By Leonardo Boff and Daniela Pastrana
MEXICO CITY, Dec 28 2010 (IPS)

“The market is not going to resolve the environmental crisis,” says theologian and environmentalist Leonardo Boff, professor at Brazil’s State University of Rio de Janeiro. The solution, he says, lies in ethics and in changing our relationship with nature.

There could be 100 million climate refugees in the next five to seven years, warns Leonardo Boff. Credit: Daniela Pastrana/IPS

He was one of the 23 proponents of the 2000 Earth Charter, and a year later received the Right Livelihood Award, known as the alternative “Green” Nobel, which recognises exceptional efforts in seeking solutions to the most urgent global environmental problems.

“If we don’t change, we are headed for the worst… Either we save ourselves or we all perish,” said Boff in an interview with Tierramérica in the Mexican capital, after he participated as an observer in the recent 16th Conference of Parties (COP 16) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in Cancún.

Q: What is your assessment of the COP 16? A: What predominated, save for the last two days, was an atmosphere of disappointment, of failure. But surprisingly there were three convergences of opinion: the commitment to fight against reaching (a global temperature increase of) two degrees Celsius; the creation of the Green Climate Fund of 30 billion dollars (for 2012) to help the most vulnerable countries, in an interesting sign of solidarity; and the creation of a large fund for the reduction of deforestation and degradation of forests, because that is where the principal cause of global warming lies.

Q: How should we interpret the stance of Bolivia, the only country that did not agree to those commitments? A: Bolivia supports the thesis that the Earth is “Pachamama,” a living organism that must be respected and cared for, not just exploited. It stands in opposition to the dominant position, which is set in the framework of the market: selling carbon credits, for example, means granting the right to pollute.

The dominant societies see the Earth as a treasure chest of resources that can be used indefinitely, although now they have to be utilised in a sustainable way, because they are scarce. They don’t recognise the dignity and rights of natural beings, they see them as means of production and their relation is based on utility. These are issues that did not enter into the discussions at Cancún or any other COP.

Q: Why should they be included? A: Because the system that has created the problem is not going to save us. If each country has to grow a little each year, and to do so means degrading nature and increasing global warming, then that system itself is hostile to life.

Q: The argument is that it is necessary for development… A: Growth means what? Exploiting nature? It is precisely that type of growth and development that could lead us to the abyss, because we humans are consuming 30 percent more than what the Earth can replace.

That is the vicious circle. China can’t go on emitting 30 percent (of global greenhouse emissions), because the pollution does not stay in China, it enters the global system.

The problem is the relation of the human being with the Earth, because it is a violent relationship, a closed fist… As long as we fail to change this, we are headed for the worst. And this time there is no Noah’s Ark. Either we save ourselves or we all perish.

Q: Is it really that serious? A: There are regions in the world that have changed so much that they’ve become uninhabitable. That is why there are 60 million displaced persons in Africa and Southeast Asia, which are the most affected by climate change and which emit less carbon. If we don’t stop it, in the next five to seven years there will be as many as 100 million climate refugees, and that is going to create political problems.

Q: What is the role of Latin America in all this? A: It is the continent with greatest possibilities for making a positive contribution to the ecological crisis: it has the largest rainforests and water reserves, the greatest biodiversity, and perhaps the biggest areas for crops.

But there is still insufficient environmental awareness in a large portion of the population. And, in any case, there is a very dangerous invasion of big corporations that are appropriating vast regions. It is an appropriation of common goods in function of individual benefits.

In Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, gradually they are realising how the new game of capital works: a great concentration of livelihoods to ensure the future of the system.

Q: What options are there? A: We have funds and technology, but we lack political will and sensitivity to nature and human suffering. That has to be recovered. And along with ethics of caring go the ethics of cooperation. Now it has become necessary for everyone to cooperate with everyone.

Q: Is that possible? What needs to be done? A: There are movements, especially among groups who see that there lands are being divided, like Vía Campesina (international peasant movement) and Brazil’s MST landless movement. And there are the indigenous peoples, who don’t see the Earth simply as an instrument of production, but rather as an extension of their body, and they need it to uphold their identity.

We are seeking a balance, and that is the collective duty of humanity, which the market and the economy are not going to resolve. Everyone needs to do his or her part, to be more with less, to have a sense of proportion. The problem isn’t money.

(*This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.)

Excerpt:

The collective duty of humanity is to seek a balance with nature. Everyone has to do their part; be more with less. The problem is not money, says Brazilian Leonardo Boff in this exclusive Tierramérica interview.

There could be 100 million climate refugees in the next five or seven years, warns Boff. - Daniela Pastrana/IPS

Boff, who teaches ethics, philosophy of religion and ecology, is one of the leading figures of Liberation Theology, a progressive current in the Latin American Catholic Church. He has written more than 60 books and has dedicated the last 20 years to promoting the green movement.

He was one of the 23 proponents of the 2000 Earth Charter, and a year later received the Right Livelihood Award, known as the alternative “Green” Nobel, which recognizes exceptional efforts in seeking solutions to the most urgent global environmental problems.

“If we don't change, we are going to run into the worst… Either we save ourselves or we all perish,” said Boff in an interview with Tierramérica in the Mexican capital, after participating as an observer in the recent 16th Conference of Parties (COP 16) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), held in Cancún.

TIERRAMÉRICA: What is your assessment of the COP 16?

LEONARDO BOFF: What predominated, save for the last two days, was an atmosphere of disappointment, of failure. But surprisingly there were three convergences of opinion: the commitment to fight against reaching (a global temperature increase of) two degrees Celsius; the creation of the Green Climate Fund of 30 billion dollars (for 2012) to help the most vulnerable countries, in an interesting sign of solidarity; and the creation of a large fund for the reduction of deforestation and degradation of forests, because that is where the principal cause of global warming lies.

TIERRAMÉRICA: How should we interpret the stance of Bolivia, the only country that did not agree to those commitments?

LB: Bolivia supports the thesis that the Earth is “Pachamama,” a living organism that must be respected and cared for, not just exploited. It stands in opposition to the dominant vision, which is set in the framework of the economy: selling carbon credits, for example, means granting the right to pollute.

The dominant societies see the Earth as a chest of resources that can be used indefinitely, although now they have to be utilized in a sustainable way, because they are scarce. They don't recognize the dignity and rights of natural beings, they see them as means of production and their relation is based on utility. These are issues that do not enter into the discussions at Cancún or any other COP.

TIERRAMÉRICA: Why should they be included?

LB: Because the system that has created the problem is not going to save us. If each country has to grow a little each year, and to do so means degrading nature and increasing global warming, then that system is hostile to life.

TIERRAMÉRICA: The argument is that it is necessary for development…

LB: Growth means what? Exploiting nature? It is precisely that type of growth and development that could lead us to the abyss, because we humans are consuming 30 percent more than what the Earth can replace.

That is the vicious circle. China can't go on emitting 30 percent (of global greenhouse emissions), because the pollution does not stay in China, it enters the global system.

The problem is the relation of the human being with the Earth, because it is a violent relationship, a closed fist… As long as we fail to change this, we are headed for the worst. And this time there is no Noah's Ark. Either we save ourselves or we all perish.

TIERRAMÉRICA: Is it really that serious?

LB: There are regions in the world that have changed so much that they've become uninhabitable. That is why there are 60 million displaced persons in Africa and Southeast Asia, which are the most affected and which emit less carbon. If we don't stop it, in the next five to seven years there will be as many as 100 million climate refugees, and that is going to create political problems.

TIERRAMÉRICA: What is the role of Latin America?

LB: It is the continent with greatest possibilities for making a positive contribution to the ecological crisis: it has the largest rainforests and water reserves, the greatest biodiversity, and perhaps the biggest areas for crops.

But there is still insufficient environmental awareness in a large portion of the population. And, in any case, there is a very dangerous invasion of big corporations that are appropriating vast regions. It is an appropriation of common goods in function of individual benefits.

In Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, gradually they are realizing how to play the new game of capital: a great concentration of livelihoods to ensure the future of the system.

TIERRAMÉRICA: What options are there?

LB: We have funds and technology, but we lack political will and sensitivity to nature and human suffering. That has to be recovered. And along with ethics of caring go the ethics of cooperation. Now it has become necessary for everyone to cooperate with everyone.

TIERRAMÉRICA: Is that possible? What needs to be done?

LB: There are movements, especially among groups who see that there lands are being divided, like Vía Campesina (international peasant movement) and Brazil's MST landless movement. And there are the indigenous peoples, who don't see the Earth simply as an instrument of production, but rather as an extension of their body, and they need it to uphold their identity.

We are seeking a balance, and that is the collective duty of humanity, which the market and the economy are not going to resolve. Everyone needs to do his or her part, to be more with less, to have a sense of proportion. The problem isn't money.

By Leonardo Boff and - -
RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 14 2010 (IPS)

In a providential first, two of the candidates in Brazil’s upcoming presidential elections are women: Marina Silva and Dilma Rousseff. The latter is favoured in the polls to win in the vote, set for October 3. Brazil has never had a female president.

At the start of the millennium in 2001, the United Nations Population Fund wrote in its annual report, “The human race is plundering the Earth in an unsustainable manner. Giving women greater decision-making power on the future can save the planet from destruction.”

This statement reflects the recognition that Earth and humanity have entered a zone of grave danger. The increase of poverty constitutes injustice on a planetary scale; global warming of the earth’s ecological system is irreversible; and human beings consume 30 percent more than what the planet can regenerate, a clearly unsustainable situation. Given the above, if we want to continue living on this small, old planet, we will have to take some major decisions.

All of these questions are tied to life. Who better than women to care for life and create the conditions for perpetuating it?

Men, in contrast, are proving themselves confused and powerless, and according to the eminent German psychoanalyst Horst-Eberhard Richter, are suffering from a “God complex”. They take on divine tasks: dominating nature, organising all forms of life, conquering space, and remaking humanity -staggering undertakings. Excessive arrogance, which the Greeks defined as hubris and punished with death, has overthrown them.

A new equilibrium must now be established by women. World feminism has provided a fundamental critique of the patriarchal system that has dominated since the neolithic age 7000 years ago. The patriarchy gave rise to institutions that still today are shaping human societies according to the instrumental-analytic reason that separates nature from the human being, leads man to dominate natural processes in a devastating manner, creates state bureaucracies organised around male interests, devised a mode of education that reproduces the patriarchal structure, created armies, and provoked wars. It affected religions and churches, whose gods and figures are almost all masculine.

The “manifest destiny” of the patriarchy is the domination of the world with the intent of becoming “the masters and owners of nature” (Descartes).

International meetings -like those of the G20- demonstrate that governments are more interested in business than in saving life and protecting the planet.

Thus the urgent burning need for the intervention of women to save the world.

