[This followup was posted to alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic and a copy was sent to the cited author.]

In article <34D22C0>, says…

> A comment on the Pope’s recent visit to Cuba.

> Politics, the Pope and the Pauper: An Alternative View of the Papacy

>

> by Holger Henke

>

> With the pope criticising Cuba’s educational system and apparently

> trying to reverse Cuba’s political system it seems appropriate to shed

> an alternative light on the politics of the Roman Catholic Church, in

> general, and the Pope, in particular.

Indeed. And I wonder if Mr. Henke might know if Pope John XXIII ever found the need to do the same with respect to the Batista regime which subjected the Cuban people to one of the lowest standards of “living” on the face of the planet? If the present Pope’s treatment of Father Ernesto Cardenal and other leaders of the 1979 Nicaraguan revolution serves as any indication, my guess would have to be no. For, although neither Cuba nor Nicaragua have ever been socialist societies, the fact is that the lives of both it’s citizenries vastly improved following their respective revolutions. Furthermore, the only reason the Pope is (pretending) to give a damn about the Cuban people, is because he is, indirectly, being told to do so by U.S. business interests. Not to mention the less formally organised crime syndicates (i.e. the late Santos Trafficante and the late Mier Lansky). Consider that, in 1959, the Cuban people suffered from the second highest neonatal and infant death rates in the western hemisphere.* Yet, by the mid 1970’s a child born in Cuba had a better chance of living to enjoy its first birthday than a child born in the U.S. **

> It is not so much our concern here that some of the current Pope’s

> predecessors used to celebrate sumptuous feasts while the wails of pain

> of the tortured “infidels” resounded through the corridors of the

> Vatican. It is far more important that today, in 1998 A.D., the Roman

> Catholic Church’s exegesis and official policy still aim to muzzle the

> the world’s poor. The US security policy in the Western Hemisphere has

> in the past actively supported, if not even caused, this attitude.

Quoting from former Maryknoll priest Blase Bonpane’s book “Guerrillas of peace, Liberation theology and the Central American revolution”: “Fortunately, the Church today can no longer be trusted as a stabilising element for Central American (as well as Caribbean Basin) dictatorships. Yet, coexistence with repressive regimes had been a notable characteristic of the Church ever since the days of the Roman Emperor Constantine. This conformity of repression has fostered weak and often hypocritical postures in segments of the Church. As the institutional Church began to coexist with imperial power, it developed the following characteristics:

1. ‘Formalism’, a focus on worship with ritual correctness and the ex opere operato concept of the sacraments (all form and no substance) acting – in contrast to the ex opero operantis view of the subject acting. Such religious passivity can coexist nicely with repression, injustice, and fascism. In fact, the very leaders of such regimes are comfortable with worshipping in such a setting. Surely no dictator would oppose praise for God and country.” (“The sigh of the oppressed masses”, Karl Marx). “
2. ‘Legalism’, a legalistic emphasis on sin, where guilt is wholesaled, types and severity of sin are defined, and forgiveness is individually retailed. In a repressive regime it is opportune for the Church to remind the faithful of their guilt.
3. ‘Triumphalism’, absolute confidence in the perfection of one’s position. Triumphalism combines with stylised worship and guilt to complete the formula for nonaction which suits precisely the needs of a repressive regime.” (Or, in other words, “your lot in life has been pre-ordained by ‘God’. The fact that you live in poverty has nothing to do with, say, the Del Monte corporation which has stolen the rich land that (once) supported you and your family.”) Bonpane continues: ” In this framework, service to the poor becomes an individual response to a subjective case and not a systematic response to an objective condition. The State is considered a constant, and so is misery. Individual church people need not consciously select this repressive posture; longstanding tradition and training have crystallised it and given it legitimacy. Church leadership generally adopts the material values and viewpoints of the ruling-class in the repressive regime to which it conforms. Ritual participation and personal chastity become a definition of sanctity. In such a setting, neither clergy nor laity need be considered a threat.”*** Thank you Blase.

To be sure, the role – the willing role – of the Catholic Church is to promote conformity and docility. Conformity to the ways of the Church, and docility to protect the individual interests of individual capitalists as well as capitalism in general. Thus, in many significant ways, Catholicism and religion in general serves as a virtual national security apparatus for the world’s ruling-class. <End>

* Haiti was “#1”.

** Cuba ranked 17th – in the world. The U.S. ranked 20th.

*** Guerrillas of Peace, 1985. Published by South End Press, Boston, Mass.

Persevere, Guy