How did you receive the news of the renunciation of Benedict XVI?

At first, I felt a deep sadness for him because from what I knew, especially of his shyness, I could imagine the effort he had to have made to greet the people, to embrace them, kiss the children. I was convinced that one day he would take advantage of a sensible reason, such as the physical limitations of his health and his declining mental vigor, to resign. Even though he appeared to be an authoritarian pope, he was not attached to the position of pope.

I felt relieved because the Church is without a spiritual leader who elicits hope and purpose. We need a different type of pope; more a pastor than a professor, not a man of the Church-institution, but a representative of Jesus of Nazareth who said: “and he that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out”, (Gospel of John, 6,37), be he a homosexual, a prostitute, or a transsexual.

What is the personality of Benedict XVI like, since you had a certain friendship with him?

I met Benedict XVI in my doctoral years in Germany, between 1965-1970. I attended many of his conferences, but was never a student of his. He read my doctoral thesis: “The Place of the Church in the Secularized World” and liked it very much, to the point of looking for an editor to publish it, a 500 page work.

After that, we worked on the international magazine, Concilium, whose directors met every year, somewhere in Europe, during the week of Pentecost. I edited the Portuguese edition. This was between 1975-1980. While the others took a nap, he and I would take a walk and talk about topics of theology, faith in Latin America, especially about Saint Bonaventure and Saint Augustine, of whom he is a specialist and to whom even now I often turn.

Then, in 1984, we found ourselves in a moment of conflict: he as my judge in the process the former Holy Office undertook against my book, Church: Charisma and Power, (Iglesia: carisma y poder, Vozes 1981; Sal Terrae 1982). Then I had to sit in the chair where, among others, Galileo and Giordano Bruno had sat.

He subjected me to a time of “obliging silence”, I had to leave teaching and was prohibited from publishing anything. After that we never saw each other again. As a person he is refined, timid and extremely intelligent.

As a Cardinal he was your Inquisitor, after having been your friend: how did you see that situation?

When he was named President of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the former Inquisition) I was extremely happy. I thought: we will finally have a theologian as the head of an institution with the worst imaginable reputation. Fifteen days later, he thanked me, and said: “I believe you have several issues pending here in the Congregation, that we will have to solve.”

And almost every time I published a book, requests for clarification would come from Rome, that I did not answer promptly. But nothing ever comes from Rome that has not previously been sent to Rome. Here in Brazil there were conservative bishops who persecuted theologians of liberation and sent complaints of their theological ignorance to Rome, under the pretext that my theology could harm the faithful.

Then I realized that he had already been contaminated by the Roman virus that causes all those working in the Vatican to quickly find a thousand reasons to be moderate or even conservative. And then, more than surprised, I was truly disappointed.

How did you receive the punishment of “obliging silence”?

After the examination and the reading of my written defense, that is now an appendix to the new edition of Church: Charisma and Power, (Record 2008), there were 13 Cardinals who opined and decided. Ratzinger is only one of them. Then they submitted their decision to the pope.

I believe his was a dissenting vote from the majority, because he knew other books of mine on theology, translated into German, and had told me that he liked them. Once, in front of the pope in an audience in Rome, he even referred to them favorably.

I received the “obliging silence” as any Christian linked to the Church would: I accepted it with calm. I remember saying: “It is better to walk with the Church than alone with my theology”. It was relatively easy for me to accept the imposition, because the Presidency of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil, (CNBB, in Portuguese) had always supported me, and two of its Cardinals, don Aloysio Lorscheider and don Paulo Evaristo Arns, accompanied me to Rome and participated, in a second part, in the dialogue between Cardinal Ratzinger and me.

There we were three against one. Sometimes we put Cardinal Ratzinger on the spot because the Brazilian Cardinals assured him that the criticisms against the theology of liberation Ratzinger had made in a recently published document were just an echo of its detractors and not an objective analysis.

They asked for a new, positive, document. He accepted the idea and actually did it two years later. They also asked, to me and to my brother Clodovis who was in Rome, that we write a scheme and give it in the Sacred Congregation. In one day and one night, we wrote it and turned it in.

You left the Church in 1992. Do you have any bitterness over the whole Vatican affair?

I never left the Church. I left a function within the Church, the priesthood. I continued as a theologian and professor of theology in several chairs, here in Brazil and abroad. Whoever understands the logic of a closed and authoritarian system, not very open to the world, that does not cultivate dialogue and exchange (living systems are alive to the degree that they open up and inter-exchange), knows that someone like me, who does not plainly get in line with that system, will be watched over controlled and eventually punished.

It is similar to the security systems that we have known in Latin America under the military regimes of Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. Within this logic, the then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, (former Holy Office, former Inquisition), Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger condemned, silenced, removed from their teaching chairs or transferred out more than one hundred theologians.

There were two of us from Brazil: theologian Ivone Gebara and myself. Because I understand and lament the above mentioned logic, I know they are condemned to do what they do with complete good will. But, as Blaise Pascal said: “Evil is never so perfectly done as when it is done with good will”.

Of course this good will is not good, because it creates victims. I have no rancor or resentment because I had compassion and mercy for all those who moved within this logic, that, as I see it, is many light years away from the witness of Jesus of Nazareth. Moreover, it is something of the last century, already past. And I will not go back to it.

How do you evaluate the pontificate of Benedict XVI? Has he known how to handle the internal and external crises of the Church?

Benedict XVI was an eminent theologian, but a frustrated pope. He did not have the charisma to direct and animate the community, as John Paul II had. Unfortunately, he will be stigmatized in a reductionist manner, as the papacy when pedophiles increased, homosexuals were not recognized, and women were humiliated, as in the United States, where the right of citizenship was denied to a theologian for reasons of gender.