While different in many ways, both female candidates in Brazilian presidential elections have indisputable ethical gravity and a vision of politics as service to the common good and not to systems of conquest and the use of power to benefit elitist interests and vanity that still dominate Brazilian democracy.

Dilma Rousseff, an economist of Bulgarian origin, was chief of staff in the current administration, the most important position in the government, leading political actions and overseeing the largest national programme: the Project to Accelerate Growth, with more than 500 billion dollars of investment in infrastructure and industry. Rousseff is an excellent executive with moderate ecological credentials. She represents the Workers Party of President Lula, and polls say she has the support of 50 percent of voters and will likely win the presidency in the first round of voting.

Marina Silva has the same humble origins as Lula, an ex- metalworker. She was born to a poor family in the heart of the Amazonian jungle, worked as a rubber tapper, and taught herself to read at 16. She helped form church communities in the state of Acre to spread a message of liberation. After being elected senator, she served as environmental minister for five years under Lula and was a charismatic, tireless, and eminently competent advocate for the environment. Her Green Party has little popular support so her message has not received the play that it deserves. However, she has succeeded in placing the issue of the environment on the agenda of all parties and in the national conscience.

The fact that there are two women candidates running for the presidency of Brazil is both profound and providential. They embody a call from Mother Earth for preservation and are a response to the urgency of this moment in history. What is most important is not saving the economic-financial system but rather saving human life and protecting the well-being of the planet. The economy should serve this higher goal, not the other way around. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian writer and theologian, is the author with Rose Marie Muraro of Female and Male: A New Conscience for the Meeting of Differences.

Excerpt:

By Leonardo Boff and - -
RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 23 2010 (IPS)

There is no political formulation of the interests of humanity or mother earth that protects their nature and cultures. For centuries we have lived under the jurisdiction of nation states and their assorted forms of sovereignty and autonomy. But as all problems become increasingly global, this political model is proving incapable of offering the solutions needed by humanity and the planet as a whole.

The United Nations would be the right organisation to perform this function, but it is completely demoralised and the only part of it with real power is the Security Council, which is controlled by the veto-wielding, five major powers, led by the United States.

There is no world social contract that sets global political practices, nor is there a collective reference to build consensus and settle conflicts. This is one of the reasons for the failure of international meetings on global affairs, like the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference or the World Trade Round in Doha.

This is a unique moment in history. Our common future is in jeopardy. The interlinking of crises, especially ecological, could create a humanitarian and environmental tragedy of staggering proportions that would demand urgent action on a global scale. The necessary precondition for such action is a common set of references, values, principles, and inspirations that provide an ethical and political foundation for the world community.

Today what must be saved is not the status quo but life itself and the system of the earth. This is the new central reality by which the major political paths to the future must be oriented. Aware of this urgency, the President of the UN General Assembly for 2008/2009 and ex-foreign minister of Sandinista Nicaragua, Miguel D’Escoto, after consulting a wide range of heads of state and other figures, resolved to create a draft of a Universal Declaration of the Common Good of the Earth and Humanity that would complement the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. He included me as one of the drafters of the text. (http://servicioskoinonia.org/logos).

This document, which will be officially introduced at the International Climate Conference next April in Cochabamba, Bolivia, will present the most reliable data regarding modern cosmology. Consider that the earth and humanity are part of a vast evolving universe and share the same destiny and constitute in all their complexity a single entity. The earth lives and behaves as a single self-regulating system made up of physical, chemical, biological, and human components that give rise to the production and reproduction of life, and for this reason it is our Great Mother and our common Home. It is comprised of the sum of the ecosystems through which it generated a magnificent array of forms of complementary and interdependent life, sacred and unified,such that the human being, men and women, are the same as the earth, which speaks, thinks, senses, loves, cares for, and venerates.

Since the environmental crisis must be addressed at the global level, it is essential to clearly define the Common Good of the Earth and Humanity. This Common Good is universal and free to all. It must include everyone, all people and peoples, and at the same time must be offered for free because it represents what is essential, vital, and irreplaceable for humanity and for earth itself.

The first Common Good is the earth itself, which is the condition for all other goods. It belongs to the universe, to itself, and to the totality of ecosystems that comprise it. Human beings are not its owners but guests because it is the generator of life itself and thus deserves to be treated with dignity and to be cared for and protected.

The biosphere is a common patrimony that humanity must protect. This is true for all natural resources: the air, water, fauna,flora, microorganisms, and also the maintenance of the climate. For this reason climate change must be faced globally and recognised as a shared responsibility.

The common patrimony includes those public goods that maintain life, like food, seeds, electricity, communications, the accumulated knowledge of people, research and science, culture, art, music, religion, health, education, and security.

The second Common Good is humanity, with its intrinsic values of dignity, conscience, intelligence, sensibility, compassion, love and opening to all. Humanity appears as a project that is infinite and therefore unending.

The fecund concept of the Common Good prohibits, for example, the patenting of genetic resources that are fundamental to food and agriculture; patented technical discoveries should always be managed with an eye towards their social application.

Central to the Common Good of Humanity and Mother Earth is the conviction that a beneficent energy extends throughout the entire universe, sustains all living creatures, and can be invoked, welcomed, and venerated. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian theologian, is a member of the Earth Charter Initiative and professor emeritus of ethics at the 0University of Rio de Janiero.

Excerpt:

By Leonardo Boff and - -
RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 14 2009 (IPS)

Today there are two fundamentally different ways in which people consider the Earth. For many it is simply a vast material object lacking spirit and bequeathed to the human race to exploit as it wills. For others, it is our home, a self-regulating superorganism with a unique community of life.

The respective consequences of these two visions are also radically different: with the latter, cooperation and respect; with the former, aggression and domination.

Humanity has always considered the Earth as a great mother who inspires fear, veneration, and respect. Only more recently, since the rise of modern science at the beginning of the 16th century and the work of Rene Descartes, Galileo Galilei, and Francis Bacon, did the Earth come to be considered as an object, "res extensa", that could be subjected to human -and violent- intervention to extract all possible benefits from it.

This was the project of dominium mundi, or world domination. It created marvels, from machines to antibiotics; it put men on the moon and into outer space. While it would be ignorant to deny the merits of this system, it is also essential to remember that analytic and applied reason -if not accompanied by emotional reason, sensitivity and kindness, which are fundamental to the world of values- has created a machinery of death that is capable of destroying the human species in 25 different ways with nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

Our generation is the first in the history of mankind that has transformed itself into a force of geophysical destruction. There is a growing understanding across the world that if humanity continues on its current path, it cannot endure. The current forms of production and consumption transform everything into a business, including the most sacred realities, like life, our organs, and our genes.

Every year 3500 species of living beings disappear forever from the face of the Earth as a consequence of man’s systematic aggression against nature. The wheel of global warming has begun to turn and cannot be stopped. All we can do now is slow it down and minimise its catastrophic effects. It can devastate many ecosystems, taking millions of people with it, forced to either move or simply die.

And so we will have to change to survive. If we initiate "a new and sustainable way of life" like that formulated in the Earth Charter, there will be a promise of future life. It is urgent that we change our system of exploiting the Earth and its resources and correct our form of social relations, introducing greater inclusion, more equality, and a way of living in harmony with the universe.

It is absolutely indispensable that we adopt an ethic of care, respect, responsibility, solidarity, and cooperation and, last but not least, compassion towards all those who suffer in humanity and nature.

Today we know not only that the Earth holds life in its atmosphere, thus creating the biosphere, but also that she is herself living and produces all forms of life. The moderns call her Gaia, the name in Greek mythology for the living Earth.

In this critical context, we must return to the concept of the earth as mother. We must unite the two poles: the more ancestral notion of the Earth as mother of our original peoples and the more contemporary approach of the new astrophysics and biology that sees Earth as Gaia, a living superorganism.

What Saint Francis of Assisi more than 800 years ago contemplated in his cosmic mysticism -he chanted to the sun as father and brother and to the earth as mother and sister and addressed all beings with the sweet words brother and sister- today we know as a fact verified by molecular and biological genetics.

All living beings, from the bacteria that emerged 3.8 billion years ago to the dinosaur, the horse, the hummingbird, and the human, share the same genetic alphabet built of the same 20 amino acids and the same four phosphate bases (adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine). It is only the different combinations of the chemical letters of this alphabet that produce the differences we see in the great biodiversity.

We are therefore all brothers and sisters and members of the great community of life. In this sense, there is no environment as a separate entity; the environment contains us all. We human beings are not outside of or above nature or Mother Earth. We are inside of her as a part of her reality. We are the conscious and intelligent part of the Earth.

In the last few centuries we have exiled ourselves from the Earth. We must return to our common home and take care of it because its balance and its future are being threatened. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Leonardo Boff is a Brazilian theologian and writer.

Excerpt:

By Leonardo Boff and - -
RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 14 2009 (IPS)

Today there are two fundamentally different ways in which people consider the Earth. For many it is simply a vast material object lacking spirit and bequeathed to the human race to exploit as it wills. For others, it is our home, a self-regulating superorganism with a unique community of life.

The respective consequences of these two visions are also radically different: with the latter, cooperation and respect; with the former, aggression and domination.

Humanity has always considered the Earth as a great mother who inspires fear, veneration, and respect. Only more recently, since the rise of modern science at the beginning of the 16th century and the work of Rene Descartes, Galileo Galilei, and Francis Bacon, did the Earth come to be considered as an object, "res extensa", that could be subjected to human -and violent- intervention to extract all possible benefits from it.

This was the project of dominium mundi, or world domination. It created marvels, from machines to antibiotics; it put men on the moon and into outer space. While it would be ignorant to deny the merits of this system, it is also essential to remember that analytic and applied reason -if not accompanied by emotional reason, sensitivity and kindness, which are fundamental to the world of values- has created a machinery of death that is capable of destroying the human species in 25 different ways with nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

Our generation is the first in the history of mankind that has transformed itself into a force of geophysical destruction. There is a growing understanding across the world that if humanity continues on its current path, it cannot endure. The current forms of production and consumption transform everything into a business, including the most sacred realities, like life, our organs, and our genes.

Every year 3500 species of living beings disappear forever from the face of the Earth as a consequence of man’s systematic aggression against nature. The wheel of global warming has begun to turn and cannot be stopped. All we can do now is slow it down and minimise its catastrophic effects. It can devastate many ecosystems, taking millions of people with it, forced to either move or simply die.

And so we will have to change to survive. If we initiate "a new and sustainable way of life" like that formulated in the Earth Charter, there will be a promise of future life. It is urgent that we change our system of exploiting the Earth and its resources and correct our form of social relations, introducing greater inclusion, more equality, and a way of living in harmony with the universe.

