E
Elizabeth2
Guest
I’ve been following the posts and out of interest took a look what George Weigel says about Archbishop Romero and El Salvador in his book: “Witness to Hope”. There’s not a lot but he does mention an address that Pope John Paul gave in Puebla in 1979.
“John Paul’s 1979 Puebla address should have made clear what he thought was the right path to a truly Christian liberation of Central America: an engaged Church that was not a partisan Church; a Church that tried to build communio out of fragmented and violent Central American societies; a Church that refused to identify the Gospel with the program of any political party; a Church that did not substitute worldly utopias for the Kingdom of God; and, as always, a Church that vigorously defended religious freedom against persecutors of any ideological stripe. That was emphatically not the kind of unified, engaged Church to be found in Central America in the early 1980s.
El Salvador had been caught in a bloody civil war between military dominated government and the guerrillas of the Faribundo Marti National Liberation Front since the late 1970s”.
He goes on to say that the government and Salvadoran military committed gross human rights violations in their attempt to crush the Marxist inspired guerrilla movement, who in turn were committed to the violent overthrow of the government and who also committed human rights violations. He also mentions that Archbishop Romero was deeply influenced by Jesuit liberation theologians Jon Sobrino and Ignacio Ellacuria.
I’ve read several biographies of Pope John Paul and many of his writings, and although he often disagreed with his superiors about the way to deal with communism he never disobeyed them or denounced them, and he certainly saw human rights abuses on a grand scale in Poland, from the Nazis and the Communists. He believed in the unity of the Church and he believed in prayer. I’ve heard before that Archbishop Romero felt that he was treated unfairly in Rome and not listened to. But I think the Pope was looking at the long term, that if the Church was unified and worked together and prayed together the problems would be solved. He was certainly right about Poland. That he failed Archbishop Romero was not his fault, even Popes have their human limitations. He could only do so much. I doubt very much that he blamed himself for what happened to Archbishop Romero. Those were forces beyond his control.
“John Paul’s 1979 Puebla address should have made clear what he thought was the right path to a truly Christian liberation of Central America: an engaged Church that was not a partisan Church; a Church that tried to build communio out of fragmented and violent Central American societies; a Church that refused to identify the Gospel with the program of any political party; a Church that did not substitute worldly utopias for the Kingdom of God; and, as always, a Church that vigorously defended religious freedom against persecutors of any ideological stripe. That was emphatically not the kind of unified, engaged Church to be found in Central America in the early 1980s.
El Salvador had been caught in a bloody civil war between military dominated government and the guerrillas of the Faribundo Marti National Liberation Front since the late 1970s”.
He goes on to say that the government and Salvadoran military committed gross human rights violations in their attempt to crush the Marxist inspired guerrilla movement, who in turn were committed to the violent overthrow of the government and who also committed human rights violations. He also mentions that Archbishop Romero was deeply influenced by Jesuit liberation theologians Jon Sobrino and Ignacio Ellacuria.
I’ve read several biographies of Pope John Paul and many of his writings, and although he often disagreed with his superiors about the way to deal with communism he never disobeyed them or denounced them, and he certainly saw human rights abuses on a grand scale in Poland, from the Nazis and the Communists. He believed in the unity of the Church and he believed in prayer. I’ve heard before that Archbishop Romero felt that he was treated unfairly in Rome and not listened to. But I think the Pope was looking at the long term, that if the Church was unified and worked together and prayed together the problems would be solved. He was certainly right about Poland. That he failed Archbishop Romero was not his fault, even Popes have their human limitations. He could only do so much. I doubt very much that he blamed himself for what happened to Archbishop Romero. Those were forces beyond his control.