And he will also go down in history as the pope who strongly criticized the theology of liberation, interpreted it in the light of its detractors, and not through the pastoral and liberating witness of bishops, priests, men and women religious and lay people who made a serious option for the poor against poverty and in favor of life and liberty.

For this just and noble reason they were misinterpreted by their brethren in the faith and many of them were detained, tortured and murdered by organs of national security of the military state. Among them we find bishops such as Bishop Enrique Angelelli from Argentina and Archbishop Oscar Romero from El Salvador.

Archbishop Dom Helder Camara was the martyr they did not kill. But the Church is much larger than her popes, and she will continue, between shadow and light, offering a service to humanity, in order to keep alive the memory of Jesus and to offer a possible source of meaning to life beyond this life.

Now we know from the Vatileaks that the Roman curia are deeply involved in a ferocious fight for power, especially between the wing of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the present Secretary of State, and the former Secretary, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, already emeritus.

Both have their allies. Bertone, taking advantage of the limitations of the pope, has practically built a parallel government. The scandals revealed by the leaked secret documents from the desk of the Pope and the Vatican Bank, used by Italian millionaires, some from the mafia, to launder money and send it abroad, very much affected the Pope.

And more and more he became isolated. His resignation is due to the limits of age and illness, but made even graver by these internal crises that weakened him and that he did not know how to, or could not, stop in time.

Pope John XXIII said that the Church cannot be a museum, but must be a house with open doors and windows. Do you believe Benedict XVI attempted to transform the Church back into something like a museum?

Benedict XVI is nostalgic for the medieval synthesis. He reintroduced the mass in Latin, chose vestments of renaissance popes and of other times in the past, kept palatial habits and ceremonials, to those who sought communion he would first offer the papal ring to be kissed, and only after that would he offer the sacrament, something that was no longer done.

His vision was restorative and he is nostalgic for a synthesis between culture and faith that visibly exists in his native Bavaria, something he explicitly noted. In the University where he studied, where I also studied, in Munich, when he saw a poster announcing me as a guest lecturer to deliver a conference on the new frontiers of the theology of liberation, he asked the dean to postpone it sine die.

His theological idols are Saint Augustine and Saint Bonaventure, who always had a great distrust of everything coming from the world, contaminated by sin and in need of rescue by the Church. It is one of the facts that explain his opposition to modernity, which he sees through the lens of secularism and relativism, and as being beyond the realm of the Christian influence that helped to form Europe.

In your opinion, will the Church change her doctrine on the use of condoms and sexual morals in general?

The Church must maintain her convictions, those she believes cannot be abandoned, such as opposition to abortion and the manipulation of life. But she must renounce the status of exclusivity, as if she were the only carrier of truth. She must understand herself within the democratic space, where her voice is heard alongside other voices. And she must respect those voices and even be ready to learn from them.

And when her point of view is defeated, she should offer her experience and tradition to improve what can be improved and to make easier the weight of existence. In fact, she has to be more human, more humble and to have more faith, in the sense of not having fear.

The opposite of faith is not atheism, but fear. Fear paralyzes and isolates the people from each other. The Church must walk together with humanity, because humanity is the true People of God. She reflects this more consciously, but she does not exclusively own this reality.

What should the future Pope do to avoid the emigration of many of the faithful to other Churches, especially to the Pentecostals?

Benedict slowed down the renewal of the Church that was encouraged by Vatican Council II. He did not accept divisions in the Church, so he preferred a lineal point of view, strengthening tradition. It so happens that the tradition of the XVIII and XIX centuries opposed all the modern achievements of democracy, such as religious liberty and other rights.

Benedict has tried to reduce the Church to a fortress to defend herself from modernity, and he saw Vatican II as a Trojan Horse through which it could enter. He did not deny Vatican II, but he interpreted it in the light of Vatican Council I, that is centered on the figure of the Pope with monarchical power, absolute and infallible.

This produced a great centralization in Rome, under the direction of the Pope, who, poor pope!, has to guide a Catholic population the size of China. This has brought a great conflict to the Church and even to whole episcopacies, such as the German and the French.

It has contaminated with suspicion the atmosphere of the internal Church, resulting in the creation of groups, the emigration of many Catholics of the community and accusations of relativism and of parallel teaching. In other words, in the Church there no longer lived a frank and open fraternity, a spiritual home common to all.

The profile of the new Pope, in my opinion, should not be that of a man of power nor of a man of the institution. Where there is power love does not exist and mercy disappears. The new Pope should be a pastor, closer to the faithful and to all human beings, independently of their moral, political and ethnic situations.

He should have as a motto the words of Jesus mentioned above: “and he who cometh to me I will in no wise cast out”, because Jesus of Nazareth welcomed everyone, from a prostitute such as Magdalen to a theologian such as Nicodemus.

He should not be a man of the West that is seen now as an accident of history, but a man of the vast globalized world who feels a passion for the poor and for the suffering cry of the Earth, devastated by consumerist greed.

He should not be a man of certitudes but someone who encourages all to find better paths. He would logically be guided by the Gospels but without a proselytizing spirit, with the consciousness that the Spirit always arrives before the missionary and that the Word illuminates all men and women who come to this world, as Gospel writer Saint John says.

He should be a profoundly spiritual man open to all religious paths, that together they keep alive the sacred flame that is in every person: the mysterious presence of God. And, finally, he should be a man of profound goodness, in the style of Pope John XXIII, with tenderness for the humble and a prophetic firmness to denounce those who promote exploitation and who make of violence and war instruments to dominate others and the world.