It is absolutely indispensable that we adopt an ethic of care, respect, responsibility, solidarity, and cooperation and, last but not least, compassion towards all those who suffer in humanity and nature.

Today we know not only that the Earth holds life in its atmosphere, thus creating the biosphere, but also that she is herself living and produces all forms of life. The moderns call her Gaia, the name in Greek mythology for the living Earth.

In this critical context, we must return to the concept of the earth as mother. We must unite the two poles: the more ancestral notion of the Earth as mother of our original peoples and the more contemporary approach of the new astrophysics and biology that sees Earth as Gaia, a living superorganism.

What Saint Francis of Assisi more than 800 years ago contemplated in his cosmic mysticism -he chanted to the sun as father and brother and to the earth as mother and sister and addressed all beings with the sweet words brother and sister- today we know as a fact verified by molecular and biological genetics.

All living beings, from the bacteria that emerged 3.8 billion years ago to the dinosaur, the horse, the hummingbird, and the human, share the same genetic alphabet built of the same 20 amino acids and the same four phosphate bases (adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine). It is only the different combinations of the chemical letters of this alphabet that produce the differences we see in the great biodiversity.

We are therefore all brothers and sisters and members of the great community of life. In this sense, there is no environment as a separate entity; the environment contains us all. We human beings are not outside of or above nature or Mother Earth. We are inside of her as a part of her reality. We are the conscious and intelligent part of the Earth.

In the last few centuries we have exiled ourselves from the Earth. We must return to our common home and take care of it because its balance and its future are being threatened. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Leonardo Boff is a Brazilian theologian and writer.

Excerpt:

By Leonardo Boff and - -
RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 10 2009 (IPS)

Since its beginnings in the 1960s, Liberation Theology has adopted a global perspective, focusing on the conditions of the poor and oppressed throughout the world, victims of a system that thrives off the exploitation of labour and the plundering of nature. The system exploits the working class and the weakest nations. It also represses those who oppress and thus violate their own humanitarian impulses. In a word, everyone must be freed from this system that has continued for almost three centuries and has been imposed across the planet.

Liberation Theology is the first modern theology to adopt this global objective and consider human destiny from the viewpoint of the victims. As a consequence, its first premise is a commitment to the poor and to life and liberty for all. It sprung up at the margins of the central churches, not in the metropolitan centres of traditional thought. Because of its origin, it has always been considered with suspicion by academic theologians and especially by ecclesiastical bureaucracies and by the most important church of all, the Roman Catholic Church.

From its cradle in Latin America, Liberation Theology spread to Africa, then to Asia, as well as to areas of the First World identified with human rights and solidarity with the dispossessed. Poverty understood as oppression has many faces: the indigenous peoples whose ancestral wisdom provide a rich theology of indigenous liberation; black liberation theology, a response to the painful scars left on countries that practised slavery; the liberation theology of women, who have been subjected to patriarchal domination since the neolithic age, and that of workers, used as the fuel of the machines of production. Each form of oppression has its corresponding form of liberation.

There is an underlying theological question that we have not yet satisfactorily answered: how can we plausibly proclaim the existence of God in a world permeated by misery. Doing so makes sense only if it means transforming this world in such a way that the lament of the miserable ceases. For such a change to take place, they themselves must become aware, organise themselves, and implement a practical policy of transformation and social liberation. Given that the vast majority of the poor in our countries are Christian, it was logical to make faith a factor in liberation: the churches that feel they are the heirs to Jesus, a poor man crucified for his commitment to God and justice, would be natural allies of this movement of poor Christians.

Support has been forthcoming from churches with prophetic bishops and cardinals, like Helder Camara and Paulo Evaristo Arns in Brazil, Arnulfo Romero in El Salvador, and others, as well as many priests, nuns, monks, and politically-committed lay persons.

Because its cause was universal, Liberation Theology was already an international movement in the 1970s and convened truly global theological forums. A publishing council was formed with more than 100 Latin American theologians to formulate a 53-volume theological system from the perspective of liberation. Thirteen had been published when the Vatican intervened to abort the project. Then-cardinal Joseph Ratzinger acted forcefully, cutting off at the root a project that was promising and beneficial for all peripheral churches and especially for the poor. History will remember him as a cardinal, and then pope, who was the enemy of the of the expression of the intelligence and thinking of the poor.

Liberation theology created a political culture. It helped form social organisations like the Movement of the Landless, the Indigenous Pastoral, and the Black Movement, and it was fundamental in the creation of Brazil’s Workers Party whose leader, President Lula, felt a strong connection with Liberation Theology

Today this theology has transcended the borders of religion and become a socio-political force. In addition to Lula, President Rafael Correa of Ecuador, ex-bishop and president of Paraguay Fernando Lugo, President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, and the current President of the UN Assembly, Nicaraguan priest Miguel de Escoto, all have identified themselves publicly with Liberation Theology. Its primary force lies not in the pulpits of theologians but rather in the innumerable grass- roots church communities (there are about 100,000 in Brazil alone), and in the many thousands of Bible-reading groups that see scripture in the context of social oppression and the so-called pastoral missions.

Rome remains caught in the profound illusion that its doctrinal documents, emitted by cold bureaucracies far from where the faithful live, will succeed in reining in Liberation Theology, which was born heeding the calls of the poor and is now moved by the cry of the earth. As long as the poor continue their lament and the Earth suffers the rage of consumerism and the mania of production, there will be a thousand reasons to listen to the call of a revolutionary and liberational interpretation of the scriptures. Liberation Theology is a response to an unjust reality and is saving the central church from its alienation and cynicism. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian theologian and writer, is co-author of the Earth Charter.

Excerpt:

By Leonardo Boff and - -
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 7 2008 (IPS)

Given the unmistakeable signs that the earth cannot survive the intensified exploitation of her resources, the assault on the dignity of her children, and the exclusion and condemnation to starvation of millions of humans, it is essential that we seek inspiration in other civilisations that offer ecological wisdom, writes Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian writer, liberation theologist, and a comissioner and author of the Earth Charter. In this article for IPS, Boff writes that the Maya believe that the universe is built of and sustained by cosmic energies and that the basic duality between creation and disintegration (we would say between chaos and cosmos) confers dynamism on this universal process. Human well-being derives from our synchronisation with this process and our profound respect for all living beings. Thus human beings feel they are part of Mother Earth and enjoy her beauty and protection. Death is not the enemy but a more profound immersion in the universe. Whereas for us, work is essentially the production of goods and wealth, often disappointing and uncreative, for the Maya, work is helping Mother Earth, who gives us all we need to live, an activity that does not enslave people but allows them to express their abilities and shape their lives. This practical wisdom has great validity for this critical phase of our history. All that helps maintain the equilibrium of the Earth and its vitality should be valued and recognised as a form of regeneration and salvation.

As British historian Eric Hobsbawm observed in his celebrated book, The Age of Extremes: A History of the 20th Century, ”The future cannot be the continuation of the past; our world runs the risk of implosion and explosion. It must change, because the alternative is eclipse.”

How can we avoid this eclipse, which would mean the defeat of our form of civilisation and eventually the Armageddon of the human species? It is essential that we seek inspiration in other civilisations that offer ecological wisdom. There are many, but I cite the Maya because I recently spent 20 days visiting Central America where the descendants of that extraordinary civilisation live, speaking at length with its wise men, priests, and shamans.

Of this vast wealth of wisdom, I wish to cite only three central points that correspond to major gaps in our way of life: the harmonious cosmovision of all beings, the fascinating anthropology centred on the heart, and the meaning of human labour.

Living on the margins of modern culture, the Mayans keep up their ancient traditions and learning, which have been passed down from parent to child and in writings like the Popol-Vuh and the Chilam Balam books.

The basic intuition of their cosmovision is close in many ways to modern cosmology and quantum physics. The universe is built of and sustained by cosmic energies, by the Creator and Shaper of all. All that exists in nature was born of the love between the Heart of the Sky and Mother Earth. Mother Earth is a living being that pulses, feels, intuits, labours, gives birth to and feeds all her children. The basic duality between creation and disintegration (we would say between chaos and cosmos) confers dynamism on this universal process. Human well-being derives from our synchronisation with this process and our profound respect for all living beings. Thus human beings feel they are part of Mother Earth and enjoy her beauty and protection. Death is not the enemy but merely a more profound immersion in the universe.

Human beings are seen as ”the enlightened, the investigators, and the seekers of existence”. It is worth citing a text of Popol Vuh for its beauty and solemnity in describing the appearance of the human being: ”May it shine and dawn in the sky and the earth; there was no glory or greatness in our creation until the human came into being.”

To reach their full potential, humans must pass through three stages in a process of individuation similar to that written of by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. The “person shaped from mud” -in the first phase- is able to speak but has no consistency because the water makes him dissolve. If he develops and can become a “person of wood”, he has understanding but no soul because he is rigid and unfeeling. Finally he reaches the phase of the “person of corn”: “he knows what is near and what is far,” but his primary characteristic is that he has a heart. Because of this “he feels perfectly, perceives the universe, the source of life”, and shares the rhythm of the Heart of the Sky and the Heart of the Earth.

The essence of the human lies in the heart. This is what many thinkers, like M. Maffesoli, D. Goleman, A. Cortina, and myself have argued for years. It lies in a gentle intelligence and sensitive reason. It is not a matter of abdicating analytical and mathematical reason but of completing and broadening it to bring about a capacity for full understanding. By giving centrality to these other forms of exercising reason, we create a space for the emergence of care, love, compassion, and respect, values without which we will never be able to save the endangered system of life.

A third aspect of Mayan wisdom, regarding work, is illuminating for our culture. For us, work is essentially the production of goods and wealth. The best hours of the day are dedicated to work, which is often disappointing and uncreative. For the Maya, work is helping Mother Earth, who gives us all we need to live. When we need something, we help her produce enough for all. When this has been accomplished, the Maya move on to other things, communal living, collective tasks, caring for their homes, roads, and temples, or artistic activities.

For the Maya, work is an activity that does not enslave people but allows them to express their abilities and shape their lives. This practical wisdom has great validity for this critical phase of our history. All that helps maintain the equilibrium of the Earth and its vitality should be valued and recognised as a form of regeneration and salvation. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Leonardo Boff
SAN SALVADOR, Mar 26 2008 (IPS)

Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff arrived in El Salvador on Easter Sunday, the eve of the 28th anniversary of the assassination of Monsignor Oscar Romero by a sniper on Mar. 24, 1980, while he was celebrating mass.

Credit: Leonardo Boff's blog

A former Franciscan priest born in 1938, Boff said his visit to San Salvador was “a debt I owed to Monsignor Romero,” who was archbishop of this diocese.

“Oscar Romero died because of his love for the poor. He initiated a kind of martyrdom for the sake of justice, arising from a deeply committed faith. Basically, he imitated the deeds of Christ,” he said.

