Pope Benedict and Latin America's Liberation Theology

Pope Benedict’s Holy War Against Liberation Theology in South America: Pontiff and Conservative Church Face a Rollback
From the Council on Hemispheric Affairs
by NIKOLAS KOZLOFF, COHA Senior Research Fellow

EXCERPTS:

The recent election of former Bishop Fernando Lugo as President of Paraguay poses a sticky dilemma for the Vatican and underscores the hostile political environment facing incoming Pope Benedict XVI in South America. Lugo, who was known to his constituents as the “Bishop of the Poor” for his support of landless peasants, advocates so-called Liberation Theology, a school of thought which took shape in Latin America in the 1960s.
…
… 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.
…
Originally a liberal reformer, Ratzinger changed his tune once he became an integrant in the Vatican hierarchy. … 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.
…
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.
…
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 Inacio 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.
…
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.
…
In the Andes, the situation is not much more promising for Pope Benedict.Ecuadoran 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 Proaño, 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.
…

Ex-bishop wins Paraguayan election; 6-decade rulers dumped

From the AP:

Political newcomer Fernando Lugo, a charismatic 56-year-old who resigned from the church to run for president, put an end to the Colorado Party's 61-year reign in Sunday's election, rallying voters against political corruption and economic disarray.
. . .
The triumph of Lugo's eclectic opposition coalition — the Patriotic Alliance for Change — is the latest in a series of electoral wins by leftist, or center-left, leaders in South America.

Mark Weisbrot, at the Washington think tank Center for Economic and Policy Research, said Lugo's election is a sign of "deep and irreversible ... changes sweeping Latin America."

There are a number of other articles if you search Google News for Paraguay.

Michael Klare interview on the new energy world order

From AGAINST THE GRAIN
MONDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY FROM NOON TO ONE ON KPFA (Pacifica) RADIO


Wed 4.16.08 New Energy Order
In his new book Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet, Michael Klare argues that a global political realignment of historic proportions is under way, based on ever-more-intense competition for reliable energy supplies. Klare describes emerging Big Power alliances and rivalries in energy-rich sites like the Caspian basin and Africa.
Listen to the program

You can download the interview to an iPod, or other mp3 player and listen at your convenience.

Readings on Latin America from the Foreign Policy Association

READINGS:

Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America's Soul
Drawing on Michael Reid's many years of reporting from inside Latin America's cities, presidential palaces, and shantytowns, this book provides a vivid, immediate, and informed account of a dynamic continent and its struggle to compete in a globalized world. Reid argues that rather than failing the test, Latin America's efforts to build fairer and more prosperous societies make it one of the world's most vigorous laboratories for capitalist democracy.

Hugo!: The Hugo Chavez Story from Mud Hut to Perpetual Revolution
In Hugo! Bart Jones tells the story of Hugo Chávez's impoverished childhood, his military career and the decade of clandestine political activity that ended in a failed attempt to seize power in 1992. He describes the election campaign against a former Miss Universe that finally won Chávez the Presidency and the dramatic reversals of fortune that have marked it: the struggle to reform the Venezuelan economy, the coup attempt of 2002 in which he was kidnapped and faced summary execution, and the oil industry strike that followed. Hugo! is scrupulously researched and sourced and tells the full stories of many of these episodes for the first time - in English or Spanish.

Hugo Chavez: The Definitive Biography of Venezuela's Controversial President
He is one of the most controversial and important world leaders currently in power. In this international bestseller, at last available in English, Hugo Chávez is captured in a critically acclaimed biography, a riveting account of the Venezuelan president who continues to influence, fascinate, and antagonize America.

Ex Mex: From Migrants to Immigrants
In Ex Mex, former Mexican foreign minister and well-known scholar Jorge G. Castañeda draws on his experience in both capacities to dispel some of the most widely held and mistaken ideas about the United States' largest immigrant population. Through Castañeda, we learn who the newest generation of immigrants from Mexico is, why they've chosen to live in the United States, where they work, and what they ultimately hope to achieve. Castañeda also offers an insider's account of the intricate and secret negotiations that took place between Mexico and the United States in 2001-2—contradicting some of the official versions published here—and the unilateral actions that were taken by his government to improve the conditions of Mexican migrants when talks between the two countries became stalemated.

