anthony sed...

<<<Being anti-"liberation" theology is one of the more positive things to recommend Ratzinger - Marxism disguised as Christianity is still the same old evil which led hundreds of millions to an early grave and impoverished billions. >>>

uhmmm sorry? i thot it wuz xtianity that wuz doin all that (long b4 stalin or hitler etc tho they certainly did ther cher)...the fukin popes & xtian monarchs have ben starvin & merderin the bludy masses 4 1700yrz...give or take a few yrz here & ther...az i read marx (or romero) i find they hav far more in common with the gospels than eny pope of the past 26yrz...or xtianity @all since bekomin an imperial power

"Liberation Theology" was essentially warmed-over marxism in a clerical collar. One does not need to be a marxist to tell the oligarchs of a poor country that what they are doing is unjust, un-Christian, and hurts the poor. One needs to be not a marxist to be able to offer cures which aren't worse than the disease.

Evangelical movements in Latin America are mostly politically quietist; Latin American fascists and economic oligarchs tend to be cafeteria-Catholics, picking and choosing those bits of Catholicism which appear to support them while ignoring the rest. They're the Establishment, they don't need support from weird religious sects.

One significant appeal of the evangelical churches is that being more strict in practice regarding personal morality (no drinking, smoking, no sex outside marriage), members of the evangelical churches end up wealthier than when they started. (See "The Reformation of Machismo")

I don't know much about Archbishop Romero, but my limited reading indicates that he *rejected* so-called "liberation thoeology", while at the same time calling for peace in El Salvardor's civil war and an end to the violent repression of the poor by El Salvador's oligarchy. According to what I've read, Romero would not have been silenced by Ratzinger when Ratzinger was telling the "liberation theologians" that they were spreading grave errors, because Romero was not a marxist.

Adso, you are not the first one to post the thoughts of Benedict's possibly soon death in gleeful tones.

If there is one thing I like about Ratzinger, it's that he's real old and may not be around long. I guess i should give the old guy a chance, but everything I've heard about him is a bummer, to say the least.

Why do I hope? Everytime I do I just get dissappointed :(