The U.N.-sponsored Truth Commission concluded in 1993 that the late Major Roberto d’Aubuisson, the founder of the rightwing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), ordered Romero’s killing. ARENA has governed El Salvador since 1989.

The Vatican has initiated a process of beatification for the late Salvadoran archbishop.

In 2000, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) blamed the Salvadoran state for violating Romero’s right to life and failing to investigate his murder.

Last October, the government rejected responsibility for the crime, and refused to follow the IACHR’s recommendations.

One of the founders of Liberation Theology and the author of 60 books, Boff’s views, summed up in “Church: Charisma and Power – Liberation Theology and the Institutional Church” (1985), were frowned on by the Vatican, which exercised disciplinary measures against him in the 1980s and 1990s.

Joseph Ratzinger, who was then head of the Vatican’s Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and is now Pope Benedict XVI, imposed several of these sanctions on him, including periods of enforced silence, during which he could not celebrate mass or speak publicly about doctrinal questions.

Boff finally left the Franciscan order in 1992 and devoted himself to teaching and writing.

In his view, Romero has become “an icon, not only for the Church, but for another kind of humanism that seeks dialogue, sides with the most vulnerable, and involves salvaging the dignity of human beings and demanding changes to guarantee that dignity.” “That was seen as subversive, and therefore he was sacrificed,” Boff said.

He spoke to IPS correspondent Raúl Gutiérrez in San Salvador about human rights and religious affairs in Latin America.

IPS: What do you think is the main obstacle to clearing up the assassination of Monsignor Romero?

LEONARDO BOFF: Society has to cleanse its memory. That’s the only way that justice can be done. Human relations cannot be based on lies and impunity.

It is essential for society itself to demand that the perpetrators be identified and that the law be enforced. Unless that happens, there will always be an open wound, and people will continue to demand that the spilt blood be atoned for.

IPS: Those in power say that this would reopen the wounds of the past.

LB: That’s a profoundly selfish view, because those who died continue to belong to humankind. Human history is made up of the dead, their dignity and their actions.

The memory of the victims must be preserved, because without it, society loses the human beings who have gone before. The dead have another kind of life and presence. They are on the other side of life.

IPS: Monsignor Romero was a bishop who was appreciated and loved all over the world. In several European cathedrals, statues have been erected in his memory. Why is it that here, in El Salvador, those guilty of his murder cannot be brought to justice?

LB: Oscar Romero is a unique martyr. He died for justice and for his love of the poor. He is a kind of saint that is uncommon in the history of the Church. He initiated a kind of martyrdom for the sake of justice, arising from a deeply committed faith. Basically, he imitated the deeds of Christ. That is why I understand that the religious powers-that-be have difficulty reading this new sign; they don’t know how to interpret it.

IPS: In decades past, the ties between the Catholic Church and the people of Latin American were considered to be intense, close and strong. How do you view them now?

LB: Almost half of the world’s Catholics live in Latin America. That, in itself, is a strength. But the Latin American Church’s capacity for recreating a new liturgical face, better adapted to people’s cultures, is also the Catholic Church: a Church that cherishes the memory of the wisdom of indigenous and Afro-descendant cultures. This Church is still in the process of being born.

So far it has been an appendage, a reflection of the European Church. Now it is increasingly a strong Church that is consolidating its own identity.

IPS: Protestant churches have been gaining ground in Latin America, and the Catholic Church has lost members. What do you think is the reason?

LB: It’s the Church’s own fault that it’s losing members, through being too authoritarian and centralised. It hasn’t got enough priests because they are not allowed to marry, and this is a growing cause of permanent internal crisis.

This Church is not open to change, as others are. Even Judaism has opened its doors to women’s ministry. If the Catholic Church does not open itself up, its flock will continue to shrink.

In spite of that, the Catholic Church is illuminated from its base, from Bible study groups, social pastorates for land, and Afro-descendants’ and indigenous people’s organisations, which is where its vitality lies.

IPS: Is there any connection between the loss of members and the Catholic liberation theology movement, which was very strong three decades ago, but lost momentum and saw its leaders removed?

LB: Studies show that the Church is growing where liberation theology is alive. Where it is absent, charismatic churches and sects gain ground. This has been statistically demonstrated.

Nor is it true that liberation theology has driven people out of the Catholic Church. I think there have been attempts to demoralise adherents of liberation theology and to deny the movement legitimacy, and therefore many Christians who do not understand how the pope and the bishops can be on the side of the oppressors and the rich, and not on the side of the poor, have become discouraged.

IPS: What are the challenges that liberation theology faces in order to reawaken its dampened spirit?

LB: At the recent World Forum on Theology and Liberation in Nairobi, which attracted representatives from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe and the United States, we saw its immense vitality and growth. But it is not as visible, nor as controversial, as it used to be. Liberation theology is present wherever the churches take poverty and justice seriously.

The movement began with the experience of listening to marginalised people: the poor, indigenous people, Afro-descendants and women, and it is still as relevant as it was decades ago, because the poor are still crying out to God to hear them. A gospel that does not lead to liberation is no gospel at all.

I don’t care about criticism from the powerful of the world and from the Church. What I care about is that there are Christians who take the issue of justice seriously.

Liberation theology has not made poor people an object of reflection. It has walked with them, and shared the same persecutions, slanders, tortures and murders that they suffer. A theologian has one foot in extreme poverty and the other foot in reflection, and by walking on both, arrives at liberation.

And now we must pay attention to the cry of the gang members and young people who have no place in society, the unwanted ones, who are neglected by public policies: drug addicts, those caught up in violence, the wretched of the earth.

But we must also heed the cry of the earth, the water, the forests and the animals, threatened by an insensitive and merciless culture, which may bring about a crisis in the web of life and cause hundreds of species to disappear.

Excerpt:

By Leonardo Boff and - -
RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 27 2007 (IPS)

Given the grim developments of our age, biologists, bioanthropologists, and astrophysicists are weighing the possibility that our species, homo sapiens/demens, may go extinct even in this century, writes Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian theologian and member of the Earth Charter. In this analysis, Boff writes that their arguments should be taken seriously. The most substantial seems to be overpopulation aggravated by the difficulty of adapting to climate change. Population growth has been exponential. It took humanity a million years to reach a population of 1 billion in 1850; at the current ever-increasing rate, this figure is set to reach 10 billion in 2050. Is this a triumph of the species or a danger for all humanity? What could end is not human life but this unthinking human life that loves war and mass destruction. We have to bring about a humane world where true justice is practiced, which respects life, desacralises violence, loves and cares for all beings, and which venerates the mystery of the world we call the Originary Source, or God. Or simply, we must learn to treat all human beings humanely and with compassion and respect for all creation. Everything that exists deserves to exist. Everything that lives deserves to live. Especially the human being.

Their arguments should be taken seriously. The most substantial seems to be overpopulation aggravated by the difficulty of adapting to climate change. Population growth has been exponential. It took humanity a million years to reach a population of 1 billion in 1850; at the current ever-increasing rate, this figure is set to reach 10 billion in 2050. Is this a triumph of the species or a danger for all humanity?

In their widely-read book Microcosmos, respected microbiologists Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan argue on the basis of fossil remains and evolutionary biology that one of the signs of the collapse of a species is rapid overpopulation. This process can be confirmed in a petri dish: shortly before they reach the borders of the dish and exhaust its nutrients, the bacteria multiply exponentially and suddenly die. For human life on the earth, the authors write, the end could be similar. In effect we occupy almost the entire surface of the planet; only 17 percent — deserts, the Amazon, and the polar regions — remains unoccupied. We are reaching the physical limits of the earth. Is this a sign of our impending extinction?

Nobel Laureate Medicine Christian de Duve writes in his book Vital Dust (1995) that various processes are now underway that in the past preceded major extinctions. Each year some 300 species go extinct naturally because they reach their evolutionary peak. However, the pressure of global industry on the biosphere has driven that number up to about 3500 species per year. Does this progressive destruction not threaten our species as well?

Astronomer Carl Sagan, who died in 1996, saw in the human desire to explore the moon and launch spacecraft beyond the solar system a sign that the collective unconscious sensed the risk of approaching extinction. The will to live impels us to imagine forms of survival away from the earth. Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking has conceived of the possibility of extraplanetary colonization with spacecraft propelled by laser rays. But to reach other planetary systems we would have to cross billions and billions of kilometres of space, which would take centuries. Ultimately the problem is that we are prisoners of the speed of light — 300,000 kilometres per second — which is considered unsurpassable.

What does Christian theology think of the eventual disappearance of the human species? I would say that if humanity botches its planetary adventure, it would be without question an unspeakable tragedy. But it would not be an absolute tragedy. When the Son of God took our form he was threatened with death by Herod. During his human life he was rejected, jailed, tortured, and finally crucified. Only at that point the concept was formalised of original sin, which is a historical process of the negation of life. Killing the author of life, God incarnate, is more evil than killing a creature, taking his life. But Christians testify that the last word is not death but resurrection, which is not the reanimation of a cadaver but the full realisation of human potential, a true revolution within evolution. Perhaps this would be a step towards what Pierre Teilhard de Chardin announced in 1933: an irruption of the noosphere, which is the state of awareness and relationship with nature, that will bring about a new convergence of minds and hearts and with it a new era of the human condition.

In this perspective the current scenario would not be tragedy but crisis. The crisis is purification and maturation. It foretells of a new beginning, the pain of a promised birth and not the pain of the shipwreck of the human voyage. What could end is not human life but this unthinking human life that loves war and mass destruction. We have to bring about a humane world where true justice is practiced, a world which respects life, desacralises violence, loves and cares for all beings, and which venerates the mystery of the world we call the Originary Source, or God. Or simply, we must learn to treat all human beings humanely and have compassion and respect for all creation. Everything that exists deserves to exist. Everything that lives deserves to live. Especially the human being. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Leonardo Boff and - -
RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 13 2007 (IPS)

The world is suffering from a clear crisis of meaning caused by the irrationality of world economics and politics and the general crisis of religion, which is the natural source of hope and ethics. Today almost all religions are contaminated by the evil of fundamentalism, which is frequently the basis of terrorism, Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian theologian and environmentalist, is a member of the Commission of the Earth Charter. In this article Boff writes that the search for religious peace has not been joined by the Roman Catholic Church which has exhibited an increasingly closed attitude that has lead to positions that are clearly fundamentalist and exclusionary and are reflected in the speeches of the current Pope. The doctrinal strategy of Benedict XVI consists of a direct confrontation with modernity guided by a cultural pessimism that is unacceptable in someone who should know that the Spirit is in humanity and is not a monopoly of the Church, and that salvation is open to all. Its principal social base now lies in lay movements characterised by mediocre thought, submission to the authorities, obedience to the laws of the market, and a preference for big media spectacles over the confrontation of poverty, injustice, and threats to the environment.