The Accidental President of Brazil: A Memoir
What is it like to govern one of the world's most notoriously ungovernable, most vibrant countries? Brazil's former president offers a candid, wry, illuminating view.
Fernando Henrique Cardoso received a phone call in the middle of the night asking him to be the new Finance Minister of Brazil. As he put the phone down and stared into the darkness of his hotel room, he feared he'd been handed a political death sentence. The year was 1993, and he would be responsible for an economy that had had seven different currencies in the previous eight years to cope with inflation that had run at 3000 percent a year. Brazil had a habit of chewing up finance ministers with the ferocity of an Amazon piranha.



Online Resources »

Latin America: From Colonization to Globalization
I felt that the discussion provided us in GD book (topic 6) was rather biased especially towards neoliberal economic policies favored by U.S. corporations in particular. Sometimes the phrase "shift to the left" is code to prejudice people who fear Communism or Socialism. Some of Latin America's shift to the left and "populist" politics [which your current article presents negatively] actuall benefit human beings by protecting them and the environment by needed regulations of corporations. I would like to see alternative views presented and I can't think of a better alternative than excerpts from the above book or an article by Noam Chomsky.

Great Decisions 2008: Spring Updates [PDF]
Great Decisions 2008 Spring Updates available online or download as PDF

Great Decisions 2008 Spring Update: Latin America
Read the Spring Update to the Great Decisions 2008 topic "Latin America."view all »


Quizzes
Great Decisions 2008 Spring Quiz Series - Latin America Quiz
Online topic quizzes from the Great Decisions 2008 Spring Quiz Series are an ideal test of readers' knowledge of the Great Decisions 2008 briefing book articles and Great Decisions 2008 Spring Updates.
Great Decisions 2008 Winter Quiz Series - Latin America Quiz
Online topic quizzes are an ideal test of readers' knowledge of the Great Decisions 2008 articles.

Russia stands to benefit from the oil markets

graphic: yellow = demand, green = supply

Asia Times just published the article The rise of the new energy world order by Michael T Klare. Klare writes:

The combination of rising demand, the emergence of powerful new energy consumers, and the contraction of the global energy supply is demolishing the energy-abundant world we are familiar with and creating in its place a new world order. Think of it as rising powers/shrinking planet.

This new world order will be characterized by fierce international competition for dwindling stocks of oil, natural gas, coal and uranium, as well as by a tidal shift in power and wealth from energy-deficit states like China, Japan and the United States to energy-surplus states like Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. In the process, the lives of everyone will be affected in one way or another - with poor and middle-class consumers in the energy-deficit states experiencing the harshest effects. That's most of us and our children, in case you hadn't quite taken it in.
Here, in a nutshell, are five key forces in this new world order which will change our planet . . .

Read the article for the five key forces, and how Russian stands to benefit.

Russia's Geopolitical Strategy

The Emerging Russian Giant Plays its Cards Strategically
by F. William Engdahl
Global Research, October 7, 2006

Russia is gaining in influence through a series of strategic moves revolving
around its geopolitical assets in energy—most notably its oil and natural gas.
It’s doing so by shrewdly taking advantage of the strategic follies and major
political blunders of Washington. The new Russia also realizes that if it does
not act decisively, it soon will be encircled and trumped by a military rival,
USA, for which it has little defenses left. The battle, largely unspoken, is the
highest stakes battle in world politics today. Iran and Syria are seen by
Washington strategists as mere steps to this great Russian End Game.

Click here to read the entire article.

Russia and heroin from Afghanistan

Russia is accusing:

. . . the U.S. military of involvement in the heroin trafficking from Afghanistan to Europe. The Vesti channel’s report from Afghanistan said that drugs from Afghanistan were hauled by American transport aircraft to the U.S. airbases Ganci in Kyrgyzstan and Incirlik in Turkey.

. . .

Russia today has about six million drug-users – a 20-fold increase since the collapse of the Soviet Union and a huge figure for a country of 142 million people.

Click here to read the article.