May a man of this type prevail in the negotiations of the cardinals in the conclave and over the tensions of the tendencies. How the Holy Spirit works there is a mystery. He has no other voice, or other head, than those of the Cardinals. May the Spirit not fail them.

Recognizing the pressing need for social justice, Liberation Theology was minted by Pope John XXIII to challenge the Church to defend the oppressed and the poor. Since its emergence, Liberation Theology has consistently mixed politics and religion.

Its adherents have often been active in labor unions and left-wing political parties. Followers of Liberation Theology take inspiration from fallen martyrs like Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador and Dorothy Mae Stang, an American-born nun who was murdered by ranching interests in Brazil.

Romero, an outspoken voice for social change, was gunned down in 1980 by a right wing death squad during a Mass in the chapel of San Salvador's Divine Providence hospital. Stang, an advocate of the poor and the environment, was shot to death in the Brazilian Amazon in February 2005; her assailants were later linked to a powerful local landlord.

Joseph Ratzinger: Doctrinal Czar

During the 1980s and 1990s Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, acted as John Paul II's doctrinal czar. At the time, John Paul was in the midst of a fierce battle to silence prominent Church liberals. "This conception of Christ as a political figure, a revolutionary, as the subversive of Nazareth," the Pontiff once said, "does not tally with the church's catechism."

In 1983 the Pope wagged his finger at Sandinista government minister and Nicaraguan priest, Ernesto Cardenal on a trip to Managua, warning the latter to "straighten out the situation in your church." Cardenal was one of the most prominent Liberation Theologians of the Sandinista era.

Originally a liberal reformer, Ratzinger changed his tune once he became an integrant in the Vatican hierarchy. As prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's doctrinal watchdog agency, Cardinal Ratzinger warned against the temptation to view Christianity in an exclusively political light. Liberation Theology, he once said, was dangerous as it fused "the Bible's view of history with Marxist dialectics."

Calling Liberation Theology a "singular heresy," Ratzinger went on the offensive. He blasted the new movement as a "fundamental threat" to the church and prohibited some of its leading proponents from speaking publicly. In an effort to clean house, Ratzinger even summoned outspoken priests to Rome and censured them on grounds that they were abandoning the church's spiritual role for inappropriate socioeconomic activism.

As Pope, Ratzinger has not sought to hide his lack of esteem for Liberation Theology. During a recent trip to Brazil, he was pressed by reporters to comment on Oscar Romero's tragic murder in El Salvador. The Pope complained that Romero's cause had been hijacked by supporters of liberation theology.

Commenting on a new book about the slain archbishop, the Pope said that Romero should not be seen simply as a political figure. Hoping to avoid any meaningful political discussion on the matter, Benedict said "He was killed during the consecration of the Eucharist. Therefore, his death is testimony of the faith."

How to Handle Lugo?

Despite his best efforts however, Benedict has not been able to impede the rise of the Bishop of the Poor in Paraguay. Lugo has had long time differences with the Vatican, which could now create some political friction between Paraguay and the Papal See.

When Lugo left the priesthood to pursue politics, the Vatican refused to accept his resignation, arguing that the Bishop already made a "lifetime commitment." Defying the Pope, Lugo formed the center left Patriotic Alliance, which brought together leftist unions, indigenous people and poor farmers.

When Lugo announced his intention to run in what turned out to be his victorious presidential race, the Vatican sent him a letter declaring that the Holy See had "learned with surprise" that some political parties "have the intention of presenting him as a candidate in the coming Presidential election in Paraguay."

It added: "The acceptance of that offer would be clearly against the serious responsibility of a bishop … Canon Law prohibits priests from participating in political parties or labor unions." The letter asked Lugo "in the name of Jesus Christ" to "seriously reflect on his behavior".

Lugo replied tartly, "The Pope can either accept my decision or punish me. But I am in politics already." Hardly amused, the Vatican suspended Lugo from his duties "a divinis," meaning that he could no longer say Mass or carry out other priestly functions such as administering the sacraments.

This was enough to enable Lugo to stand in the Presidential elections, but his victory now presents the Vatican with a dilemma over whether to "reduce him to lay status." Vatican officials said it was up to the Pope to decide, and that Benedict would "take time to study the situation".

Brazilian Challenge

Though Benedict has long opposed Liberation Theology, it's unclear what he might do at this point to halt its spread. Unlike the 1980s when South America was in the midst of right-wing military rule, the region has now undergone a decided shift to the left which is confounding the Papacy.

In Brazil, the world's most populous Roman Catholic nation, some 80,000 "base communities," as the grass-roots building blocks of liberation theology are called, are flourishing. What's more, nearly one million "Bible circles" meet regularly to read and discuss scripture from the viewpoint of the theology of liberation.

Liberation Theology advocates have strong links to the labor movement which helped propel the current regime into power; this history turned President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva into being a long time ally.

The movement has been particularly strong in poorer areas of the country such as the Amazon, the hinterlands of northeast Brazil and the outskirts of large urban centers like São Paulo, which has a population of 20 million people.

In the latter city, the followers of liberation theology prominently display their politics. For example, during last year's May Day celebration, liberation theologists draped a wooden cross with black banners labeled "imperialism" and "privatization" and applauded when the homily criticized the government's "neoliberal" economic policies, the kind backed by Washington.

Chávez and Pope Benedict

Try as he might, Benedict has been unable to halt the re-emergence of Liberation Theology, and Paraguay and Brazil are just the tip of the iceberg. For years Venezuela has been a religious battleground, with President Chávez pursuing a combative relationship with the Catholic Church. Unlike some other Latin American countries which had a stronger liberation theology movement, the Venezuelan Church never had a leftist tendency except among diocesan priests.

A clash between the government and the Church was probably inevitable, and shortly after taking office Chávez started to chastise Venezuelan bishops, accusing them of complicity with the corrupt administrations that preceded his rule. The Venezuelan leader accused the Vatican's former representative in Venezuela, Cardinal Rosalio Castillo Lara, of allying himself with the country's "rancid oligarchy."

Memorably, Chávez suggested that priests such as Castillo Lara ought to subject themselves to an exorcism because "the devil has snuck into their clerical robes." Incensed, the cardinal compared Chávez to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.

During the April 2002 coup, prominent Catholics such as Cardinal Ignacio Velasco sided with the opposition against the president. Velasco was even accused of offering his residence as a meeting place for the coup plotters. What is more, he signed the "Carmona decree" that swept away Venezuela's democratic institutions. Senior Catholic bishops themselves attended the inauguration ceremony for Pedro Carmona, Venezuela's Dictator-For-a-Day.

But when Chávez was able to quickly overturn the coup and return to power, the hard line Church establishment was humiliated. Relishing his triumph Chávez launched a rhetorical broadside on the Vatican, calling on the Pope to apologize, on behalf of the Catholic Church, for the "holocaust" of the indigenous peoples of Latin America during the colonial era, and for the imposition of Christianity. The Pope, who is close to Castillo Lara, is reportedly anti-Chávez but has met with the Venezuelan leader at the Vatican.

Hoping to neutralize the power of the Catholic Church, Chávez frequently quotes from the Bible. Puckishly, he also tells his supporters in his public addresses that Christ was an anti-imperialist.

Even as Chávez spars with the Church, Protestants have provided a key pillar of the president's political support. Over the last few years, Chávez has done his utmost to cultivate the support of Protestants, which make up 29% of the population. He even declared that he was no longer a Catholic, but a member of the Christian Evangelical Council.

Hostile Environment

In the Andes, the situation is not much more promising for Pope Benedict. Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa is a Catholic Socialist and has called for a "new Catholicism" in the 21st century which would challenge globalized capitalism.

The President has said that his real education came from working as a lay Salesian missionary in the mid-1980s in the largely indigenous province of Cotopaxi. During his speeches, Correa invokes the words of Leonidas Proaí±o, probably Ecuador's most famous liberation theologian.

Bolivia's Evo Morales has never been a fan of ecclesiastical authority and has said that Catholic bishops "historically damaged the country" by functioning as "an instrument of the oligarchs." What's more, Morales tapped Rafael Puente Calvo, an ex-Jesuit and a staunch liberation theologian, to be his Deputy Minister of the Interior.

In Paraguay, Brazil, Venezuela, and up and down the Andes Pope Benedict faces a very changed political climate from the 1980s. A new generation of leaders, allied to the Pope's ideological foes, has to be making life difficult for the conservative church hierarchy.

If he wants the Vatican to maintain its influence in the region, Pope Benedict is going to have to be creative, diplomatic and extremely cautious in his regional initiatives.

This analysis was prepared by COHA Senior Research Fellow Nikolas Kozloff, who is the author of Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave-Macmillan). The Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) – www.coha.org – is a think tank established in 1975 to discuss and promote inter-American relationship. Email: coha@coha.org.

Scherer and 22 other church men should get the cardinal's red cap and gold ring during the November 24 consistory. Consistory is an assembly of cardinals presided over by the pope. It's common that papal acts and canonization of saints occur during these high level meetings.

Cardinal Scherer was born in September 21, 1949 in Cerro Largo, in the southeastern state of Rio Grande do Sul. He kept close to Curia Romana after graduating from Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University.

Before becoming São Paulo's archbishop, while he was CNBB's (Brazilian Bishops General Conference) general secretary the prelate tried to align the sometimes progressive entity to the  conservative Vatican posture.

Scherer received the news of his nomination with a "I'm very happy. I'm happy for São Paulo. I rejoice with the diocese for this distinction."

The new cardinal believes that people will be asking for his help even more from now on: "Certainly now there will be more requests to intermediate situations," he said
 
Pope Benedict XVI has named 23 new Roman Catholic cardinals, 18 of whom are under the age of 80, making them eligible to elect his successor. The pope made the announcement to pilgrims and tourists during his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square.

The new cardinals include two Americans – Archbishop John Patrick Foley, a former top Vatican official, and the archbishop of Galveston-Houston in the southern U.S. state of Texas, Daniel DiNardo.

Others include archbishops from Mumbai, India, Oswald Gracias; Dakar, Senegal, Theodore-Adrien Sarr; Nairobi, Kenya, John Njue; and the Iraqi Patriarch of the Chaldean rite, Emmanuel III Delly. The list also includes a number of Europeans.

Five of the new cardinals are over 80-years-old. Because of their age, they will not be able to enter the conclave that will choose the next pope.

The list also includes three Latin American churchmen besides  Brazilian Scherer: the archbishop of Monterrey, Mexico, Francisco Robles Ortega, and two from Argentina, Vatican official Leonardo Sandri and the retired archbishop of Paraná, Estanislao Esteban Karlic.

The Europeans include two Spaniards – the archbishops of Barcelona, Lluis Martinez Sistach and Valencia, Augustin Garcia-Gasco Vicente – as well as the archbishop of Paris, André Vingt-Trois.

I had a Catholic education in my youth and I know very well what I’m talking about when I speak on religious oppression. Fortunately I freed myself very early from the Church’s shackles. When I was about 16 or 17 I shook off faith from my loin like a dog shakes water from its back. From this experience I kept the repudiation of all and every attempt of mind control through faith.