Theologian Hans Kung, who has focused more than anyone else in these years on the political and ethical significance of religion, is right to conclude that there cannot be political peace if there is not first religious peace, that there cannot be religious peace without dialogue among religions, and that such dialogue is not effective if it doesn’t build on common ground and seek to bridge differences. But this search for religious peace has not been joined by the Roman Catholic Church. In recent years it has exhibited an increasingly closed attitude that has lead to positions that are clearly fundamentalist and exclusionary and are reflected in the speeches of the current Pope.

Benedict XVI is leading the Catholic Church down a dangerous path that has drawn intense criticism not only from theologians but even cardinals, episcopates like that of France, groups of bishops from Germany and, surprisingly, certain bishops from Italy, the most Roman of all, in addition to leaders of other religions and ecumenical organisations around the world.

Since the days he was a cardinal, Benedict XVI has tried to stifle progressive groups and liberation theology while catering to conservatives, traditionalists, and the followers of extremist bishop Marcel Lefevre, excommunicated in 1988 for ordaining priests and bishops against the orders of Rome. The Vatican ended up accepting Lefevre’s seminarians, who upheld the traditional rites, and now the Pope has adopted one of his most important demands: the return to the Latin mass of the Council of Trent (1545-1563), with all of the limitations this would impose on communication by reintroducing a dead language accessible only to scholars.

The most serious development followed later, with the publication of a document on five questions regarding the Church prepared for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and approved by the Pope. In it Benedict XVI repeated what he had said in 2000 as Cardinal Ratzinger in the Dominus Jesus, which amounts to the kiss of death for the future of ecumenism: that the only church of Christ is the Catholic Church and there is no salvation outside of it. The other ”churches” only have ”ecclesiastical elements”, and the Christian Orthodox Church –the second lung of Catholicism, to use the expression of Pope John Paul II– was categorised as a simple, particular church. Such positions generate disappointment and bitterness, which are hardly helpful to the search for peace.

In short, the Church is behaving these days like a large sect. It is worth remembering that in its early days Christianity was called a sect because it was a Jewish dissident group that followed Christ. Used thus, the word sect is a neutral term referring to a group that takes a different position from the majority. Later when conflicts emerged among the faiths, the word sect took on a negative connotation, as seen in Paul’s Letters to the Corinthians, Romans, and Galatians. Saint Peter spoke of ”pernicious sects” that closed themselves off from others.

This is what the Catholic Church now risks by isolating itself more and more. Its principal social base lies in lay movements characterised by mediocre thought, submission to the authorities, obedience to the laws of the market, and a preference for big media spectacles over the confrontation of poverty, injustice, and threats to the environment.

A church behaves as a sect, according to classic thinkers like Troeltsch and Weber, when it claims exclusive possession of truth, refuses dialogue, and rejects ecumenical work. A clear sign of the Church’s sectarianism is the fact that it did not sign the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 because it did not mention God; its refusal to participate in the World Council of Churches because it considered itself superior to the other churches; for rejecting the convening of a universal Christian council in the context of world peace, for similar reasons; for discouraging the purchase of UNICEF cards to benefit poor children alleging that the organisation favoured the use of condoms.

The doctrinal strategy of Benedict XVI consists of a direct confrontation with modernity guided by a cultural pessimism that is unacceptable in someone who should know that the Spirit is in humanity and is not a monopoly of the Church, and that salvation is open to all. Thus the Church is presenting itself as an anti-world, an attitude scholars like Sequy agree is typical of sects.

I would not be surprised if some of the most radical conservatives, animated by certain moves by this Pope, tried to provoke a schism within the church. In the fourth century almost all bishops embraced the heresy of Arianism, which held that Jesus was inferior to God the Father. It was the lay people who saved the church by proclaiming Jesus was the Son of God. We must apply this lesson to today, given the narrow-mindedness and theological vapidity that reigns in the upper of the Vatican. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Leonardo Boff and - -
RIO DE JANEIRO, May 15 2007 (IPS)

Pope Benedict XVI\’s statements during his visit to Brazil were mined with significant silences: only once did he refer to the grassroots ecclesiastical communities, to choices for the poor, and to liberation, and never to liberation theology and social ministry or to the grave problem of global warming, writes Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian writer and theologian. In this article Boff writes that instead the Pope went back in time 50 years with the traditional and ambiguous language of charity and helping the poor. These silences are a way to obscure and deny. Such lazy reason, particularly that of major institutions like the Catholic Church, is myopic and harmful, always returning to the old ways (more catechism, more celibacy, more obedience, more adhesion to Church teachings). If Brazilian and Latin American Catholicism is to rise to the challenges of this age, it needs the courage that the first Christians had to leave behind the terrain of Judeo Christianity and enter the land of pagan Hellenism. It was from this encounter that today\’s Christianity emerged. What we need is a Catholicism with an Indian-black-Latin American face that is not against but in communion with Roman Catholicism.

The figure of the Pope is a powerful symbol that evokes archetypes of the great father, the wise man, and the shepherd with supernatural powers. Archetypes of this magnitude reach deep into people and arouse powerful feelings.

But what is the model of Catholicism that this Pope promotes? It is well known that two types of Catholicism persist in Brazil: one characterised by ethical commitment, the other devotional. The latter is centred on the worship of saints, prayer, and pilgrimages, and today, a form of worship via the media.

The Catholicism of ethical commitment is inspired by Catholic action and social ministry. It culminates in liberation theology. This model requires mediation based on social analysis because it seeks social transformation, from a spiritual perspective.

Which of these approaches is more appropriate for a nation that must revise the anti-history it inherited from colonialism, the genocide of its indigenous populations, slavery, and the modern dependence on the giant metropolis?

The answer depends on the level of conscience attained by Catholics. I believe that devotional Catholicism does not have the potential to bring about social transformation because it is too self-absorbed, while the other model constantly pursues faith, justice, and evangelism with a commitment to liberation.

Seen from this perspective, the statements of the Pope did not become explicit until the meeting with the archbishops in Aparecida. At the beginning of his visit he managed to remain equidistant from the two models, but he ended up backing the devotional approach, since his overtures to the social model were hinted at and never followed through on.

There is a fundamentalist tone to Benedict XVI when he speaks of the centrality of Christ even with regard to social issues, which will surely make inter-religious dialogue more difficult. It is a theology without Spirit because everything is reduced to Christ alone. In theology this is called Christomonism –the ”dictatorship” of Christ in the Church– as if there were not also the Spirit which we see in history and the social processes that give rise to truth, justice, and love.

What the Pope said about the first evangelisation of Brazil as an encounter of cultures and not a process of ”imposition and alienation” is not borne out by history. Colonisation and evangelization were part of the same project, which amounted to one of the most massive acts of genocide in history. We should not forget the testimony of the sacred Mayan text, the Chilam Balam: ”Sadness was introduced to us, and Christianity, which was the beginning of our sadness and our slavery; they came to kill our flower and castrate our sun.”

To condemn as ”utopia and regression” the desire to rescue these religions and their ancestral wisdom is an insult to the indigenous peoples and will only discourage the efforts of the many missionaries that back these initiatives.

The argument that God is explicitly indispensable to the building of a just society is theologically tenuous. The Papal States themselves disprove it, as do Spain under Franco and Portugal under Salazar, which publicly praised God while practising torture and capital punishment. What is missing is an ethical consensus and an openness to transcendence that leaves open the definition of its content, as is the case in modern states. These theoretical flaws allow papal discourse to slide into moralism and spiritualism.

The arguments display ”lazy reason”, an analytical category created by the Portuguese thinker Boaventura de Sousa Santos. Lazy reason is that which does not engage the relevant challenges of the present and squanders the positive experiences of the past.

The Pope’s statements were mined with significant silences: only once did he refer to the grassroots ecclesiastical communities, once to choices for the poor, once to liberation, and never to liberation theology and social ministry, and never to the grave problem of global warming. Rather, he went back in time 50 years with the traditional and ambiguous language of charity and helping the poor. These silences are a way to obscure and deny.

Lazy reason, particularly that of major institutions like the Catholic Church, is a form of myopia, of harmful reasoning that does not seek new approaches but always returns to the old (more catechism, more celibacy, more obedience, more adhesion to Church teachings) or arrogant reasoning, like the assertion that the Church is the only truth, or anti-utopian reasoning because it fails to present a horizon of hope, believing that the future is merely the prolongation of the present.

The Pope does not address the central issue of our day, which is not the discussion of the mission of the Church in itself but rather the future of the earth and humanity and the examination of how the mission of Catholicism can help assure that future.

If Brazilian and Latin American Catholicism is to rise to the challenges of this age, it needs the courage that the first Christians had to leave behind the terrain of Judeo Christianity and enter the land of pagan Hellenism. It was from this encounter that today’s Christianity emerged as an expression of the New Testament, not the Old Testament. What we need now is a Catholicism with an Indian-black-Latin American face that is not against but in communion with Roman Catholicism. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Leonardo Boff and - -
RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 3 2007 (IPS)

Anyone who thinks that President Bush\’s current tour of Latin America, and especially to Brazil, was inspired by the urgent warnings in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is dead wrong, writes Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian liberation theologian and member of the International Committee of the Earth Charter. In this article, Boff writes that there are two motivations driving Bush: one is geopolitics, the other is energy, specifically the extraordinary abundance of biomass in Latin America and the Amazon. The US and Brazil see themselves as the major players in this biofuel market. But there is a major unanswered question that probably does not trouble these two presidents: Isn\’t there an urgent need to change the current model of civilisation? The solution adopted by Bush and Lula only dulls the teeth of the wolf but leaves its ferocity intact.

There are two motivations driving Bush: one is geopolitics, the other is energy, specifically the extraordinary abundance of biomass in Latin America and the Amazon.

In his first term Bush did not give the region any geopolitical importance. However, in recent years the people of the region have elected leftist and centre-left governments with powerful social visions. Social issues and development have taken centre stage, which has aroused old and long-dormant dreams about Latin America’s role on the world stage. The Bolivarian yearning for the Patria Grande (Larger Homeland) and Jose Marti’s Our America, with a strong anti-imperialist and anti-American accent have returned to captivate the political imagination of many people there. The charismatic force of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez is prominent in this continental dream.

In principle, the US government is not opposed to Latin American integration. However, it doesn’t want any disturbance of the bilateral relations it has built in the region over the past decades. Eventually Bush may accept regional integration as long as it is in the fashion of Lula and not Chavez, without anti-American feelings and not against the interests of the US.

The other major theme is finding alternatives to oil, the supply of which is widely thought to run out or sharply decline around 2030-2040. The question is what will replace oil. In this area, Brazil is without a doubt a world leader. The majority of Brazil’s energy is clean, much of it hydro-electric, with 29 percent derived from biomass from a dozen plants, especially in the Amazon, the pre-Amazon, and the northeast of the country. Globally biomass accounts for only 11 percent of energy production.

But Brazil’s great experiment has been with ethanol from sugar cane. In 1975, after the first major oil shock, Brazil initiated the so-called Proalcohol Programme using its own technology to produce an alternative to gasoline. There were periods in which cane ethanol powered 80 percent of automobile use in Brazil. When the price of oil dropped, the project was put on the back burner, but with the price spike in recent years it has come back strong. Today Brazil produces 16 billion litres per year of cane ethanol, almost all of it used domestically. The flex fuel car, which runs on gasoline or ethanol, is trademarked by Brazil. In ten years another 12 billion litres of fuel will be needed to satisfy the expansion of the flex fuel fleet, the technology for which it has exported to other countries, including Japan.

Brazil has about 90 million hectares of arable land plus 200 million for grazing. Only 62 million hectares are used for agriculture, of which six million are dedicated to sugar cane, half to make sugar, half to make ethanol. A few more million hectares could be dedicated to growing cane for ethanol without razing forests or reducing food production. Production for 2017 is projected to be 28.4 billion litres, plus 10.3 billion litres for export only.

Since 2001 the US has built a number of bio-refineries, which it hopes to use to lower oil consumption by 30 percent by the year 2030. These plants use corn or wheat to produce ethanol, but productivity per hectare is only half of that for sugar cane ethanol. The subsidised cost is 30 cents per litre, compared with 22 cents in Brazil, which explains the 14-cent tax per litre imposed on imported Brazilian ethanol to protect US producers.

Given this reality, Bush has approached Lula seeking a bilateral agreement. There is no signed treaty, just a memorandum signed on March 9 outlining reciprocal transfers of technology, establishment of a common technical standard for ethanol, and the building of biofuel plants in other countries in Africa, Central America, and the Caribbean.

On March 2, 2007, the UN launched the International Biofuel Forum as the first step towards the organisation of the international ethanol market, the drafting of regulations and common technical standards with an interest towards making it a raw material on the global level. The forum included Brazil and the US –which produce 70 percent of the world’s ethanol– and China, India, and the European Union.

Bush and Lula have recognised the potential of this clean energy source, which will be decisive in the near future. The US and Brazil see themselves as the major players in this biofuel market.

Meanwhile, there is a major unanswered question that probably does not trouble these two presidents: Isn’t there an urgent need to change the current model of civilisation? The solution adopted by Bush and Lula only dulls the teeth of the wolf but leaves its ferocity intact.

On March 4, former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso published an article in which he stated,”The greatest threat to humanity is the greenhouse effect. But the broader problem is this: if the practices of the West spread to the rest of the world, will it still be possible for man and nature –and for mankind– to peacefully co-exist?”

Accordingly, what is desperately needed now is a true revolution in the hearts and minds of people; without it we cannot avoid the devastating consequences of the climate change now underway.

As French president Chirac announced, the heads of state will have to discuss all of these matters in order to bring about the profound changes that are necessary. This time there will be no Noah’s ark to save some and leave the rest to drown. Either we save all of ourselves, or we will all perish. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Leonardo Boff and - -
ROME, Mar 3 2007 (IPS)

Those who call water scarcity the challenge of the century are not exaggerating. The recent debate over a proposal to recycle waste water for drinking purposes in Australia, the drying of large portions of massive river basins like Lake Chad in Africa and the Aral Sea in Central Asia, the millions of people who struggle to grow crops on drought-stricken farms in Asia, Africa and in the Americas, all reflect the importance of conserving and making more productive use of our water resources, writes Jacques Diouf, Director-General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Improving the food situation is fundamental to fighting hunger and improving lives on every continent. This means that to turn the tide against water scarcity, farmers must find ways to produce more food with proportionally less water. It takes 1000-2000 litres of water to produce one kilo of wheat and 13 000-15000 litres to produce the same quantity of grain-fed beef. By comparison, the amount of daily drinking water required by one person is estimated at a mere two to five litres. And yet each day, we \”eat\” an average of 2000 litres of water. Thus the effective daily consumption of water per person is 1000 times more than the apparent consumption through drinking. Without water, we can not produce; and without it we simply cannot eat. The planet is thirsty because it is hungry.

The theme of World Water Day 2007 (March 22), Coping with Water Scarcity, is more than simply a way to focus attention on this issue. It is a specific and emphatic call to action.

Water has long been at the top of the priority list for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the coordinating agency for this year’s World Water Day observance. FAO recognizes that as the number-one user of water worldwide, the agriculture sector must take the lead in addressing the rising global demand for water.

Agriculture accounts for about 70% of the freshwater withdrawn worldwide, because without water there would be no agriculture. The figure is closer to 95% in several developing countries, where roughly three-quarters of the world’s irrigated farmlands are located.

Improving the food situation is fundamental to fighting hunger and improving lives on every continent. This means that to turn the tide against water scarcity, farmers must find ways to produce more food with proportionally less water. It takes 1000-2000 litres of water to produce one kilo of wheat and 13 000-15000 litres to produce the same quantity of grain-fed beef. By comparison, the amount of daily drinking water required by one person is estimated at a mere two to five litres. And yet each day, we “eat” an average of 2000 litres of water. Thus the effective daily consumption of water per person is 1000 times more than the apparent consumption through drinking. Without water, we can not produce; and without it we simply cannot eat. The planet is thirsty because it is hungry.

The rising global population is contributing to an increased demand for water. The world’s population is expected to rise from the current 6.5 billion to 8.1 billion by 2030. To keep pace with the growing demand for food, and taking into consideration an increase in water productivity, it is estimated that 14% more freshwater will need to be withdrawn for agricultural purposes by 2030 in order to obtain the 55% increase in food production needed.

Climate change has raised the stakes. So have successful development and the trend towards urbanization, which have added to the demand for water in agriculture the increased demand for water for industry and people’s homes.

Access to adequate water can be a problem even in areas with plenty of freshwater, but water shortages are most acute in the driest areas of the world, which are home to more than 2 billion people and to half of all poor people. Acute water scarcity affects countries in the Near East and North Africa, as well as Mexico, Pakistan, South Africa, and large parts of China and India.

In recent years there has been growing consensus that international, national and local policies must be coordinated to guide more effectively the use of water resources for agriculture, urbanization and industry.

As far as agriculture is concerned, FAO advocates short-term, small-scale irrigation projects at the village level, including the development of low-cost and relatively simple technologies which can be used by small farmers to irrigate crops. We also need to focus on the long-term future, first by upgrading and improving the management of the facilities and then by working across national borders to develop and protect water basins.

Pilot projects and programmes in countries as diverse as South Africa, Turkey and Mexico have turned to small-scale irrigation schemes or community-based systems for harvesting rainfall and protecting catchments that feed into main waterways. At the same time, FAO has supported inter-regional and river basin programmes which coordinate the responses of several governments or agencies, as in the countries which share the massive Nile River in Africa, which has been compromised by drought and human activity.

Improving agricultural practices and water productivity will go a long way to protecting our water resources for all of our needs. Worldwide, 1.1 billion people do not have access to adequate clean water to meet their basic daily requirements and 2.6 billion do not have proper sanitation. Every day, 3 800 children die from diseases associated with a lack of safe drinking water and proper sanitation.

Access to water is intricately linked to the achievement of most of the Millennium Development Goals, which include halving extreme poverty and hunger by 2015, halting the spread of HIV/AIDS, ensuring primary education for all children, and ensuring environmental sustainability.

But direct access to water for own food production is not possible for every country or region. The international food market serves as an important vehicle for transferring “virtual water” from food exporting water-abundant regions to food importing water-scarce ones. In fact, any importing of food is the equivalent of importing water in a condensed form. An FAO survey estimates, for example, that 86.5km3 of water would be needed to grow the food that is imported into the Near East – more than the annual flow into the region of the Nile River. Virtual water trade is not only potentially beneficial for the importing countries but also for global water management for two reasons. Firstly, one of the main imports is cereals and these can be produced with less water in countries having high water productivity. Secondly, the bulk of the imported grain is produced under rainfed, temperate conditions and is therefore only
’consuming’ soil moisture, and not surface and groundwater that might be allocated to other uses.

As a global community, we have the capacity to go beyond stop-gap responses to water scarcity and to develop sound, ongoing management of our water resources. Turning that capacity into concrete results requires sustained political will, cooperation and funding. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Leonardo Boff and - -
RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 1 2006 (IPS)

Brazil today is being pulled between the need for economic growth and the need to preserve its natural resources, which is especially critical with regard to the Amazon, writes Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian theologian and writer. In this article, Boff writes that the Amazon contains the majority of the world\’s rain forests, fresh water reserves, and the richest trove of biodiversity. The ecological future of the earth and life upon it depends largely on how the Amazon is treated. When he took office in 2003, President Lula named as minister of the environment Marina da Silva, a former rubber tapper and collaborator of Chico Mendes, martyr to the preservation of the Amazon. Da Silva walked into a grim situation. In the 2000/2001 period, the area deforested was 18,165 square kilometres, increasing to 23,143 the following year. To address this situation the government approved in 2004 the Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Amazon Deforestation, which affects the action of 13 ministries. The results have been positive. In 2004/2005, the rate of deforestation was reduced by 31 percent, and even better results are expected for 2006. The Lula government is generating awareness of the strategic importance of the Amazon for Brazil and for the world. This is happening in a muddle of contradictions left from a past of neglect, but the course is clear. If it can be maintained, this patrimony can be saved for humanity.

The Amazon contains the majority of the world’s rain forests, fresh water reserves, and the richest trove of biodiversity. The ecological future of the earth and life upon it depends largely on how the Amazon is treated.

Before analysing the Amazon policy of the current government of President Lula da Silva and the future of this region, it is necessary to correct two frequent mistakes:

The first is considering the Amazon as the lungs of the world. This is not at all the case. Rather, it functions as a giant sponge that absorbs carbon dioxide from the environment and so counteracts global warming. The process of photosynthesis transforms massive quantities of carbon –the main factor in global warming– into biomass. The complete deforestation of the Amazon would release into the atmosphere about 50 billion tonnes of carbon each year and cause a massive loss of life, which would be unsustainable in such conditions. For this reason, humanity’s debt to the region, according to the prestigious Getulio Vargas Foundation, would come to about 35 billion dollars.

