction, predictably, against Liberation Theology is very rapid and harsh.

[formercia]

7. This is not unexpected

Jesus was a 'liberation theologist' in his own right. The Church of Rome has been engaged since its founding to be the sole 'church'. They want to return to the time of the Holy Roman Empire when all power was centered in Rome. Anyone with ideas that would limit that power have to be marginalized or eliminated.

[lovuian]

8. kick

:kick: