religion + socialism

[no_parsaran]

i was just wondering if the christian, jewish or even islamic faiths have a place in modern socialist nations like cuba and china? and also whether they have a chance of surviving in a true communist eutopia...? what are your thoughts?

[Jesus Christ]

personally I see absolutely no reason why people cannot practice their faith in a socialistic society
as long as there is separation of church and state it should be fine
but many hardliners will just refer to communist revolutionaries and Marx to say what should be done with religion, it is not personally my view to oust religion in the name of government, i am an atheist, but it is even worse to remove religion and implement in its place a religious stature of government like those of Stalin and Mao

[Umoja]

Marxist will insist otherwise, but it can work concievably. Take Gaddaffi's government for example, it's far from perfect, but it is one of the 'best', a very hard to quantify term, in the Middle East and Africa.

[praxis1966]

Originally posted by Jesus [email protected] 18 2004, 04:09 PM
personally I see absolutely no reason why people cannot practice their faith in a socialistic society
as long as there is separation of church and state it should be fine
but many hardliners will just refer to communist revolutionaries and Marx to say what should be done with religion, it is not personally my view to oust religion in the name of government, i am an atheist, but it is even worse to remove religion and implement in its place a religious stature of government like those of Stalin and Mao
What is ironic is the parallels between such hardliners and the theists they despise. It is my personal belief that such an undying devotion to and aversion from critical analysis of Marx is the exact same attitude with which religious zealots and fundamentalist treat their respective religious texts, no matter the denomination.

[Maynard]

i was just wondering if the christian, jewish or even islamic faiths have a place in modern socialist nations like cuba and china?
They already have a place and it's place is growing. Christmas became an official holiday in Cuba, in 1999, the Pope visited in 1998. 35 % of all Cubans are defined as Christians, while 63 % are Atheist's or Agnostics. While in China, 37,108,000 people are Muslims, while around 120 Million, according to statistics are religious in China. There are 200,000 monks, not including monks in Tibet

Article 36 of it's constitution is:
Article 36 [Religion]
(1) Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of religious belief.
(2) No state organ, public organization, or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not to believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against citizens who believe in, or do not believe in, any religion.
(3) The state protects normal religious activities. No one may make use of religion to engage in activities that disrupt public order, impair the health of citizens or interfere with the educational system of the state.
(4) Religious bodies and religious affairs are not subject to any foreign domination.


While in Cuba

ARTICLE 8. The state recognizes, respects and guarantees freedom of religion.

In the Republic of Cuba, religious institutions are separate from the state.

The different beliefs and religions enjoy the same consideration.

That is, if indeed, you want to call Cuba and China Socialist, China especially.

So, they already play a part in those countries.


also whether they have a chance of surviving in a true communist eutopia...?
They most likely will in some form. The scope of it, it can't be told. I think, however, if there will be a revolution overthrowing Capitalism, I believe the total amount of religious people will have dropped significantly. You can even see now, Organized religion losing it's power it generally once had.


but it is even worse to remove religion and implement in its place a religious stature of government like those of Stalin and Mao I agree with that. There is no point smashing religion only to worship a "god" on earth. Worshipping a "glorious leader" is just as bad.

Religion has played a part in all Socialist states though up to this point, except maybe Albania, which outlawed all religious practices and became the first Atheist state in 1967.

[redstar2000]

What is ironic is the parallels between such hardliners and the theists they despise. It is my personal belief that such an undying devotion to and aversion from critical analysis of Marx is the exact same attitude with which religious zealots and fundamentalist treat their respective religious texts, no matter the denomination.

A preposterous assertion!

Marx was being "criticized" by Marxists as well as by "Marxists" before his corpse was cold.

Here's an example from this board...

On "Dialectics" -- The Heresy Posts May 8, 2003 (http://www.anarchist-action.org/marxists/redstar2000/monthlytheoryarchives.php?subaction=showfull&id=1052322305&archive=1054467213&cnshow=archive&start_from=&ucat=&)

As to devotion, what in the world are you talking about? Do Marxists have pictures of Marx on the wall with a devotional candle burning beneath them? Do Marxists celebrate Marx's birth or death with special ceremonies? Does any Marxist worth the name regard everything Marx wrote as "holy scripture"?

I think you are guilty of a rhetorical "cheap shot".

As to the original question of the thread, try this...

The Cathedral and the Wrecking Ball January 7, 2004 (http://www.anarchist-action.org/marxists/redstar2000/monthlytheoryarchives.php?subaction=showfull&id=1073447586&archive=1075295090&cnshow=archive&start_from=&ucat=&)

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.vze.com)
A site about communist ideas

[cubist]

i see no place as i see no need, but that is me i am not the people, if people wish to believe they must be allowed, but that doesn't mean they must be respected by everyone nor does it mean they must be allowed to do gods work or witness to other non believers.

[Pawn Power]

in socialism their could still be religion but then their will still be racism and hatred. In complete and absolute communism in its purest for their will be no religion practiced openly what so ever. People will still have theri belifees though.

[Fidel Castro]

I am not fully aware of the relationship between socialism and islam/judaism, however with regards to Christianity I believe Marx has certainly made a lasting impact.

The scathing attack by Marxists which often suggested that the church aimed to keep the masses oppressed and protect the status quo was responded to most blatently with the Theology of Liberation, which is common in Latin America. This is a Christian sect that has adopted Marxism to the extent of fighting for human rights, fair pay and the removal of corrupt regimes. Violence has been recognised by many Liberation Theologians as a legitimate means to an end, an idea which reeks of Marxism.

I believe that Christians and other religious groups have the capacity to seek social and economic justice to the same extent as any person.

[redstar2000]

I believe that Christians and other religious groups have the capacity to seek social and economic justice to the same extent as any person.

Nope.

Why not?

Because in the religious "world-view", all believers in the "true religion" are one without regard to class.

Thus a Catholic "liberation theologist" may indeed harshly criticize the exploitation of poor Catholics by rich Catholics...but he cannot suggest the expropriation of the Catholic rich by the Catholic poor at gunpoint. He cannot support revolution.

At least, he can't do that according to his pope -- the "official deputy of Christ on earth". "Dividing the faithful" according to class is not permitted.

Though other religions have no pope, they still face the same obstacle. The "unity of the faithful" in the "Eyes of God" is a fundamental principle to religious institutions.

Does that mean, for example, that a protestant "liberation theologist" could advocate the violent overthrow of a Catholic ruling class?

It's unlikely, but perhaps you couldn't completely rule out the possibility. I've read that protestant evangelicals are big supporters of Venezuela's populist reformer Chavez...while the Catholic hierarchy venomously attacks Chavez as "the next Castro".

But I suspect this is just religious opportunism; the protestants see a chance to make inroads into Catholic turf.

Beyond these considerations is the historical social role of all religions of any consequence: supporting the existing ruling class as "appointed by God".

The overwhelming majority of professional godsuckers are furiously reactionary in their views...and I see no reason why that should change.

It's where the money is!

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.vze.com)
A site about communist ideas

[Louis Pio]

IMO (and im marxist) people can worship who they like behind closed doors, satan, god or whatever. The problem is if they try to let religion influence politics. Btw there is alot of honest religious people who want society to change. And we of course need them also.

[Morpheus]

RedStar2000:

Thus a Catholic "liberation theologist" may indeed harshly criticize the exploitation of poor Catholics by rich Catholics...but he cannot suggest the expropriation of the Catholic rich by the Catholic poor at gunpoint. He cannot support revolution.

Augusto Sandino did. He believed god sent him to begin a worldwide proletarian revolution against imperialism. He also claimed that Jesus was a revolutionary Communist. During the middle ages some dissident priests came to the conclusion that it was every christians' duty to wipe the nobility from the face of the each (by force if necessary) and create a communist society. Many libertarian theologists supported the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua. When Algeria was a Marxist-Leninist state they made Islam the official religion. The English revolution had several religious revolutionary groups.

Your thing about us all being one can easily be overcome in many ways. For example, being a member of the capitalist class is a sin and god requires us to punish sinners. Many religious people have no problem with imprisonment, expropriation of property or the death penalty for murderers, rapists, thieves, etc. and what is a capitalist if not a murderer and a thief? If witches can be burnt at the state then surely capitalists can. Capitalists can also be cast as infidels in sheeps' clothing or other rhetoric used.

Martin Luther (founder of protestantism) on the bourgeoisie:
"[T]here is on earth no greater enemy of man, after the Devil, than a gripe-money and usurer, for he wants to be God over all men... Usury is a great, huge monster, like a werewolf... And since we break on the wheel and behead highwaymen, murderers, and housebreakers, how much more ought we to break on the wheel and kill... hunt down, curse, and behead all usurers!"

[redstar2000]

Augusto Sandino...believed god sent him to begin a worldwide proletarian revolution against imperialism.

Guess he was wrong about that, eh? :lol:

I know who Sandino was, of course, but just out of curiosity: how many big Catholic landowners did he shoot?


He also claimed that Jesus was a revolutionary Communist.

He would have "fit right in" at Che-Lives...unfortunately. There's not so much as a shred of Biblical evidence to support that claim (as I'm sure you are aware)...but it never stops the ignorant from trotting it out.

*Yawns*


During the middle ages some dissident priests came to the conclusion that it was every christians' duty to wipe the nobility from the face of the each (by force if necessary) and create a communist society.

Yeah, Thomas Munzer, the Bauenkrieg, and all that.

Peasant rebellions seem to be particularly susceptible to that sort of thing...probably because they simply don't know anything except farming techniques and religion.

If someone, especially a priest, comes along and tells them to "kill the lords; it's God's Will"...well, that's a message that's pretty welcome.

Someone else comes along and gives a different message "in the Name of God" will also get a favorable reception.

What really happens, I think, is that when peasant revolutions are actually successful, the leaders of that revolution become the "new nobility".

There was an enormous peasant uprising in China in the 19th century that actually conquered and ruled much of the country for a decade or so. The leader, who called himself "Jesus' younger Brother", enforced an astonishing degree of equality on the peasantry. He himself, of course, lived like an emperor.


Many libertarian theologists supported the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua.

You mean before they won? :lol:

What would be really interesting to learn is the over-all role of the Catholic hierarchy in the counter-revolution in Nicaragua.


When Algeria was a Marxist-Leninist state they made Islam the official religion.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Really, is there anything surprising about that? Wasn't Russian Orthodoxy the de facto state religion in the USSR? Doesn't Cuba today have a half-dozen or so "officially designated religions"?

At best, the Leninists seek to regulate religion -- usually, there is an official "Ministry of Religion" as part of the state apparatus.

It's rather like the Securities & Exchange Commission "regulates" the stock market.

From a revolutionary standpoint, this is all complete and utter foolishness.


For example, being a member of the capitalist class is a sin and god requires us to punish sinners...If witches can be burnt at the stake then surely capitalists can. Capitalists can also be cast as infidels in sheep's clothing or other rhetoric used.


The expression is "wolves in sheep's clothing".

Did I ever tell you about the sermon I heard in a union hall in eastern Kentucky? "The mineowners", thundered the preacher, "are going to burn in Hell!"

Amen, brother. :lol:

Seriously, unless you are preparing a "New Revelation", the religious grounds for class struggle are...meagre. No more than an extremely tiny proportion of professional godsuckers have ever gotten involved in class struggle...except on the side of the ruling class, of course.

If you're suggesting a "Gospel According to Marx" (or Bakunin), I would suggest the high improbability of success.

It would be like "making bricks without straw".


Martin Luther (founder of protestantism) on the bourgeoisie:
"[T]here is on earth no greater enemy of man, after the Devil, than a gripe-money and usurer, for he wants to be God over all men... Usury is a great, huge monster, like a werewolf... And since we break on the wheel and behead highwaymen, murderers, and housebreakers, how much more ought we to break on the wheel and kill...hunt down, curse, and behead all usurers!"

And people think I'm "intolerant". :lol:

Unfortunately, I don't really think he was talking about the "bourgeoisie" there. In his time, only Jews were legally permitted to loan money at interest (usury). I suspect he was, in fact, talking about Jews without using the name. He did write at least one explicitly anti-semitic pamphlet full of venomous rhetoric...so it would be "in character".

Luther was, in fact, a major turd!

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.vze.com)
A site about communist ideas

[Cobber]

Community, Communion and Communism - the beginning is the same but the ending is different. We all have a belief that the world can and should be a better place for all, we all see different ways and means of achieving this.

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

I am a christian. I don't see how socialism/communsim is against religion in anyway. If anything right thinking political systems would be against religion.

[redstar2000]

I am a Christian. I don't see how socialism/communism is against religion in anyway. If anything, right-thinking political systems would be against religion.

Well, the entire history of religion refutes your position!

In addition, your statement overlooks the fundamental parallel between religious thinking ("submission to the commands of the Lord") and right-wing thinking ("submission to the commands of the Leader").

Obedience to tyrants is "obedience to God".

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Se7en]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2004, 08:41 PM
Well, the entire history of religion refutes your position!

In addition, your statement overlooks the fundamental parallel between religious thinking ("submission to the commands of the Lord") and right-wing thinking ("submission to the commands of the Leader").

Obedience to tyrants is "obedience to God".

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas
Perhaps you should be more specific...the entire history of organized religion would be more appropriate i think.

now redstar, i tend to agree with the vast majority of things that you say around here, but i feel as though you're a little harsh on the 'religious.'

personally, i really don't know how to define myself...in most regards I'm a Deist and this is my definition of 'god': the cosmic intelligence; the original causality of the universe - impersonal, impartial, and infinite. does that necessarily make me 'religious' or some sort of counter-revolutionary? i have minimal interest in any sort of afterlife and try to maintain focus on the here and now - physical reality. i don't believe the 'Lord' commands me to do anything, and if he has i missed the call. i have just analysed our (humanity's) situation and have come to the conclusion that a form of libertarian-leftism is the most likely ideology to create a fair, just, and equal world...all things i believe anyone's 'Lord' would be in favor of. so i guess what i'm asking is if my belief in a higher intelligence negates my claim as being a marx-influenced leftist, even though i believe that the natural laws govern our universe and that divine intervention has not been present since creation (this is not a reference to biblical creationism)?

as an aside, i have always found this sort of humorous:
the Left - struggling for freedom, justice, and equality but overwhelmingly antheistic/agnostic.
the Right - struggling for money, power, and bigotry but overwhelmingly religous.

[BuyOurEverything]

I'm still baffled at how many people don't see the obvious connection between relgion and blind obedience. Religion is intrinsically blind faith and obedience. Blind faith in an irrational concept and blind obedience to whatever 'it' tells you, or told someone else a couple thousand years ago. If you look objectively at history, you will find that redstar is dead on. Religion is always a tool of the ruling class to control the working class.

Deism is just as baffling as other religions. People seem to realize that 'organized' religion is manipulative bullshit and almost reject it, yet they still hold on to its central belief, that a god exists! Why?

I keep hearing that Christians preach 'love and caring' towards all people and that this is somehow compatible with leftism. This misses the entire point! Leftism isn't about 'being nice' to the oppressed so you can go to heaven, it's about the oppressed taking control of their own lives.

[Weidt]

Despite the fact Karl Marx wrote in opposition to religion, he did not call for the forced abolition of religion. Marx recognized the role of religion and believed socialist conditions would weaken that role and thus religion would "wither away" similiar to the State. Already religion has been transformed, and people are seeking alternatives to the usual monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam).

You can't force a racist to be an anti-racist. Social conditions decided play a big part, and socialism creates the conditions for change and that is what must be kept in mind.

[SittingBull47]

Originally posted by Jesus [email protected] 18 2004, 10:09 PM
personally I see absolutely no reason why people cannot practice their faith in a socialistic society
as long as there is separation of church and state it should be fine

agreed. Organized religion can turn this country into a theocracy (and we know how well that works), but personal religion is pure.

[sh0cker]

Originally posted by Jesus [email protected] 18 2004, 10:09 PM
personally I see absolutely no reason why people cannot practice their faith in a socialistic society
as long as there is separation of church and state it should be fine
but many hardliners will just refer to communist revolutionaries and Marx to say what should be done with religion, it is not personally my view to oust religion in the name of government, i am an atheist, but it is even worse to remove religion and implement in its place a religious stature of government like those of Stalin and Mao
Maybe it is. But socialism does not go along with religion. That is a fact.
Specially, now-a-days when racials are more and more, when disputes among religions are very big. It can't work. To success in real socialism ALL people supose to be equal, and they are not if they believe in different religions. And to achieve real atheism between people there is need of one or two century communist country.. Because you can't achieve communism very easy, neither anything else.. But defenetly, you can't go along with now a days disputes make multiethnical socialst country allowing religion. I mean you can, but it can't work!

[redstar2000]

As an aside, I have always found this sort of humorous:
the Left - struggling for freedom, justice, and equality but overwhelmingly antheistic/agnostic.
the Right - struggling for money, power, and bigotry but overwhelmingly religious.

I don't see the humor; the dichotomy you describe seems to me to be exactly what you'd expect.

What is religion about, once you scrape off the humanitarian cosmetics, besides "money, power, and bigotry"?

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[El Che]

Redstar2000

Religion is an instrument of class rule but, in the form of personal conviction (i.e philosophical outlook, though it is a bastardization of the term to call religion philosophy), it can also be a class neutral entity. That is, not social.

[Agent provocateur]

http://www.universityofthepoor.org/schools/artists/images/guerillachrist.jpg


"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own."

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."

-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.

"The clergy...believe that any portion of power confided to me [as President] will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion." --Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 1800. ME 10:173

http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1650.htm

Excerpt from Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America by Dr. Walter Lafeber

Internal Alternative: Bases for Christ and Other Revolutionaries

External changes in the Central American region were accompanied by an internal transformation. The Roman Catholic Church, whose main mission in Central America for centuries had been to comfort the rich, bless the military and christianize (but not disturb) the peasants, dramatically became an engine for revolution. Not since the sixteenth century had the Church made such a massive effort to change the lives of so many people.

The beginnings of the transformation went back to at least 1891 when Pope Leo XIII's encyclical, Rerum Novarum, officially stated the Church's position that capitalism as well as socialism could dangerously distort social and religious values. For the next half-century, however, priests in Latin America devoted their time to fighting socialism (as in post-1959 Cuba), not capitalism. A small breakthrough did occur in Chile, where the Church (trying to find an alternative to Castroism), worked with the Christian Democrat party to put Eduardo Frei into power in 1964. Frei's success and the onrush of Alliance for Progress funds raised hopes for a moderate reform movement that might provide a model for the continent. These hopes were dashed by 1968. Both Frei and the Alliance failed, especially in the critical area of land reform. Salvador Allende replaced Frei; the alliance gave way to Nixon-Kissinger militarization [CIA-backed Pinochet coup]. And the Church began a fundamental reexamination of its role in a hemisphere where Castro had succeeded and Kennedy [i.e. Alliance for Progress] had failed.

The reexamination had begun with Pope John XXIII's extraordinary encyclicals of 1961 and 1963 that stressed the need to honor human rights and create decent standards of living for all peoples. Otherwise, Pope John warned, revolutions were probable. He then opened Vatican Council II (1963-65) that studied anew the relationship between the church and the world. The Church defined its members as a "Pilgrim People of God," that is, a changing people making their way through changing historical circumstances. The Church thus became concerned about development, and specifically how social science could help explain the changes that wracked such areas as Latin America. This in turn opened the clergy to ideas about "dependency" and the effect dependency had on the "Pilgrim People."

The impact of the debate on Latin American churches was profound. Not only had the Church failed politically by opposing Castro and supporting Frei. Membership and attendance had dropped steadily, and recruits for the clergy grew scarce. The working class and peasants, who had venerated priests, refused to defer to them. The gap between the poor and the rich also separated the poor and the priests. Concern in the hierarchy heightened until Pope Paul VI decided to speak personally to the Second General Conference of Latin American Bishops held at Medellيn, Colombia, in 1968. The Medellيn conference helped trigger the religious revolution that swept the Church into Central America's secular revolutions, and also proved crucial in formalizing liberation theology.

Pope Paul condemned violence as non-Christian, but the bishops turned his view around to argue for the existence of different kinds of violence. One of the worst and most prevalent, they concluded, was "institutionalized violence." The phrase (perhaps the most famous to come out of the meeting) referred to the social and structural conditions of poverty that starved the poor. This approach shifted the problem of sin from individuals to societies. Attention switched from personal conversion to social change, a change that could end "institutionalized violence." The Church thus focused on the poor, not the rich.

At this point in the argument, several other terms appeared that would haunt oligarchs during the seventies. Through a process of consciousness raising, or conscientizaciَn, the poor themselves were to change their conditions. The idea of the masses becoming catalyst for their own freedom became known as "liberation theology." During the late sixties, as the rhetoric of the Alliance [for Progress] became hollow, Medellيn's documents placed a premium on acts: "It has not ceased to be the hour of speech," one document entitled "Justice" stated, "but it has come to be, with an even more dramatic urgency, the hour for action." Action was to reshape entire societies. To understand how that could be accomplished the bishops returned to dependency theory ---- the view that international capitalism had through a long process exploited Latin America and institutionalized poverty by making the continent dependent on foreign-controlled trade and investment.

The consensus view was captured by Marcos McGrath, Archbishop of Panama Mcgrath belonged to the moderate group at Medellيn, but shortly after the conference he stood in the forefront of Panama's fight to gain control of the Canal, and he also aligned himself with Central American revolutionaries. In 1973, as these struggles intensified, McGrath explained his position in the influential journal, Foreign Affairs:

"The liberal capitalist system and the temptation of the Marxist system appear as the only alternatives in our continent for the transformation of economic structures. Both these systems are affronts to the dignity of the human person. The first takes as a premise the primacy of capital, its power, and the discriminating use of capital in the pursuit of gain. The other, although ideologically it may pretend to be humanist, looks rather to collective man, and in practice converts itself into a totalitarian concentration of state power. It is our obligation to denounce this situation in which Latin America finds itself caught between these two options and remains dependent upon one or the other of the centers of power which control its economy."

Neither McGrath nor the other clergy knew where the third option might be. The Medellيn documents, however, agreed that a starting point for the search was to work with the poor to change the satus quo. That decision had special meaning for priests and especially nuns and laywomen who lived and worked with the poor. By the 1970 trouble stirred in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador, among other Latin American areas, but the revolutionaries seemed confined mostly to the bourgeois class. Conditions changed after the failure of the Alliance for Progress and the 1973 economic crisis. They also changed as priests and nuns began to work in villages to transform not just isolated individuals, but a system.

The Church, it turned out, was superbly structured for such activities. At the local level it established communidades de base, or base communities, in which the clergy worked with the peasants at a smaller and more informal level than the Church parish. In the base communities, all issues could be discussed --- political, human, doctrinal, and religious. The bases became a more radical counterpart of the black people's churches in the United States during the civil rights drive. The base communities, moreover, could be protected by the Church's top hierarchy that continued to have close relations with high government officials, and by Roman Catholic international organizations that channeled funds into, and provided publicity for, the grass-roots operation. The military-oligarchy complex could chop down political opponents, but the Church's voice continued to be heard.

El Salvador became the first testing, and killing, ground in Central America. Shortly after Medellيn, the Salvador Conference of Bishops split into conservative and liberal factions, but all, nevertheless, urged the government to divide some idle cotton and coffee plantations into small plots for campesinos. Oligarchs pronounced the bishops to be "Communist and Catholic leaders." Elderly Archbishop Luis Chavéz y Gonzلlez refused to back down. He sent a delegate to the nation's first congress called to debate agrarian reform. Right-wing vigilantes kidnapped the delegate; when later found he had been pumped full of drugs and was delirious. In January 1972 police arrested a parish priest who had been administering to peasants. The next day passersby found his body dismembered.

Repression deepened as revolution spread in the mid-seventies. Priests in the base communities lost heart when a moderate, Oscar Romero, became archbishop in 1977. But then a close Jesuit friend of Romero's Rutilio Grande, was murdered because of his work in the villages. Father Alfonso Navarro declared that Grande had been correct in believing that peasants, priests, and oligarchs were equal. Navarro and a fifteen-year-old boy who was in the priest's home were killed by right-wing groups armed with government rifles. One vigilante group, the White Warriors, threatened to kill the remaining forty-seven Jesuits in El Salvador. Pamphlets appeared: "Be a patriot! Kill a priest!" Once hesitant, Archbishop Romero became outspoken in condemning government and vigilante terrorism. The Church did not retreat. Priests continued to work with campesino groups. But the Church also publicly condemned the guerrillas' murder of the Salvadoran Foreign Minister who belonged to the dominant Fourteen Families.

Of most importance, many priests and nuns at the local level changed dramatically. They had begun the seventies ministering to the poor and obeying the instructions of their bishops. They soon learned that neither their commitment to the campesinos nor the principles of Medellيn could be carried out without political action. When peaceful attempts to obtain food, land, and other rights ended without change or in repression, the clerics moved to nonviolent opposition, then to supporting violence. A religious commitment to ameliorate poverty could end in a political, even an armed, commitment to oppose the government. The system that enveloped Central America seemed to leave no other alternative.

A different Church met in 1979 at Puebla, Mexico, for the Third Council of Latin American Bishops. At the local levels, priests and nuns were radicalized. But atop the hierarchy a new pope, John Paul II, appeared to declare that while the church had to be committed to the poor and to evangelization, it had to be committed only in the religious, not the political sense. Priests were to be involved in "community," not partisan causes. Unlike the 1968 conference, conservative lay experts and clerics controlled the agenda and the position papers. But the debate at Puebla occurred in a limited ideological area. The Church had experienced too much to return to the fifties. As one scholar observed, the bishops worked within an intellectual consensus in which no one sounded like a true Marxist on the one side, or like a Latin American dictator on the other. The bishops could not change events in the base communities. Regardless of how they feared the animal, Church leaders now rode a tiger.

The bishops therefore condemned both capitalism and Marxism, both "terrorist and guerrilla violence." They warned that Catholics must not confuse "gospel values with a particular ideology." (That phrase brought the most revealing quip of the conference from a Peruvian bishop: "Let him who is without ideology throw the first stone.") The Puebla group then reconfirmed the central tenets of Medellيn. Poverty had become worse among "our indians, peasants, women, marginal people of the city, and especially the women in these social sectors." The groups picked for attention were significant because they provided the support for revolutions in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. The conference denounced selfish multinational corporations that cared little about "the host country's welfare." It noted the "declining value of our raw materials in relation to the prices of the manufactured goods we buy."

The bishops explicitly condemned the "stages of growth" theory advanced by U.S. economists during the fifties and sixties: "Poverty is not a transitory state; but it is the product of economic, social, and political situations and structures." The key word was "structures," for it signalled the need to redesign the system and not wait for slow --- and often illusory ---transitions. The conference listed specific human rights and declared them to to be an "indispensable part" of the church's mission. But the Bishops went far beyond Jimmy Carter's political and civil rights; these were considered inadequate--- even a trap---because they provided restricted democracy, not a remedy for poverty. Conservative Catholic leaders might have prepared the conference agenda, but as one participant observed, "The visiting team managed a tie."

That judgement understated the meaning of Puebla for the more liberal and radical clergy. In Nicaragua, priests were instrumental in the revolution. At a critical moment they played the major role in transforming a narrow Marxist movement into a more moderate, broadbased, and powerful force. In El Salvador, Archbishop Romero became highly critical of government-supported vigilante groups and the atrocities committed by the military. One group of Jesuits led the first strike in history in a large sugar mill and worked closely with a peasant union that supplied soldiers and supplies for a guerrilla unit. As repression increased, Archbishop Romero found himself in a minority among the leaders of the church. He heard the voice of disapproval directly from Pope John Paul II in the Vatican. On his return to San Salvador, a right-wing political group murdered Romero while he said mass.

Later in 1980 the bodies of three nuns and a Catholic lay person, all U.S. citizens, were found in a shallow grave. At least three of the women had been sexually assaulted before being shot. With these atrocities, support for the revolution spread, even in the United States. One of the murderd women, Maryknoll Sister Ita Ford, said just before her death that "the Christian base communities are the greatest threat to military dictatorship throughout Latin America." One reporter Clifford Krauss, visited such a group in El Salvador's Chalatenango province---a rebel stronghold---in early 1982. He wrote that midway into the afternoon thirty-five guerrillas and peasants stopped working to read from the New Testament Gospels about the evil of egotism and selfishness. The lay minister then observed, "The word of god is for us to put into action, to develop our mission. God came to earth to liberate man. If we want to create a new society, we have to sacrifice, we have to suffer."

The best account of the Latin American Church in the seventies estimated the suffering of Roman Catholics who followed the Medellيn principles: 850 priests, nuns, and bishops were torured, murdered, expelled, or arrested between 1968 and the Puebla conference of 1979. In Guatemala, the reaction took several forms. Priests who worked with Indian communities were driven away or murdered. But by the early 1980s they confronted a different challenge. Fundamentalist Protestant sects spread through the country, preaching individual conversion, the glories of the military and political authority, the virtues of capitalism and the value of inequality.

One sect was the Christian Church of the Word, associated with Global Outreach of Eureka, California. That group helped Guatemalans rebuild after the 1976 earthquake. Among the sect's missionary conquests was General Efraيn Rيos Montt, who seized dictatorial power in 1982. His Church of the Word, not surprisingly, aligned itself with the Guatemalan military that defined priests and nuns as the enemy. Three priests were killed within a thirty-six month period in just one province --- an area in which rebel strength nevertheless grew. According to one Guatemalan army officer, General Rيos Montt's word for the Indians was simple: "If you are with us, we'll feed you, if not, we'll kill you." The Roman Catholic priests meanwhile warned that if the sects succeeded in spreading their doctrine of individualism, the village communities would be fragmented and the last hope of the Indians destroyed.

Little more than a decade after the Medellيn meeting, the Roman Catholic Church literally stood on the firing line in Central America. The transformation had been historic, the kind of history measured in a half-millenium, not just a decade or a century. The post-Medellيn years also turned out to be historic for the Central American nations: one fell to revolution, another was on the edge of doing so, and two others stumbled towards the edge. A guerrilla movement even appeared in Costa Rica. In the first four countries, the revolutions derived much power and direction from the priests and nuns who had not intended to become revolutionaries when they began searching for alternatives to the poverty and disease which enshrouded their work.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/039...9580416-2832043 (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393309649/qid=1062186263/sr=2-3/ref=sr_2_3/002-9580416-2832043)

[redstar2000]

The Roman Catholic Church, whose main mission in Central America for centuries had been to comfort the rich, bless the military and christianize (but not disturb) the peasants, dramatically became an engine for revolution.

It did not become "an engine for revolution". It attempted to become a parasite on the revolution...with the usual results.


The beginnings of the transformation went back to at least 1891 when Pope Leo XIII's encyclical, Rerum Novarum, officially stated the Church's position that capitalism as well as socialism could dangerously distort social and religious values.

That is, both capitalism and socialism undermine the power of the religious bureaucracy...but socialism is worse.


The reexamination had begun with Pope John XXIII's extraordinary encyclicals of 1961 and 1963 that stressed the need to honor human rights and create decent standards of living for all peoples.

"Decent standards of living for all peoples" is not the same as the abolition of wage slavery.


Membership and attendance had dropped steadily, and recruits for the clergy grew scarce. The working class and peasants, who had venerated priests, refused to defer to them.

Clearly an "ominous" trend for the godsuckers. Desperate situations demand desperate "solutions".


Pope Paul condemned violence as non-Christian...

And people were rolling on the floor, laughing their asses off.


The idea of the masses becoming catalyst for their own freedom became known as "liberation theology."

But what was the class content of this "liberation"?

Well, there was land reform and then there was...er...um...


The liberal capitalist system and the temptation of the Marxist system appear as the only alternatives in our continent for the transformation of economic structures. Both these systems are affronts to the dignity of the human person.

That is, they both "affront" the "dignity" of submission to the priest!


But the Church also publicly condemned the guerrillas' murder of the Salvadoran Foreign Minister who belonged to the dominant Fourteen Families.

What a surprise!


The bishops therefore condemned both capitalism and Marxism, both "terrorist and guerrilla violence."

Now think about this carefully: if you condemn those who have power and also those who are violently resisting that power, who are you in effect really supporting?


In Nicaragua, priests were instrumental in the revolution. At a critical moment they played the major role in transforming a narrow Marxist movement into a more moderate, broadbased, and powerful force.

Emphasis added; the "moderation" of the Sandinistas was the death sentence for their revolution...and led them to become just another corrupt Central American elite.


He wrote that midway into the afternoon thirty-five guerrillas and peasants stopped working to read from the New Testament Gospels about the evil of egotism and selfishness. The lay minister then observed, "The word of god is for us to put into action, to develop our mission. God came to earth to liberate man. If we want to create a new society, we have to sacrifice, we have to suffer."

And the rebels laid down their arms...and El Salvador today is just another wretched hellhole of exploitation and misery..."Thanks be to God".

"Liberation theology" was nothing but a counter-revolutionary fraud, period!

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[pandora]

Any time I hear an idea against the seperation of church and state I quiver. I can't stand it when any political leader uses the name "God" makes me sick. For one thing I'm Buddhist, and that means he [usually] doesn't speak for me.

Also the idea of "God" they are espousing has nothing to do with the mystic internal energy myself and other free thinkers believe in but an autocratic "male" figure whose religion authorizes the rape of this Mother Earth. A goddess we see everyday which we would do much better to worship, as it would heal this earth and stop our self-destruction.