The second, and very common, mistake is thinking that the Amazon could be the bread basket of the world. In reality, the Amazon lives off itself and for itself. It is full of life, but the ground lacks humus, which is only 30-40 centimetres deep. Thus the forest grows on top of the ground, not out of the ground. For this reason when a tree falls, it brings down others with it. And where there are no trees, the torrential rains wash away the humus and bare the sand below. This is why it is said that the Amazon could be transformed into a savanna or a desert. It never, however, could be the bread basket of the world.

Until 1968 the Amazon was almost completely intact. Then, with the introduction of major industrial and hydroelectric projects, extensive soya cultivation, grazing, and disorganised colonisation, the devastation of the Amazon began. As of today 800,000 square kilometres have been deforested — 16 percent of the 3.5 million square kilometres of the Brazilian Amazon.

When he took office in 2003, President Lula wanted to introduce a new policy for the Amazon. He named as minister of the environment Marina da Silva, a former rubber tapper and collaborator of Chico Mendes, martyr to the preservation of the Amazon. Her basic vision encompasses all spheres of government, each of which has an equal responsibility to consider environmental factors.

Da Silva walked into a grim situation. In the 2000/2001 period, the area deforested was 18,165 square kilometres, increasing to 23,143 the following year. To address this situation the government approved in 2004 the Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Amazon Deforestation, which affects the action of 13 ministries. The results have been positive. In 2004/2005, the rate of deforestation was reduced by 31 percent, and even better results are expected for 2006.

A Law for the Management of Public Woods was also passed, defining three forms of sustainable production: the creation of 15 million hectares of conservation units for sustainable use; areas designated for community employment, like forest settlements for the cultivation of trees and protection of reserves; and third, the licensing of forest concessions for the use of forest products and services, all under the close supervision of the environmental organisations.

At present about 1.4 million hectares of natural forest have been certified and controlled. The goal is to increase this to 50 million hectares in ten years.

The Lula government is generating awareness of the strategic importance of the Amazon for Brazil and for the world. This is happening in a muddle of contradictions left from a past of neglect, but the course is clear. If it can be maintained, this patrimony can be saved for humanity. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Leonardo Boff and - -
RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 1 2006 (IPS)

It is already evident that the planet cannot support the violence and voraciousness of the current mode of production and consumption, writes Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian theologian and writer and member of the International Commission of the Earth Charter. In this analysis, the author argues that what is needed is a new paradigm of co-existence between nature, earth, and humanity which puts life at the centre and maintains natural and cultural diversity. The foundation of this new ethics has been set out in two documents: the Earth Charter, an international initiative adopted by UNESCO in 2000; and the Manifesto for Life, approved in 2002 by the environment ministers of Latin America. Both have much in common with the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The mission of the human being, as the bearer of consciousness, intelligence, will, and love, is to take care of the earth, to be the gardener of this splendid garden of Eden. This mission must be urgently undertaken, because the earth, life, and humanity are sick and threatened in their entirety.

The expression ”sustainable development”, coined in 1972 by the Brundtland Report of the United Nations, has been adopted by all international organisations and in governmental policy around the world. From the beginning, however, the expression was a target for critics because of the contradiction it seemed to embody.

The term development comes from the existing market economy –capitalism– and its limitless and systematic exploitation of all natural resources in pursuit of three fundamental goals: increasing production, expanding consumption, and generating wealth. This logic involves the progressive exhaustion of natural resources, the devastation of ecosystems, and the extinction of about 3000 natural species per year, ten times the normal rate in the process of evolution. In social terms, this creates growing inequality and replaces cooperation and solidarity with ferocious competition. More than half of the human race lives in poverty.

This model presupposes that both earth’s natural resources and economic growth are infinite, which is sheer illusion. Today it is already evident that the planet cannot support the violence and voraciousness of this mode of production and consumption.

Despite its critics, the concept of sustainable development is useful in describing a specific type of development found in certain regions and in particular ecosystems. It postulates the possibility of preserving natural capital, prioritising the rational use of resources, and maintaining the entire system’s capacity for regeneration. It is possible, for example, to use the natural resources of the Amazon forest in a manner that conserves its integrity and maintains its ability to meet the needs of present and future generations.

What is needed is a new paradigm of co-existence between nature, earth, and humanity which puts life at the centre, maintains natural and cultural diversity, and guarantees the continuity and co-evolution of the physical-chemical-ecological nexus that supports life on earth.

This is where the question of ethics arises. In Greek ethos means human dwelling, but today ethos is not only the home that we live in, the city or country we inhabit. Ethos is the common home, the earth. As a consequence, we need a planetary ethos, and a new ethics.

The foundation of this new ethics has been set out in two documents: the Earth Charter, an international initiative adopted by UNESCO in 2000; and the Manifesto for Life, approved in 2002 by the environment ministers of Latin America. Both have much in common with the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Our current plight is well expressed in the introduction of the Earth Charter: ”The foundations of global security are threatened.” This requires us to ”live with a sense of universal responsibility, identify with the entire community of living beings as well as our local communities.” The situation is urgent and demands that ”humanity choose its future. The choice is to form a global alliance to take care of the earth and one another, or to risk our own destruction and that of the diversity of life.”

The new ethics must arise from a new outlook which recognises that ”humanity is part of a vast evolving universe. The earth, our home, is alive with a unique community of life; the earth has provided the conditions essential to life’s evolution; every one of us shares responsibility for the present and the future, for the well-being of the human family and all living beings. The spirit of human solidarity and kinship with all life is strengthened when we live with reverence for the mystery of being, gratitude for the gift of life, and humility regarding the human place in nature.”

The earth, life, and humanity are expressions of a single immense evolving process that began 13 billion years ago and form a single, complex, and diverse reality. The mission of the human being, as the bearer of consciousness, intelligence, will, and love, is to take care of the earth, to be the gardener of this splendid garden of Eden.

This mission must be urgently undertaken, because the earth, life, and humanity are sick and threatened in their entirety. In brief, the Earth Charter postulates that we ”live in a manner of sustainable life”. This is the new civilising principle, a promissory dream for the future of life.

The Manifesto for Life puts it well: ”The ethics of sustainability places life above political-economic or practical interests: the ethics of sustainability is an ethics for the permanent renewal of life, from which everything is born, grows, sickens, and dies and is reborn.”

The result of this ethics is what we are searching for in this time: peace. In the definition of the Charter, peace is ”the fullness created through right relationships with oneself, other persons, other cultures, other life, Earth, and the larger whole of which all are a part.” Humanity must move towards this new type of future. The current situation is one of crisis and not tragedy, and certainly, as at other times, we will know how to bring about the new conditions for the realisation of life and its destiny. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Leonardo Boff and - -
RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 1 2006 (IPS)

Pope Benedict XVI\’s unfortunate citation of the statement of a 14th Century Byzantine emperor is a cause of scandal and shame for Christians as well as Muslims, writes Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian theologian and writer. In this article, Boff writes that the Pope knows that there is a confrontation underway between Muslims and the West, which has brought war to Afghanistan and Iraq and openly backs the Israeli cause against the Palestinians. Thus Benedict XVI\’s quotation has created an association between the papacy and the military strategies of the West. How could this not give rise to irritation? It must be pointed out that this is not an isolated incident for this Pope. As Cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger opposed letting Turkey join the European Union because it is has a Muslim majority. Not long ago, he suppressed an initiative in the Vatican to promote dialogue between Christianity and Islam. For him dialogue with other religions makes no sense given that \’\’it is contrary to the Catholic faith to consider the Church as one way of salvation equal to others\’\’.

Pope Benedict XVI’s unfortunate citation of the statement of a 14th Century Byzantine emperor has provoked justified indignation in Islamic communities:

”Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

But the Pope’s act is a cause of scandal and shame for Christians as well.

This quotation is completely inappropriate. The Pope knows perfectly well that there is a confrontation underway between Muslims and the West, which has brought war to Afghanistan and Iraq and openly backs the Israeli cause against the Palestinians, the majority of whom are Muslim. Thus Benedict XVI’s quotation has created an association between the papacy and the military strategies of the West. How could this not give rise to irritation?

For Christians, the Pope’s act is perplexing because the essence of the Christian faith is forgiveness, expressed in the words of Saint Francis of Assisi: ”Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hate, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon.”

Not wanting to forgive, the Pope legitimised all those who do not want to ask for forgiveness, neither of those they wrong in daily life, nor of the blacks enslaved for centuries, nor of those who survived the decimation of the indians. If the Pope does not officially ask for forgiveness, he sets a bad example. He does not fulfil the Lord’s calling of ”confirming brothers and sisters in faith.”

It must be pointed out that this is not an isolated incident for this Pope. As Cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger opposed allowing Turkey to join the European Union because it is has a Muslim majority. Not long ago, he suppressed an initiative in the Vatican to promote dialogue between Christianity and Islam. In the document Dominus Jesus, one of the most fundamentalist texts in recent centuries, prepared by him in September 2000, he stated that ”the only true religion is the Roman Catholic Church” and that ”objectively speaking [the followers of other religions] are in a gravely deficient situation in comparison with those who, in the Church, have the fullness of the means of salvation.” Thus, dialogue with other religions makes no sense given that ”it is contrary to the Catholic faith to consider the Church as one way of salvation equal to others”. Given this record, the Pope’s remarks at the University of Regensburg approach should not be surprising.

But even so, wouldn’t it be more virtuous for the Pope to openly ask forgiveness for the misunderstanding that he caused with his words, albeit unintentionally.

Why hasn’t he?

To answer this question, one must consider the ideology of infallibility that reigns in the Vatican and the Catholic Church in general. According to this ideology, the Pope can make no mistakes, though in reality the doctrine of infallibility is very limited in its application: it states that the Pope is infallible only in certain well-defined situations in which he personally enjoys an infallibility that is of the entire church. However, the notion of infallibility has been wrongly extended to cover every word the Pope speaks. Thus, for the Pope to ask forgiveness would be construed as a contradiction of this infallibility.

The mind of Pope Benedict XVI is still ruled by the doctrine of papal absolutism formulated in 1302 by Boniface VIII, which sustains that it is necessary ”that every human being submit to the Pope to obtain salvation”. This doctrine was not abolished even by the Second Vatican Council of 1964 which introduced an explanatory Note reaffirming that the Pope can always act ”according to his personal judgement”, as in the nomination of bishops, or the establishment of norms or ecclesiastical policy. In other words: a Pope can, on his own, make decisions on everything. Meanwhile millions of Catholics, together, do not have the authority to make decisions on anything. This absolutism explains why Benedict XVI doesn’t want to ask forgiveness. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Leonardo Boff and - -
RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 1 2005 (IPS)

As the Vatican Conclave meets to select a new Pope, the overriding question is whether the cardinals will elect a man who will return to the path of Vatican II, or one who will prolong the Catholic Counterreformation. In other words, who will prevail: John XXIII, or John Paul II? asks Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian theologian and writer. Pope John XXIII convened all of the bishops in the Vatican II Council (1962-1965) in order to undertake the Catholic Reform, which with great hope and new life swept the world. Like all processes of change, this also aroused resistance and opposition, which predominated in churches that suffered persecution –like the Polish church– and in important sectors of the notoriously conservative Vatican Curia. It is from this area of resistance that John Paul II emerged, setting in motion a Counterreformation of the Catholic Church. For this reason, the challenge today is whether the cardinals will chose a Pope who returns to the path of Vatican II with the contributions of the Third World churches that will restore the centrality of justice and the poor, or whether they will chose a Pope who prolongs the Counterreformation using media dramatisation, the strengthening of the figure of the Pope and the Curia, and a merely moralising discourse on the poor and justice.

