Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Correcting my error on my article on Pope Francis

On my BlogHer article last week, I erroneously misquoted (“a champion of liberation theology”) Mark Rice-Oxley‘s statement, which in fact said “A champion of those who rejected liberation theology.”

Indeed, as Mary O’Grady explained yesterday,

Father Bergoglio believed that Marxism (and the related “liberation theology”) was antithetical to Christianity and refused to embrace it in the 1970s

I did more research on Pope Francis, and found the he rejected Marxist liberation theology while embracing the poor. Then-Archbishop Bergoglio used to take public transportation to Buenos Aires’s worst slums (and police no-go zones), and officiated Mass,

sponsored marathons and carpentry classes, consoled single mothers and washed the feet of recovering drug addicts

From the pulpit at the cathedral he sternly criticized the Kirchners and denounced the country’s extreme poverty.

I also asked Carlos Eire, T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of History & Religious Studies at Yale University, on the new Pope. His reply,

The way I see it today — which may change as we get more information — his concern for the poor does not at all make him a liberationist socialist. He seems to be taking the same approach as John Paul II and Benedict XVI, who dished out condemnations of the callousness and materialism of Western culture while at the same time condemning the evils of communism.

Their focus is materialism, an attitude that runs against Christian ethics, not capitalism per se. (Liberationists tend to see capitalism itself as evil, and communism as the utopian cure).

Check out also Ed Morrissey’s interview of Kishore Jayalaban of the Acton Institute, if you didn’t watch it in yesterday’s Carnival,

I apologize to all my readers (and to the Pope, too).

In more papal news, his motto will now be

“miserando atque eligendo” (Latin for “because he saw him through the eyes of mercy and chose him”), a phrase taken from a homily by the Venerable Bede, an 8th century English monk, describing Jesus’ call to Matthew to follow him.

Very fitting.

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Prayer vigils for government programs?

Religion at the service of government propaganda:

Robert Pear reports in yesterday’s New York Times on the Obama administration’s planned public relations offensive on behalf of Obamacare:

On Wednesday, White House officials summoned dozens of leaders of nonprofit organizations that strongly back the health law to help them coordinate plans for a prayer vigil, press conferences and other events outside the court when justices hear arguments for three days beginning March 26.

Hmmm. A prayer vigil for Obamacare. This seems to me something of a category error with seeds of comedy buried in it. Something tells me these folks lack a finely honed sense of irony, or maybe even a deft political touch.

This is the same administration who has the President call an activist set on overturning a religious institution’s policy.

George Orwell lacked imagination.

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Secular Theocracy

David Theroux of the Independent Institute has an excellent essay on Secular Theocracy
The Foundations and Folly of Modern Tyranny (emphasis added)

We live in an increasingly secularized world of massive and pervasive nation states in which traditional religion, especially Christianity, is ruled unwelcome and even a real danger on the basis of a purported history of intolerance and “religious violence.” This is found in most all “public” domains, including the institutions of education, business, government, welfare, transportation, parks and recreation, science, art, foreign affairs, economics, entertainment, and the media. A secularized public square policed by government is viewed as providing a neutral, rational, free, and safe domain that keeps the “irrational” forces of religion from creating conflict and darkness. And we are told that real progress requires expanding this domain by pushing religion ever backward into remote corners of society where it has little or no influence. In short, modern America has become a secular theocracy with a civic religion of national politics (nationalism) occupying the public realm in which government has replaced God.

Read Part 1 here.

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TIME’s Paris bureau chief: Charlie Hebdo asked for it

Yesterday in Paris, Charlie Hebdo got firebombed out of existence for daring to publish a special Charia Hebdo issue.

TIME Mag took the side of the terrorists:
The tab title is “Offices of Satirical French Newspaper Charlie Hebdo Get Firebombed.” Innocuous enough. If you look at the official article title, Firebombed French Paper Is No Free Speech Martyr; it goes on to state,

So, yeah, the violence inflicted upon Charlie Hebdo was outrageous, unacceptable, condemnable, and illegal. But apart from the “illegal” bit, Charlie Hebdo’s current edition is all of the above, too.

However the article’s original title, i.e., how the author posted it initially, is “Firebombed French paper a victim of islamists, or of its own obnoxious Islamophobia?”

You can see it on the URL:

http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/11/02/firebombed-french-paper-a-victim-of-islamistsor-its-own-obnoxious-islamophobia/#ixzz1ceST2k4g

Had TIME kept that title it would have saved having to read the rest.

Now, you’ll say, “another op-ed by a freelancer or a guest.”

Not so.

Bruce Cromley, the author of the piece, is described by TIME as,

Bruce Crumley, Paris bureau chief for TIME, helps shape TIME’s coverage of France and Europe in areas including business, politics, religion, terrorism and sports.

And,

He has been particularly active in TIME’s coverage of al Qaeda-sponsored terrorism since September 11, 2001-an area he has followed closely since 1994, when France became the favored European target of Islamist extremists.

Helping “shape TIME’s coverage” with full sympathy for the arsonists.

This is what Charlie Hebdo’s offices look like now,

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