tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26437387.post115051985745418029..comments2023-10-19T08:49:35.405-05:00Comments on Aún Estamos Vivos: Whatever happened to Leonardo Boff?Jeffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10754406706300818849noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26437387.post-1150700282199676032006-06-19T01:58:00.000-05:002006-06-19T01:58:00.000-05:00I would not have been bored...:-).I would not have been bored...:-).PVhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04943143109952894018noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26437387.post-1150676247003970892006-06-18T19:17:00.000-05:002006-06-18T19:17:00.000-05:00Mike,I don't think people would be bored at all, b...Mike,<BR/><BR/>I don't think people would be bored at all, but as you wish. I'll be in touch. Thanks.Jeffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10754406706300818849noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26437387.post-1150666841162406532006-06-18T16:40:00.000-05:002006-06-18T16:40:00.000-05:00Hi Darius,I think you have a point in saying that ...Hi Darius,<BR/><BR/>I think you have a point in saying that there are many right-wing Christians who seem to care about the unborn more than they do for the born. In some cases, though, it is a more nuanced position than that.<BR/><BR/>In the novel '1984', George Orwell had a certain vision of the future. In 'Brave New World', Aldous Huxley had a different vision of the future. I think a lot of progressives might disagree with me, but I think that Huxley was more prescient than Orwell. I think we are living in a Huxley-ite pardadigm rather than an Orwellian paradigm today.<BR/><BR/>What concerns me is the commodification of human beings, especially of children. I know that some people don't accept "slippery slope" arguments when discussing a particular issue at hand, but it worries me that this is what stem-cell research with human embryos does. I confess that I probably need to do more research on this than I have, but I can't understand why we can't collect stem cells from every single umbilical cord obtained in a human birth in this country today. <BR/><BR/>I see this as a society that already devalues children. Rather than seeing a child as a blessing, a child today is seen as a burden, or an extension of a parent's own personality and sense of accomplishment. Children are treated like commodities, calculated with the cost of college educations and whether or not we can afford a new one at the same time as one of those new tripped-out SUV's. We regulate and micro-manage every step of their lives, stultifying their creativity, we barely educate them, we consumerize them and blitz them with marketing, and we sexualize them. We treat the elderly in this country very well (Thank God), but now it is being done at the expense of the young, laying a huge debt burden on them while we continue with our current entitlement ponzi schemes. Millions of children in this country have no health insurance. In other countries, we knowingly exploit child labor. <BR/><BR/>For me, the ends don't justify the means. I see embryonic stem-cell research as a harvesting of the young and defenseless, with troubling "slippery slope" consequences down the road. I see it as trafficking in human life and a commodification of human flesh, but I respect the arguments and sincere views of those who disagree with me. As a Catholic Christian, I see man as good, but fallen. We are ultimately dependent upon God, and should be careful not to get carried away in our own hubris. In my opinion, even an atheist, who sees the mind of man as a development of evolutionary psychology over the last few hundred thousand years, and sees our social relationships as ones based upon the principle of reciprocity, and who believe that the body is s vehicle to ensure the survival of the genes, should see this kind of research and solution as one that humans might have trouble adapting to.Jeffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10754406706300818849noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26437387.post-1150666124769806862006-06-18T16:28:00.000-05:002006-06-18T16:28:00.000-05:00Jeff: Extraordinary period indeed. Perhaps we shou...Jeff: Extraordinary period indeed. Perhaps we shouldn't bore the rest of your guests. I can be reached at mmcgillicuddy@goodkitch.com.<BR/>Best, Mike McG...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26437387.post-1150665529947548972006-06-18T16:18:00.000-05:002006-06-18T16:18:00.000-05:00Mike,Regarding the barn door... I do see myself a...Mike,<BR/><BR/>Regarding the barn door... I do see myself as a centrist, and like the tag-line in my profile suggests, what does worry me is the current state of polarization in the Church. I feel that in the last few years, especially in the wake of the scandals, the vital center, not the "mushy middle", but the vital <I>center</I> of Catholicism has largely collapsed. In my view, Catholicism in its <I>best</I> tradition has always reflected a healthy trend towards centrism and the avoidance of extremes, but I feel like the extremes are dominating the discourse today. I find that as a self-described centrist, it is hard for me to make anyone happy. I tend to anger both sides. That is why I posted the Rolheiser articles high up in my list of links. Liberals and Conservatives both have strengths and weaknesses. We should all be willing to be self-critical.