If Benedict XVI had come on a pastoral visit, to check the health of his herd, comfort his sheep and bring them spiritual cure, I would not feel motivated to write a single line about his trip. But what we are seeing is something very different. The man who visited us is an arrogant European, who feels at ease to threaten to excommunicate congressmen in case they vote in favor of measures that go against the Church’s teachings.

Chief of state – from a make-believe state of course – His Holiness gets involved in matters of other states with the nonchalance of a despot. He seems to see in the Legislative a kind of bordello you can just threaten to make them obey the Vatican imperial will. It’s true that it is a bordello but for other reasons than those the pope supposes.

If it weren’t enough this spurious pressure over the Legislative, Ratzinger wants to impose upon the Brazilian government a concordat as much or more obscene than the 1929 Lateran Treaty by which Italy recognized the Holy See’s sovereignty over the Vatican territory. Few people remember today that the Vatican is a grant from Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Had Mussolini won the war, this might be part of the Church’s hagiography. He lost? Forgotten be.

Ratzinger didn’t come to Brazil merely to announce the canonization of a charlatan, the friar of the miraculous little paper pills. This always is useful to increase the customer basis. Saints are an attempt to lighten the Church’s rigid monotheism and to multiply by the thousands the Christian subgods, to satisfy the masses’ ancestral pagan instinct. But His Holiness’s ambitions don’t stop there.

The Holy See wants Brazil to make religion classes mandatory in the public elementary schools. It also wishes to create constitutional mechanisms that would make it hard to expand the cases where abortion is legal. The Church would also like to find ways to avoid lawsuits especially labor ones. There are many priests suing their parishes for labor matters and the Vatican, eternally concerned about the eternal, abhors these material chicken feeds.

These negotiations, confirmed by cardinal Tarcísio Bertone, the second highest man in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, were being conducted secretly. If we heard about them it was thanks to the press. With Europe’s progressive rebuff to the Vatican theocracy, Ratzinger has been retreating strategically to the Third World, where the Church still finds room to survive, thanks to poverty and ignorance of the Latin-American continent population. Ignorance and poverty constitute excellent manure for any religion.

For that, however, you need to start your work in early childhood.  Imagine if the Kremlin had a proposal to make mandatory the teaching of Marxism in the country’s public school. Everyone, especially the Catholics would be screaming against it. It’s true, however, that the Marxist truths are already kind of mandatory in Brazilian public schools.

But at least no apparatchik had the nerve to propose a concordat. Further more, the Vatican wants privileged forum. It feels entitled to stick it to those who work for the Church without giving the victim the right to complain. Odd philosophy of a religion that claims to be the defender of the poor.

Worse than everything is Ratzinger’s contempt for the national intelligence. From his statements we can deduce that he considers us all illiterate. On the liberation theology, the pope says: "Now it is evident that these easy Millenarianism, which promise revolutions and also a fast track to get a just life, were also wrong". His Holiness seems to believe that no journalist knows what Millenarianism is. And he might be right. But Brazil is not just journalists.

Chiliasm – another word for Millenarianism – before being a Hitlerist project – see the Thousand-Year Reich – is a biblical idea. It is in St John’s Apocalypse. With Christ’s second coming, the Dragon will be captured and chained in Armageddon’s battle. That’s when Chialism, a messianic kingdom of a thousand years of peace and justice, will start. Passed these one thousand years, Satan will be released and again defeated. Christ will have a second resurrection and the old world will be extinct, and in its place there will be a new Sky and a new Land.

Far from me defending Liberation Theology. But these Marxist theologians are men who grew tired of waiting for the one thousand years who wish the new Sky and the new Land tomorrow, preferably tomorrow before dawn. Ratzinger, in defining Liberation Theology as an easy Millerianism,  shows that he hasn’t understood well neither the Bible (something I suspected for some time) nor the Liberation Theology. And he trusts Brazil’s national inculture to sell his fish.

As if weren’t enough his biblical inculture, Benedict XVI, in his encounter with Catholic youngsters in Pacaembu’s stadium, in São Paulo, exhorted them to not waste their youth and to follow the Church’s commandments, especially the one about marriage. He asked them to keep their chastity within and outside marriage.

"Respect it, venerate it. At the same time, God calls you to also respect yourselves during courtship and when engaged, because married life, which, by divine disposition, is reserved to married couples will only be a source of happiness and peace when you learn how to make of chastity, within and outside marriage, a bastion of future expectations".

Like John the Baptist, he is preaching in the desert. The contemporary youth can even say they are Catholic, thanks to their herd spirit. But they won’t renounce to sex. In Brazil there are millions of pregnant teenagers. As nobody gets pregnant on its own, these millions of young people with active sexual life should be multiplied by two. This without mentioning those who take precautions and whose number should be much bigger.

Deep down, the pope is stating that if a man or a woman opt for celibacy, or if they don’t find a mate, both are condemned to deprive themselves from sex.  He still talks about chastity within marriage. It would be better to explain what he means by that. Is His Holiness saying like the Saint Inquisition theologians, that some sexual practices are forbidden between two married people?

From the available evidence, the pope got excited with George Bush’s puritan policy  and wants to spread it to the four corners of the world. Bush wants to turn the United States in a nation of masturbators. Ratzinger is even more ambitious, he wants to turn this Earth into a planet of masturbators. With a difference in favor of Bush. While the American president preaches chastity to his own countrymen Ratzinger comes to preach it in a foreign nation.

I have nothing against if the Vatican’s misogynist old fogies insist on cultivating chastity. That they come to condemn pleasure in a country in the tropics is a revolting insolence.

Janer Cristaldo – he holds a Ph.D. from University of Paris, Sorbonne – is an author, translator, lawyer, philosopher and journalist and lives in São Paulo. His e-mail address is janercr@terra.com.br.