Some Russia News from The Economist

TNK-BP falls foul of the law, again

WHEN Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's president-elect, gave a speech extolling the benefits of the rule of law earlier this month, some optimistic souls declared that things were looking up for business in Russia. Pessimists responded that Mr Medvedev would have neither the inclination nor the authority to reverse Vladimir Putin's enthusiasm for meddling in the private sector's affairs. The debate continues, but a series of setbacks for TNK-BP, Russia's fourth-biggest oil producer, has given the pessimists lots of ammunition. . . .



Russia's secret satellite snoopers

IF YOU use Google Earth to follow the A-212 road west out of Pskov, shortly before you reach what was until 1940 the Soviet border with independent Estonia, your eye may be caught by a curious black oval to the north of the road.

Look closely, and it turns out to be the shadow cast by a large satellite dish. At maximum resolution the image (pictured) is striking. The biggest dish is nearly 20m in diameter. A second one is about 10m, and five smaller ones are nearby. A shadow cast by a large wire antenna on two radio masts is also visible, as well as shiny new guard houses and an administration block, surrounded by a high concrete wall.

The installation has been built recently. (Your columnist visited the area in 2002 and nothing was visible then). What is it for? . . .



How a takeover battle provides a test case for Russian capitalism

THE drama surrounding Norilsk Nickel, the world's largest nickel producer, has all the elements of an airport thriller: billionaire oligarchs invading the French resort of Courchevel; models flown in from Moscow; wads of cash flying like confetti; all-night discos, magnums of champagne and buckets of caviar; and the whole thing topped off with a police raid. The scene then shifts to the Arctic city of Norilsk, built by slave labour under Stalin, and the nickel giant that generated all this wealth, now at the centre of a takeover battle. The Norilsk saga is being closely watched because it is a test of how the rules of business in Russia are changing. . . .


As Vladimir Putin stands aside (sort of), how much has he to do with Russia's booming economy—and how long can it last?

. . . The emergence of genuine businessmen like Mr Bulanov, and their acceptance in society generally, may be Russia's biggest achievement—and one reason why the economy is growing at 7% a year. But this has nothing to do with Vladimir Putin, who is standing aside as president this week. Mr Bulanov is no fan of Mr Putin; he prefers freedom to fear and corruption. “The only things that will stop me”, he says, “are a bullet or a prison cell.” The future of Russia will be determined by the contest between men like him and the machinery of the state. . . .

Russia - Online Resources & Recommended Readings from the Foreign Policy Association

Russia
Online Resources

Great Decisions 2008: Spring Updates [PDF]
Great Decisions 2008 Spring Updates available online or download as PDF

Great Decisions 2008 Spring Update: Russia
Read the Spring Update to the Great Decisions 2008 topic "Russia."

A George Washington Moment, Putin Style
From Foreign Policy Magazine, "Russia's outgoing president may think he can hang on to the reins of power, but his own story is the best reminder that even hand-picked successors can have minds their own."

Across Putin's Russia
A five-part multimedia slideshow by a Financial Times correspondent who traveled through eastern Russia to discover why President Vladimir Putin, increasingly feared and distrusted abroad, enjoys rising popularity at home.

BBC: Putin Project
A BBC World Service special feature on Russian President Vladimir Putin's administration and how he has built widespread support among Russians for his policies and his allies.

GDTV 2008 Transcript - Reexamining Russia
Transcript for the Great Decisions Television Series 2008 show #4, Reexamining Russia.

novayagazeta [English Language]
Leading Russian newspaper English language site.

Pravda [English Version]
Leading Russian newspaper English language site.

Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Official site of Russia's Foreign Ministry.

Johnson's Russia List
News and analysis from David Johnson.

Russia: Key Facts
Background and Key Facts on Russia from the BBC.

Carnegie Moscow Center
Established in 1993, the Center accommodates foreign and Russian researchers collaborating with Washington staff on a variety of topical areas and policy-relevant projects.

Harriman Institute
A leading center for the advancement of knowledge in the field of Russian and Eurasian studies, the Institute seeks to create a forum for intellectual exchange.