<BR/><BR/>The time you describe is a fascination for me, and what you said intrigues me. I've always wanted to talk to someone from that era in religious life. What the heck happened in the late sixties?? Did priests leave in disappointment after Paul VI re-affirmed priestly celibacy and the ban on birth control? Did they leave to get married? To gain control over their own lives? Or, as you suggest, did the buy into the notion that "God was dead"?Jeffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10754406706300818849noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26437387.post-1150664862898556122006-06-18T16:07:00.000-05:002006-06-18T16:07:00.000-05:00Hi Liam and Paula,Thank you. A career in journali...Hi Liam and Paula,<BR/><BR/>Thank you. A career in journalism? I don't know about that. I'd love to have written popular history. All I do know is that I'm probably ill-suited for what I do, which is Information Technology, because at heart, I'm a technophobe. I'm practically a luddite. :-) My advice to those younger than myself? Follow your heart and do what you're good at and what you love best. Don't compromise and just follow the money, unless you absolutely have to to survive. You'll regret it. As for my own hopes and dreams, it would have been fun to be a free safety in the NFL, or to play blues guitar like Eric Clapton, or to act like Olivier, or to paint like John Singer Sargent, or to write like Hemingway, but that darned <I>talent</I> requirement keeps getting in the way. Damn it! What a p.i.t.a. ;-)<BR/><BR/>I do think the Pope is too eurocenric, and whether we see the pespective from Eastern Europe where Communists were the oppressors, or Latin America, where right wingers were the oppressors, we can all see the danger of unchecked power concentrated in the hands of a few.Jeffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10754406706300818849noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26437387.post-1150651130059583842006-06-18T12:18:00.000-05:002006-06-18T12:18:00.000-05:00Certainly in terms of what the media puts out ther...Certainly in terms of what the media puts out there today as representing Christian piety, it reflects a passion not for social justice and compassion for the poor, but preoccupations with a hodge podge of issues that have become all too familiar: homosexuality, public displays of piety of just the sort Jesus spoke against (prayer in schools, displaying the ten commandments), all things embryonic and stem cell, and a desire to return the status of the theory of evolution to before the Scopes monkey trial in the early twentieth century.<BR/><BR/>Politicians have to cater to the "Christian" right because they're so well organized as a voting block. Plus, many politicians now ARE right wing Christians. And they just don't have the passion for multicellular human organisms (i.e., people) living in Latin America, Africa, or anywhere else that they bring to the plights of stem cells here in the USA.<BR/><BR/>It's all mind boggling to me. I sincerly don't get it.Dariushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09456843848141315800noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26437387.post-1150645897935866962006-06-18T10:51:00.000-05:002006-06-18T10:51:00.000-05:00Hey Jeff: In the late '60s I was a scholatic and t...Hey Jeff: In the late '60s I was a scholatic and theology student in a congregation of religious brothers. Bracing times, those. Many of us lost our way 'round about the year God died. (For you younger folk, an allusion to a famous 'The Death of God' TIME cover story of that era.) <BR/><BR/>In any case, our social justice passions survived the rapid deconstruction of our religious beliefs. Before we left, and of course most of us did leave religious life, there was a period when liberation theology-like alliances managed the cognitive dissonance between the justice we affirmed and the beliefs we doubted. (This, of course, says everything about us and nothing about the veracity of liberation theology. It may, however, provide an insight into Vatican caution.)<BR/><BR/>I think thinkers of all stripes overplay the role of the intellect and underplay the role of the personal in the formulation of thought. My impression is that our worldviews bear the indelible imprint of our wounds. I imagine that Uta was wounded by misogny, Karl by inflexible orthodoxy, John Paul by communist oppression, Benedict by Tubingen in '68, Leonardo by a eurocentric Vatican out of touch with Latin American realitites.