Translated from the Portuguese by Arlindo Silva.

The pope was warmly applauded by a crowd of about 800,000 people who went to the open air ceremony at Campo de Marte, in the north side of São Paulo. About half of the 1.5 million that were being expected by the Church's authorities.

The gates to Campo de Marte were opened at one in the morning. At that time about 10,000 people were already outside the entrance waiting to get in. At six, the crowd had grown to half a million people, according to police estimates.

Among those present were about 400 descendants of Friar Galvão's relatives. They came in ten buses from Guaratinguetá, a town in the interior of São Paulo and stayed in a reserved area. One of the family members, Cecí­lia Leite Galvão, told reporters: "Brazil's life is going to change with the new Brazilian saint. Brazil's power is tremendous."

The just-consecrated new archbishop of São Paulo, Odilo Scherer, opened the canonization ceremonies welcoming Benedict XVI. The religious service had traditional Catholic songs and people also sang the tune composed especially for the pope's visit.

The mass started with a reading on the life of the new saint, a religious who lived in São Paulo. The prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, José Saraiva Martins, and archbishop Odilo made the formal request so that Friar Galvão could be canonized.

Friar Galvão was beatified in October 1998 by pope João Paulo II. But it was only last December that the Vatican sanctioned the first miracle attributed to him, the cure of a four-year-old girl.

Addressing the crowd the pope stated his love to all the faithful present at the canonization ceremony. "Rest assured that the pope loves you. And he loves you because Christ loves you," he intoned. To which the people screamed in chorus, "Pope, I love you. Pope, I love you."

In his sermon, in Portuguese, during the mass, the pontiff stated that it is necessary "to say no to those social communication media that ridicule the sanctity of matrimony and virginity before marriage.

On the other hand, the pope praised the example given by the new saint, Friar Galvão. "Our saint dedicated his own life in an irrevocable manner. What a beautiful example friar Galvão gave us. How do they sound modern for us who are living in a time filled with hedonism," he said. He still called the saint "zealous, wise and prudent."

According to the pontiff, the world today lives under the yoke of hedonism and the Catholic faithful must move, amidst the contemporary challenges, through their "loyalty to God within or outside of  marriage." "The world needs clean lives, clear souls, simple intellects that refuse to be considered objects of pleasure," he added.

On Thursday, May 10, the pope had conveyed a similar message, when talking to a crowd of over 40,000 youngsters gathered at the Pacaembu soccer stadium. At that time, Benedict XVI urged the faithful to practice chastity within and outside of wedlock.

Air Force, Army, federal and military police as well as civilian police took part in the security apparatus. There were also 28 emergency medical stations, 43 ambulances, five centers to assist lost children and seven military police stations.

Talking later in the day in front of an audience of about 400 bishops gathered at Sé cathedral, in old downtown São Paulo, the pope expressed his concern about the exodus of the faithful from the Catholic church.

For him the biggest culprit for this situation are the men of the Church who haven't shown enough determination to preach the Gospel. The answer, he said, rests in keeping faithful to conservative principles and not in reforming movements inside the church, a clear condemnation of Liberation Theology.

And he didn't spare other Christian denominations calling them sects: "Among the problems that strain your pastoral solicitude is, without a doubt, the matter of Catholics who abandon the Church… "The baptized are not sufficiently evangelized," he said, and therefore are unable to resist "the sects' aggressive proselytism" in a reference to the growth of evangelical churches in Brazil.

Ask now any Liberation Theology representative, and Ratzinger’s jovial visit turns into a clear message in which friar Galvão is a mere popular supporting actor in a plan to contain the Catholic exodus; and the bishops conference becomes the main stage to attack those who live under the prism of "preferential option for the poor" –  an option by the way germinated in Medellin (Colombia), in 1968, during the encounter’s 2nd edition and irrigated in the following meeting in Puebla (Mexico), in 1979.

Benedict XVI did not choose Brazil by chance for his first trip as a pope to the American continent. His stay, although short, can define the Church’s course in Latin America for the next ten years. This because traditionally the inaugural talk of the General Conference of the Latin-American and Caribbean Episcopate (CELAM), which will be delivered by Ratzinger the same day he leaves the country, May 13,   serves to delimit the discussions ground, which this time will be conducted by 280 bishops who will remain gathered in the city of Aparecida do Norte up to May 31.

And it’s precisely here that Ratzinger’s concerns play a role. He will be treading Brazilian territory for the third time. The first one was in 1985, soon after the proceedings against Brazilian liberation theologian Leonardo Boff and the second, in 1990, to teach a course to Brazilian bishops in  Rio de Janeiro.

Almost half of the planet’s Catholics live in Latin America. They are 480 million faithfuls who little by little are abandoning the Catholic Church. Ratzinger is hopeful that his talk has direct influence on the lines of pastoral action adopted by the bishops at the end of the meeting.

As a curiosity in this battle between the Catholic Church and the neopentecostal churches we need only say that the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, belonging to bishop Edir Macedo, has just announced that his pastors will be handing out condoms to all their faithfuls, as a follow-up to what they are already doing in South Africa.

Appetizer

This line of reasoning supports in part the opinion of Father João Pedro Baresi, a Combonian priest aligned to the Liberation Theology. Says he, "Ratzinger’s visit is part of a plan in which the biggest concern is the exodus of the Catholic believers." Not only that.

For Baresi, the pope is also going to use the trip to try "to put a brake on Liberation Theology," since Ratzinger blames the Liberation Theology for the increasing loss of believers since its affirmation as theology in the decade of 1960.

