COMMENTARY
Leonardo Boff, a former priest, a Brazilian writer and loud supporter of Liberation Theology. One of the many quotes from Boff, in the new TFP book: Liberation Theology: How Marxism Infiltrated the Catholic Church by Julio Loredo de Izcue
“What we propose is not to put theology into Marxism, but to put Marxism—historical materialism—into theology.” Photo by Deputado Estadual Marcelo Freixo PSOL-RJ
In this historical/conjectural perspective, certain modifications in themselves alien to this process could be seen as steps in a transition between the pre-Conciliar status quo and the extreme opposite indicated here.
Bishop Edson Damian, supporter of tribalism, with tucum’s ring at left hand, the day of his episcopal ordination.
An example of this would be the trend toward a collegiality viewed as (1) the only acceptable means for exercising power inside the Church and (2) an expression of a “demonarchization” of ecclesiastical authority, whose different levels would become ipso facto much more conditioned by the levels immediately below them.
The late Bishop Pedro Casaldáliga of São Félix do Araguaia, Brazil, was an outspoken supporter of the now-defunct Sandinista government in Nicaragua, who considered the return to the tribal stage as the next logical step beyond Communism. Click for the new TFP book
Photo by Prelazia São Felix do Araguaia
All this taken to its last consequences could tend toward the stable and universal establishment of popular suffrage inside the Church — not that on occasion she did not use it to fill certain hierarchical offices. In keeping with the dream of the advocates of tribalism, it could eventually result in an indefensible dependence of the whole hierarchy on the laity, as supposedly the only voice of God. Of God? Or of some witch doctor, whether a Pentecostalist guru or a sorcerer, who feeds his “mystical revelation” to a tribalistic laity? Would it be by obeying this laity that the Church hierarchy would fulfill its mission of obeying the will of God Himself?
Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Revolution and Counter-Revolution (York, Penn.: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, 1993), Part III, Chapter III, pg.163.
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