Putting On the Tiara Sage Brush

There has been a sudden and dramatic revival of interest in the Marxist-Christian dialogue, which has been alternately running and limping along for the last 15 to twenty years. The revival was sparked by the selection of a Pope from Marxist-ruled Poland and that Pope’s trip to Puebla, Mexico to address the Third General Conference of Latin American Bishops (CELAM III) on the issues of evangelization and liberation. Two major religious quarterlies were fortunate enough to have devoted entire issues to Marxist-Christian relations in the months prior to these events: the Winter 1978 issue of Temple University’s Journal of Ecumenical Studies, and the Spring 1978 issue of Cross Currents, the liberal Catholic quarterly.

It is instructive to contrast the special pre-CELAM issue of Cross Currents with John Paul Il’s history-making speech at Puebla, because the special issue, which is a showcase of liberation theology, is from the papal point of view a showcase of error. This issue of Cross Currents was edited by the veteran Latin Americanist Gary MacEoin, who was denied press accreditation by the Conference on the grounds of his lack of objectivity in writing about the Roman Catholic Church. In a sense, MacEoin had it coming, since in his Editorial Introduction to the special issue he proclaimed that the struggle in the Latin American Church involves “two mutually incompatible ecclesiologies ” The Cross Currents ecclesiology, said MacEoin in commenting on the thrust of the entire issue, regards the Church as “a sign of universal salvation,” whose task it is “to bring the world to the perfection God intended for it” and to “be seen clearly … on the side of the poor and oppressed.”

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Dale Vree

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There has been a sudden and dramatic revival of interest in the Marxist-Christian dialogue, which has been alternately running and limping along for the last 15 to twenty years. The revival was sparked by the selection of a Pope from Marxist-ruled Poland and that Pope’s trip to Puebla, Mexico to address the Third General Conference of Latin American Bishops (CELAM III) on the issues of evangelization and liberation. Two major religious quarterlies were fortunate enough to have devoted entire issues to Marxist-Christian relations in the months prior to these events: the Winter 1978 issue of Temple University’s Journal of Ecumenical Studies, and the Spring 1978 issue of Cross Currents, the liberal Catholic quarterly.

It is instructive to contrast the special pre-CELAM issue of Cross Currents with John Paul Il’s history-making speech at Puebla, because the special issue, which is a showcase of liberation theology, is from the papal point of view a showcase of error. This issue of Cross Currents was edited by the veteran Latin Americanist Gary MacEoin, who was denied press accreditation by the Conference on the grounds of his lack of objectivity in writing about the Roman Catholic Church. In a sense, MacEoin had it coming, since in his Editorial Introduction to the special issue he proclaimed that the struggle in the Latin American Church involves “two mutually incompatible ecclesiologies ” The Cross Currents ecclesiology, said MacEoin in commenting on the thrust of the entire issue, regards the Church as “a sign of universal salvation,” whose task it is “to bring the world to the perfection God intended for it” and to “be seen clearly … on the side of the poor and oppressed.”