"What the just-installed São Paulo archbishop, Odilo Scherer, said a few days ago, that the time of that theology has passed may just be an appetizer of things to come." That’s what Baresi believes.

And in this context, the inaugural talk of the CELAM Conference is extremely important for the pope to convey his message. "Friar Galvão’s canonization complements the plan: it is the Catholic popular religiosity being used to try to hold the people in exodus."

Still commenting on bishop Odilo, Baresi adds:"He should substantiate his statement. And another thing, what matters is not the Liberation Theology, but the liberation itself, as Gustavo Gutierrez always says. If anyone has something better that contributes to the commitment of liberation in the light of faith, he should propose it".

But Scherer’s statement is not the only clue left by the current pope on his way to Latin America. The Vatican’s recent warning to the Jesuit aligned to the Liberation Theology, Jon Sobrino, who lives in El Salvador, sounds like a new condemnation by Ratzinger of this Gospel’s interpretation key.

Liberation Theology Lives

Brazilian Benedictine monk Marcelo Barros subscribes to the idea that Liberation Theology would only be obsolete if the conditions and motives that originated it didn’t exist any longer. "Now, we all know that on the contrary, unjust poverty and social inequality increased a lot, as well as it can be said that the resurgence of indigenous and peasant popular movements is more organized. All over the planet the number of those who are getting organized in order to make a different world possible is also increasing.

"As many of these people are protestants, Christian or from other religions, not only the Liberation Theology remains valid, but it also stopped being just a Latin-American phenomenon to become global."

Barros, who belongs to the  Theological Commission of the Ecumenical Association of the Third World Theologians, says that he has seen a bridge-building movement between Liberation Theology and the Cultural and Religious Pluralism Theology.

"That means that there is today an inter-religious Liberation Theology, which is not only Christian. With a wide literature that didn’t exist before and that includes Black Theology, Indigenous Theology, Feminist Theology, Eco-Theology, which have become new branches of Liberation Theology."

The Dominican Friar Betto was also contacted for this story. His adviser told us, however, that he was in Cuba and that he wouldn’t be able to answer since he has a hard time using the Internet because of the United States blockade of the island.

This article appeared originally in the magazine Brasil de Fato  – www.brasildefato.com.br.

But the pontiff and Lula chatted about the importance of family and how Church and state can work together to build a peaceful society. They also discussed biofuels as a way to help African countries to reduce their poverty.

Other subjects approached: international solidarity, education, youth. The president's aides described the pope as "fascinated" by the talk.

Pope Benedict XVI arrived Wednesday, May 8, in the Brazilian city of São Paulo with a strong message against abortion for a five day visit to the world's most populous Roman Catholic nation. This is his first visit to Latin America since becoming Pope in April 2005.

Benedict who will inaugurate next Sunday an important Latin American bishops' conference, speaking in Portuguese, said he was certain that the bishops will reinforce "the promotion of respect for life from the moment of conception until natural death as an integral requirement of human nature".

Catholic officials have been debating for some time whether politicians who approve abortion legislation as well as doctors and nurses who take part in the procedure subject themselves to automatic excommunication under church law.

Benedict's spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the pope was not setting a new policy and did not intend to formally excommunicate anyone, a rare process under church law that is separate from the doctrine of self-excommunication.

Before leaving Rome, Benedict said the exodus of Catholics for evangelical Protestant churches in Latin America was "our biggest concern".

But he said the spread of Protestantism shows a "thirst for God" in the region, and that he intends to lay down a strategy to answer that call when he meets with bishops from throughout Latin America in a once-a-decade meeting in the shrine city of Aparecida near São Paulo.

"We have to become more dynamic," he said. Evangelical churches, which the Vatican considers "sects," have attracted millions of Latin American Catholics in recent years.

According to a recent study, some 64% of Brazilians are Catholic, but this number represents a 10% fall compared to 10 years ago and contrasts with an upsurge in converts to evangelical churches.

The Vatican also has promised that Benedict will deliver a tough message on poverty and crime during his visit to Brazil, the world's most populous Roman Catholic country.

Benedict's predecessor, John Paul II, visited Mexico and addressed Latin American bishops just three months after assuming the papacy. Benedict has waited two years for his first trip to a region with nearly half the world's 1.1 billion Catholics. But he denied being "Eurocentric" or less concerned about poverty in the developing world than his predecessors.

Benedict, who visited Brazil as then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 1990, will celebrate several open-air masses. On Thursday, he is to address a youth gathering in the city's Pacaembu stadium and on Friday canonizes Brother Antonio Galvão, Brazil's first native-born saint, during a public mass. Then on Sunday, Pope Benedict is to open the bishops' conference.

The two-week forum will bring together almost 200 bishops and cardinals from across Latin American and the Caribbean to set out the Church's agenda and policies in the region for the coming years.

Mercopress, Bzz

The Pope will arrive in Brazil on Wednesday for a five-day visit, the first trip of his papacy to Latin America, a region that is home to nearly half the world's Catholics and is described by the Vatican as "the continent of hope."

Pope Benedict XVI has changed his schedule in the last few days so he might have more time to prepare the speeches he will make in Brazil. The Brazilian government seems impatient to know what are the themes the pontiff wishes do discuss with Lula, in the meeting they are going to have on Thursday, May 10.

The Vatican has already made it clear that the guest country doesn't decide the themes to be discussed by the pope and that Brazil, at most, can give suggestions of what it would like to talk about. The Church has hinted, however, that Benedict XVI will have a strong message against abortion. He should also discuss the flight of catholics to evangelical churches.

Lula dedicated his whole Monday morning radio program, "Breakfast with the President" to the visit. The Brazilian president is scheduled to meet with the Pontiff twice in São Paulo.