<BR/><BR/>It seems to me that if we focused more on understanding the wounds that shaped others' worldviews, we would be less inclined to debunk those same worldviews.<BR/><BR/>I'm intrigued, Jeff, at your comment that your ideas blow back and forth 'like an old barn door.' Mine do, too, but sometimes feel jealous of my contemporaries whose doors have *either* blown open *or* blown closed. The orthodoxy they've achieved (of left or right) appears to be more comfortable than the ambiguity I live with.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26437387.post-1150624377669637062006-06-18T04:52:00.000-05:002006-06-18T04:52:00.000-05:00The reaction of JP II to what he perceived as the ...The reaction of JP II to what he perceived as the marxist aspects of LT is typical of someone coming from an East-European country. I have also the tendency to reject everything that is related with Marxism without discrimination. <BR/>I remember one time when a friend of mine said jokingly: "Communism was not so bad", only to see how I react. "Wow, even if you said nothing, the expression of your face changed in an instant from friendly to angry" he said afterwards.:-).<BR/>I think also that JP II was afraid that LT can be used and abused by people from who have a marxist political agenda.<BR/>I do not think that LT is marxism from what I know about it(I admit that did not read a lot on this topic).<BR/>Thanks Jeff for this great post. You keep nailing it. Liam is right: you can do journalism, and you can do it well.:-).PVhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04943143109952894018noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26437387.post-1150600554372466582006-06-17T22:15:00.000-05:002006-06-17T22:15:00.000-05:00Jeff, you're putting together some fantastic posts...Jeff, you're putting together some fantastic posts. Have you thought about doing some journalism on the side?<BR/><BR/>I remember the LT discussion on Steve's blog (I was too busy to contribute a comment on it). I think the Vatican's inability to dialogue with LT was a great loss to the Church. I think it was unfortunate that the issue came to a boil when we had a pope who had suffered under communism and was not very patient with anything that could be accused of marxism.<BR/><BR/>I worry about the Church in Latin America. The present pope seems overly concerned with Europe. The Church should be opening up, not closing people off.Liamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17265036866243982434noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26437387.post-1150595958089273062006-06-17T20:59:00.000-05:002006-06-17T20:59:00.000-05:00Hi Mike! Good to see you again. I know what you m...Hi Mike! <BR/><BR/>Good to see you again. I know what you mean. To whit, Socrates: "All I know is that I know nothing..." It's good to see a dose of humility from these people now and then. By the same token, I hope I don't give people the impression that I think I know all the answers either. I blow back and forth like an old barn door. I learn a lot more from listening and reading than I do from talking and writing. :-)<BR/><BR/>Were you in religious life, Mike? Were/are you a priest or ex-priest? Can you elaborate a bit more on what you experienced with LT adherents? Was it really LT they were espousing, or just plain old modernism?Jeffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10754406706300818849noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26437387.post-1150591604345906122006-06-17T19:46:00.000-05:002006-06-17T19:46:00.000-05:00"...like Socrates, the more I know, the less I und..."...like Socrates, the more I know, the less I understand." <BR/><BR/>This quote made my day! It exemplifies a refreshing, nuanced, 'both-and' perspective rarely encountered in blogdom. I propose the mutual respect between Uta and Benedict as a model for all of us.<BR/><BR/>I, too, feel drawn to liberation theology and regret the loss to the priestly leadership of Boff and others of his calibur. But I also believe the Vatican's discomfort to be more pastorally grounded that we progressives would care to admit. <BR/><BR/>From my own experience in religious life, I know that *some* proponents of liberation theology moved well beyond any semblance of continuity with Christianity as even progressive theologians had framed it. Their last thread of connection with the church was its 'instrumental' value, the capacity of our narrative to bring about change. That is, while personally 'beyond' belief, they were willing to embrace the words of belief if they were instrumental in building a better world.<BR/><BR/>The Vatican dropped the ball in its response to liberation theology and should have separated the wheat (Boff et al.) from the chaff. Nevertheless Vatican concerns were not without some legitimacy. 'The more we know, the less we understand.'Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26437387.post-1150553810566431122006-06-17T09:16:00.000-05:002006-06-17T09:16:00.000-05:00Steve and Crystal,Thanks for the link. Outstanding...Steve and Crystal,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the link. Outstanding summary in the essay, and great discussion! Way to hang in there and fight, Crystal! ;-) I agree with you about Malachi Martin, btw. I've had him thrown in my face many times for various reasons. He was a crank. <BR/><BR/>I had mixed feelings about LT after the 80's were over. I had always admired it previously. Around 1989 I was exploring the possibility of a vocation with the Jesuits, and was depressed by the state of the order as I saw it at the time. I started to wonder if they had wasted the decades afer Vatican II on this theology when there were many other things they might have been doing.<BR/><BR/>On the other hand, despite the tumult, I recall that era being a time of expectation, excitement, and movement in the Catholic Church in Latin America. There were great churchmen like Dom Helder Camara (I love the quote, Steve), Oscar Romero, Lorscheider, and Arns. The Church in Latin America misses these visionary men. On the other hand, there were some who probably went to far in a Marxist direction, like Ernesto Cardenal.<BR/><BR/>When I look over Boff's work, particularly in the passages I've shown here, I personally see nothing heretical in it (not that it's up to me to say). I think he is a brilliant and faith-filled man.<BR/><BR/>It's still hard to say how things in Latin america will turn out. Neo-cons and globalization-boosters in the USA funded Protestant prosletysation efforts in Latin America in a deliberate "Yankee-fication" effort to tamp down LT fervor and make Latin Americans more like North Americans. The World Bank and the WTO introduced economic shock-therapy to the region to break up inefficent state enterprises, and this caused a lot of dislocation, economic upheaval, and misery. The region seems to be shifting to the left again. As Crystal, pointed out, it is still dangerous there for those who stick up for the landless poor, like Sister Dorothy Stang.<BR/><BR/>It is a shame that LT, which I believe has profoundly accurate insight into Christ's Gospel message without the usual equivocations about "what Christ was <I>really</I> trying to say about the rich and poor", needed to include Marxist language, which, as some of Steve's guests pointed out, is a dated and out-moded philosophy. It could have made the same basic points without having to use that dialectic, and may not have provoked so much overt opposition.<BR/><BR/>As for excommunication, I think today it entails a denial of the sacraments, but I don't know for sure. They no longer have their temporal arm to burn people at the stake, forunately.Jeffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10754406706300818849noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26437387.post-1150545982076666532006-06-17T07:06:00.000-05:002006-06-17T07:06:00.000-05:00Crystal, thanks for the link - that was a good dis...Crystal, thanks for the link - that was a good discussion, wasn't it?<BR/><BR/>I like Liberation Theology; we - the church and the Church - have a lot to learn from it. There are LT extremists, just as there are extremists in any brand of theology. <BR/><BR/>The Vatican did discipline some priests and theologians, and perhaps they needed some correction. But if you read the church's criticism of LT, it's focused more on implementation of the theology than on the nature of the theology. It was all about how people wedded Marxism and LT; that really scared folks.<BR/><BR/>It seems to me that the early churches were base communities themselves. Maybe we look at the form of the modern church in too rigid terms? Can't it manifest itself as base communities in poor, politically suppressed countries; as big, grand parishes in major cities; and small close-knit churches in the country?<BR/><BR/>I'm glad Boff and his cohorts came around; we need people like them to shake things up now and then, even if the church's response to them is not always what we'd like to see.Steve Bognerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11372621294204774480noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26437387.post-1150533282272713612006-06-17T03:34:00.000-05:002006-06-17T03:34:00.000-05:00So, in modern times, what is the effect of excommu...So, in modern times, what is the effect of excommunication? I've read that in the distant past, no Catholic was allowed to talk to, hang around with or give aid to omeone who was anathma ... must be different now?<BR/><BR/>I'm a fan of liberation theology :-) Did you see that past discussion of liberation theology at Steve's blog? There were some interesting comments ... <A HREF="http://bogners.typepad.com/church/2005/12/the_discomfort_.html" REL="nofollow">link</A>crystalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05681674503952991492noreply@blogger.com