Kennan Institute
The Institute, in conjunction with the Woodrow Wilson Center, is a nonpartisan institution improving American expertise and knowledge about Russia and successor states to the Soviet Union with experience in shaping U.S.-Russian policy.

National Council for Eurasian and East European Research
The organization is the largest provider of resources to U.S. scholars for postdoctoral research in the fields of the economic, political, social and historical development of Russia, Eurasia and Eastern Europe.

National Opinion Balloting 2008
Download the 2008 Ballot or take the online version!


Recommended Readings »

The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West
In late 1999 when Vladimir Putin was named Prime Minister, Russia was a budding democracy. Multiple parties campaigned for seats in the Duma, the nation's parliament. The media criticized the government freely. Eight years later as Putin completes his second term as president of Russia and announces his bid for prime minister, the country is under a repressive regime. Human rights abuses are widespread. The Kremlin is openly hostile to the West. Yet the United States and Europe have been slow to confront the new reality, in effect, helping Russia win what experts are now calling the New Cold War.

Kremlin Rising : Vladimir Putin's Russia and the End of Revolution
In the tradition of Hedrick Smith's The Russians, Robert G. Kaiser's Russia: The People and the Power, and David Remnick's Lenin's Tomb comes an eloquent and eye-opening chronicle of Vladimir Putin's Russia, from this generation's leading Moscow correspondents.
With the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia launched itself on a fitful transition to Western-style democracy. But a decade later, Boris Yeltsin's handpicked successor, Vladimir Putin, a childhood hooligan turned KGB officer who rose from nowhere determined to restore the order of the Soviet past, resolved to bring an end to the revolution. Kremlin Rising goes behind the scenes of contemporary Russia to reveal the culmination of Project Putin, the secret plot to reconsolidate power in the Kremlin.

Russia in Search of Itself
In the turbulent decade since the collapse of the Soviet Union, conditions have worsened considerably for many Russians, and a wide-ranging debate has raged over the nature and destiny of their country. In Russia in Search of Itself, James H. Billington, the Librarian of Congress and a noted expert on Russia, examines the efforts of a proud but troubled nation to find a post-Soviet identity. The agenda has not been controlled from the top-down and center-out as in Russia's past. Nor has it been set by any intellectual giant such as Sakharov or Solzhenitsyn.

Russian Iranian gas pact

Russia gas pact energizes Iran
By Pepe Escobar
Is online at Asia Times

Here is an excerpt to give you a taste:

As any European Union negotiator in Brussels is forced to admit over a few
bottles of Morte Subite beer, the EU is a virtual hostage of Gazprom. Adding to
European angst, both Russia and Iran want the formation of a gas equivalent of
the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) sooner rather than
later - a likely scenario at least from the point of view of Russian-Iranian
coordination in investment policy and pricing.

Teymur Huseynov, head of
the Eurasia department at the Exclusive Analysis risk consultancy, confirms
"Gazprom's vulnerability to US sanctions is minimal". Gazprom supplies over 25%
of Western Europe's gas. Much of Iran's future production will also go to
Western Europe anyway. Russia and Iran are competitors in the world gas market -
but up to a point: Europe needs both.
. . .

Iran is also basking in
good news in the oil front. The first phase of early production from the giant
Azadegan oilfield, west of Ahvaz in Iranian Khuzestan, is already on. According
to Iranian estimates, Azadegan holds no less than 33 billion barrels of crude
oil. For the moment it's pumping only 25,000 barrels a day - but the point is
that the whole technology was Iranian.

According to the deputy manager
of technical affairs at the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Hamid Deris,
the Iranians had to take over when experts of Japan's largest oil and gas
explorer, INPEX, under no-holds-barred US pressure, balked at investing in the
enormous project. The Japanese share was initially 90%; in the end it fell to
10%
. . .

. . . Iran - already exchanging energy with Azerbaijan, Armenia and
Turkmenistan - will also connect to Russia's national power grid. Fattah said
Iran and Russia would cooperate in the construction of two power plants in
Tajikistan. The results are obvious: the merging of Russian and Iranian
electricity networks will cover virtually all the demand in Central Asia and the
Caucasus. Most of the new investment will be Russian.

You can read the whole article here.