A Question of Simple Honesty

The Vatican has dropped the other shoe, and it is clearly the mate of the first. In September 1984 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by the indefatigable Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, issued an Instruction on Certain Aspects of the Theology of Liberation. Entire books have been written condemning that Instruction’s condemnation of the alleged synthesis of Christianity and Marxism. At the time, the Vatican promised that there would be a second, more positive document setting forth a correct understanding of human liberation. The Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation, bearing the personal and emphatic approval of Pope John Paul II, has now arrived. (Copies are available for $3 from Origins, NC News Service, 1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005.) It is meeting with cheers all around, which is deeply troubling.

There is cheering from those who claim the Vatican has at long last said the self-evident. There is cheering from those who claim the Vatican has now agreed with them that the Church should stick to its spiritual mission and stop messing around with social and political questions. And there is cheering from liberation theologians who claim the Instruction gives official blessing to their theology of revolutionary struggle. All three parties should take time out from cheering in order to read the document. Or maybe they have read the document and are just being disingenuous. If that is the case, the question raised by the discussion of this pronouncement is a question of simple honesty.

RJ

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Richard John Neuhaus

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The Vatican has dropped the other shoe, and it is clearly the mate of the first. In September 1984 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by the indefatigable Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, issued an Instruction on Certain Aspects of the Theology of Liberation. Entire books have been written condemning that Instruction’s condemnation of the alleged synthesis of Christianity and Marxism. At the time, the Vatican promised that there would be a second, more positive document setting forth a correct understanding of human liberation. The Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation, bearing the personal and emphatic approval of Pope John Paul II, has now arrived. (Copies are available for $3 from Origins, NC News Service, 1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005.) It is meeting with cheers all around, which is deeply troubling.

There is cheering from those who claim the Vatican has at long last said the self-evident. There is cheering from those who claim the Vatican has now agreed with them that the Church should stick to its spiritual mission and stop messing around with social and political questions. And there is cheering from liberation theologians who claim the Instruction gives official blessing to their theology of revolutionary struggle. All three parties should take time out from cheering in order to read the document. Or maybe they have read the document and are just being disingenuous. If that is the case, the question raised by the discussion of this pronouncement is a question of simple honesty.