"I'm interested in discussing the social policies that we're implementing in Brazil so that (the Pope), as the most important person in the Catholic Church, can help disseminate these good policies around the world," Lula said in his weekly radio address.

Though Catholic Church leaders in Brazil are sympathetic to the Lula administration's social programs, they have criticized it for not doing more to narrow the gap between rich and poor. They have also condemned the government's policy of handing out free condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Lula said he would invite Pope Benedict and the Church to work more closely with the government in the fight against poverty. He said Cardinal Claudio Hummes, the former archbishop of Sao Paulo and an old friend of Lula's, would be an ideal partner for the task.

"He's someone who understands Brazil's social problems very well," Lula said of Hummes, a Brazilian who now heads the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy. "He was bishop of the ABC belt (São Paulo's industrial heart) and participated actively in the fight for people's housing and showed great solidarity with the Landless Movement".

"During most of my union leader life I was closely linked to Church movements working for a Brazil with more justice. Since taking office I've put into practice several of those policies which are the result of my experience of close links with social groups from the Church. We have a very good relation", underlined Lula.

During his visit, Pope Benedict is also scheduled to canonize the first Brazilian saint, hold masses, visit a drug treatment center and address the opening session of a conference of Latin American bishops.

"Having our first Saint is very important and will strengthen faith among Brazilians. The Brazilian people have a very close link with religion, and our first saint is going to reinforce the strength of the Brazilian Catholic people," emphasized Lula.

Mercopress, Bzz

The Pope arrives in Brazil on Wednesday, May 9, and he will be received by Lula at the airport in São Paulo. But the president and the pontiff will only have a formal meeting the next day. On Friday, Brazil will have its first saint ever, Friar Galvão.

His intention says Lula is to "discuss with the Pope the social policies we are conducting in Brazil so that he, as the most important person in the Catholic church, may help to disseminate these good public policies to the world, where the Catholic church has an important role."

Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday, May 6, his trip to Brazil will be an effort to promote the Church's evangelization so that Latin America will more and more be "the continent of hope."

The Pope said at his Regina Caeli address in Saint Paul's square: "This is my first pastoral visit to Latin America and I am preparing myself spiritually to visit the continent where almost half the Catholics of the whole world, many of them young people, live."

"It is for this reason," he added, "that Latin America has been given the name 'continent of hope': It is a hope that has to do not only with the Church but with the whole of America and the entire world."

The Pope invited the faithful to pray for the May 9-14 "apostolic pilgrimage and, in particular, for the 5th General Conference of the Episcopate of Latin America and the Caribbean, so that all the Christians of those regions may see themselves as disciples and missionaries of Christ, the way, the truth and the life."

The Pontiff will open the conference, which begins next Sunday in the national shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida, in the Brazilian city of the same name, situated 170 kilometers from São Paulo.

Benedict XVI said that before the opening of the conference he will stop in the city of São Paulo to meet with the young people and bishops of Brazil and preside at the canonization of Frei Antônio de Sant'Anna Galvão.

"Many and multiple are the challenges of the present," the Pope said. "This is why it is important that Christians be formed to be a 'ferment' of good and a 'light' of holiness in our world.

Bzz, Mercopress

The supreme pontiff spoke in Portuguese and said that Brazil is a "great nation". The pope was twice interrupted by applauses of Brazilians who were visiting the Vatican.

The Brazilians also sang "Bento, bendito o que vem em nome do Senhor" (Benedict, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord) a song composed especially for the pope's visit.

The lyrics also say in part: "Our people receive you with love./ You who reminded people that God is love/ You come to once again announce  God is love/ With Our Lady Mother Aparecida you confirm: God is love./ You proclaim to Latin America: God is Love.".

The pope received as well for a meeting parishioners from São José de Cerquilho, in São Paulo state, and a group linked to the Franciscan order in Brazil. They told reporters that the pontiff talked in a strongly-accented Portuguese and was smiling during all the time they were together.

Benedict XVI will be from May 9 to May 13 in Brazil, where he will open a meeting of Latin American bishops in the shrine city of Aparecida, a town between Rio and São Paulo. The pontiff will also canonize the first Brazilian-born saint, Antônio Galvão, who died in 1832 at 83.

In Rome, the pope asked for the protection of Our Lady so that the bishops conference may be successful and added: "Besides the encounters with the Latin-American youth and with the bishops of that continent, I hope to preside at Friar Antônio de Sant'Ana Galvão's canonization and to open, in Aparecida, the 5th General Conference of the Episcopate of  Latin-America and the Caribbean."

Higher Religiosity

The pope's visit happens in a time of growing religiosity among Brazilian even though the number of evangelicals continue to grow in the country.

A just-released research conducted by FGV (Getúlio Vargas Foundation) shows that for the first time in more than a century the rate of Brazilian catholics stopped to fall.

That number has kept stable at 73.9% from 2000 to 2003. During the same period, the percentage of evangelicals grew from 16.2% to 17.9%, while the amount of people without a religion fell from 7.4% to 5.1%.

For Marcelo Nery, who coordinated the study, Lula and his Bolsa Famí­lia (Family Grant) may have contributed to this good news for the Catholic church. According to Nery, when economic conditions improve poor people are less prone to look for a new religion.

Evangelicals from churches like Assembly of God and the Brazilian-based Universal Church of the Kingdom of God grew mostly in the big cities in response to the worsening of violence and living conditions in metropolitan areas.

Faced with this "new poverty" people "look for religions that offer more intense practices, as the Pentecostals do, or they lose all hope and choose to have no religion," Nery said.

"Bento, Bendito," the Pope's Song

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