As the Vatican Conclave meets to select a new Pope, the overriding question is whether the cardinals will elect a man who will return to the path of Vatican II, or one who will prolong the Catholic Counterreformation. In other words, who will prevail: John XXIII, or John Paul II?

Though it aspires to be the answer to many problems, the Catholic Church remains itself an unsolved problem.

In the 16th century, the Protestant Reformation split apart the Christian community and raised fundamental question: which then is the true church? In an effort to reassert that it was the only true church of Christ, Catholicism launched the Counterreformation.

Beginning in the 17th century, with the ascendance of critical reason and secularisation, the problem of the Church grew even more serious: did religion, revelation, and the Church still have any meaning? Yet again, to defend itself and reaffirm that it remained the sole bearer of the revealed truth, the Catholic Church went on the defensive against the modern world and enlightenment criticism.

These two processes caused an excessive concentration of the Church on itself and marginalised it from the course of history. Pope John XXIII, a man of enormous good sense, grasped the error of this defensive strategy. He was also sufficiently humble to understand that alone it would be impossible to bring about reform that would be accepted by the wide majority necessary to prevent a division of Catholicism. He convened all of the bishops of the world in the Vatican II Council (1962-1965) in order to bring about an adequate and positive response to this initiative in Rome. Thus the new face of the modern Church was born. And Catholic Reform was undertaken, which with great hope and new life swept the world. In this way the Church defined itself as the People of God. It recognised the necessity of ecumenical dialogue with the other churches and religions as opposed to anathematising them, and understood the urgency of simultaneously opening up a dialogue with the modern world and recognising the value of its principal positive achievements.

Like all processes of change, this also aroused resistance and opposition, which predominated in churches that suffered persecution –like the Polish church– and in important sectors of the notoriously conservative Vatican Curia.

It is from this area of resistance that John Paul II emerged, setting in motion a Counterreformation of the Catholic Church. In this context, John Paul II represented an anti-John XXIII. He reasserted the vision of the Church as fundamentally hierarchical and the idea that other churches are not fully valid and possess only a few ecclesiastical elements. He sustained that Catholicism is the only true religion and that those who profess other creeds are seriously jeopardising their salvation. These are the essential components of the document Dominus Jesus of 2000, published by Joseph Ratzinger and approved by the John Paul II.

The ecumenical heart continued to organise cordial meetings with the other churches and religious leaders, but the fundamentalist head of the Church projected a single overwhelming sentiment: the Catholic Church does not change, it maintains its arrogance completely.

This cloistering manifested itself in almost every area: Church administration, doctrine, and morality, particularly regarding sexuality and women.

Despite this conservative orientation, the papacy of John Paul II had an undeniable significance. Its importance does not lie in the avalanche of documents –over 100,000 pages– it left behind but in his person. What will last in history is his charismatic image, profoundly religious and at the same time vigorous and tender. What then will be his legacy? He himself. And the content of that legacy? Religion.

The figure of John Paul II filled a void felt throughout a world orphaned by an absence of charismatic leaders. Those that exist are either warlike or bureaucrats of power. We have no Gandhi today, no Martin Luther King, Che Guevara, or Mother Teresa. The masses feel the lack of a benevolent Oedipus, a father with qualities of a mother, able to inspire and lead us towards the future.

John Paul II set a course for the Church directed towards the recovery of religion as a force that galvanises the masses and that, as a political power, was decisive in bringing about the downfall of the Soviet Union. Against the secularising tendency of modernity which makes religion almost invisible, this Pope showed that it is an essential part of reality and that it can produce peace or war.

While we can discuss the orientation John Paul II gave religion with his conservative stance and moral and doctrinal rigidity, we cannot deny the importance of the religious and mystical element in the configuration of a new humanity.

For this reason I believe that the challenge today is whether the cardinals will chose a Pope who returns to the path of Vatican II with the contributions of the Third World churches that will restore the centrality of justice and the poor, or whether they will chose a Pope who prolongs the Counterreformation using media dramatisation, the strengthening of the figure of the Pope and the Curia, and a merely moralising discourse on the poor and justice.

The name of the next Pope matters little. What matters is that he have the good sense and the ability of John XXIII and convenes all of the churches such that together they can contribute to addressing, without arrogance and with humility, the grave questions facing humanity today. Without a council, it would be difficult for a Pope, alone, to realise such a project, whether conservative or renovative. May the Holy Spirit illuminate the cardinals. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Leonardo Boff and - -
RIO DE JANIERO, Apr 1 2005 (IPS)

The fundamental characteristic of the long and complex pontificate of John Paul II was a restoration of traditional conservative values and a return to internal Church discipline, writes Leonardo Boff, a liberation theologian who was punished by the Vatican doctrinal authorities in 1985 with \’\’obsequious silence\’\’. In this analysis, Boff writes that the pontificate of John Paul II was not a reformation but a counter-reformation, an attempt to halt a process of modernisation that erupted in the church in the 1960s . A major contradiction lay between his actions and teachings. To the outside, he presented himself as a champion of dialogue, of liberty, tolerance, peace, and ecumenism, but within the Church he shuttered the right of expression, banned dialogue, and created a theology with powerful fundamentalist overtones. In John Paul II it was the religious mission of the church and not its social mission that was dominant. He had a limited and simplistic understanding of the liberation theology prevalent in Latin America when he became Pope. He saw it as a Trojan horse for marxism, which he was obliged to denounce because of his experience of communism in his native Poland. He convinced himself that the danger in Latin America was marxism, when the real danger has always been savage and colonialist capitalism and its anti-populist and retrograde elites.

The long and complex pontificate of John Paul II should be considered in the broad context of specific issues that have long concerned the Catholic Church. Its fundamental component was a restoration of traditional conservative values and a return to Church discipline.

John Paul II presided over not a reformation but a counter-reformation. He represented the attempt to halt a process of modernisation that erupted in the church in the 1960s and which concerned all of Christianity. In this way he deferred the settling of accounts that the Church is engaged in with regard to two serious problems that have afflicted it for four centuries.

The first is tied to the rise of other churches in the wake of the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, which shattered the unity of the Roman Catholic Church and obliged it to tolerate other churches that it considered heretical and schismatic.

The second major question relates to post-enlightenment modernity and the rise of reason, science and technology, civil liberties, and democracy. This new culture was a threat to the revelation which the Church considered itself the exclusive bearer of and denounced its institutional organisation as an absolute spiritual monarchy in contradiction with democracy and respect for human rights.

With regard to the evangelical churches, the Vatican pursued a strategy of reconversion with the goal of restoring the ancient ecclesiastical unity under the authority of the Pope. Its relation to modern society was critical: it condemned its project of secularisation and emancipation and sought to recreate cultural unity under the aegis of Christian morals.

Both strategies failed. The other churches grew and flourished on every continent. Modern society, with its freedom, science, and technology, became the paradigm for the entire world. The Church saw itself transformed into a bastion of religious conservatism and political authoritarianism.

The convocation of an Ecumenical Council to address these unresolved matters was a product of the good sense and daring of Pope John XXIII. In effect, the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) assumed the motto: understanding, not anathema; dialogue, not condemnation. It initiated an ecumenical dialogue with other churches which presupposed the acceptance of their existence. With regard to the modern world, it undertook a reconciliation with the spheres of work, science, technology, liberty, and religious tolerance.

But a third settling of accounts remained undone: that with the poor, who constitute the vast majority of humanity. It was the Latin American church that recognised there is not only a modern developed world but also an underdeveloped underworld. This observation raised an awkward question: How do you proclaim God the Father in a world of misery? Doing so makes sense only if we are capable of converting this bad reality into good.

This is precisely what was done by the most dynamic sectors of the Church in Latin America, animated by certain prophets like Dom Helder Camara. The credo was: for the poor and against poverty.

This development spurred many Christians to enter social liberation movements and even armed groups, while many bishops and cardinals assumed a prominent role in combating military dictatorships and defending human rights, which were understood primarily as rights of the poor.

John Paul II was elected Pope when this process was well underway. From the beginning, his pontificate was grounded in the countercurrent to these then-dominant tendencies. Clearly his Polish origins and the circles of the Roman Curia, marginalised but not defeated by Vatican II, contributed significantly to this attitude.

In Rome the new Pope met with the Vatican bureaucracy, which is conservative by nature and of the same mind as he. And so an historic and powerful Pope-Curia bloc was established with the goal of imposing a restoration of Church identity and ancient discipline.

The personal traits of John Paul II made it possible for him to carry out his project successfully, using his charisma, his undeniable energy, and his media savvy.

To realise his restoration plan, the new Pope made use of the proper instruments. He rewrote canon law to encompass the entire life of the church. He published the Universal Catechism of the Catholic Church and thus made official the imposition of a single mode of thought within the institution. He withdrew the decision-making power of the Sinod of Bishops and brought it entirely under papal authority, thus limiting the power of the Continental Conferences of Bishops, national episcopal conferences, and religious conferences at every level national and international. He marginalised decision-making power of the laity. And he denied full ecclesiastical citizenship to women, who were relegated to secondary functions, always far from the altar and the pulpit.

Together with his principal advisor, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the Pope advanced an Agostinian vision of history in which only that which passes through the mediation of the church, the bearer of supernatural salvation, has real importance. According to this vision, that which is created by man and history does not reach a divine level and is insufficient before God.

This stance rendered John Paul II fundamentally incapable of understanding Latin America’s liberation theology, which held that liberation must be the work only of the poor themselves and that the Church is merely an ally that can support and legitimise their struggle. For Cardinal Ratzinger, such liberation is merely human and lacking in any supernatural importance.

It is important to note that this Pope had a limited and simplistic understanding of this type of theology, which he interpreted through the logic of its detractors. Today we know from information that the CIA provided him, particularly regarding the influence of the liberation theologians in Central America, that he saw it as a Trojan horse for marxism, which he was obliged to denounce because of his experience of communism in his native Poland. He was convinced that the danger in Latin America was marxism, when the real danger has always been savage and colonialist capitalism and its anti-populist and retrograde elites.

In John Paul II it was the religious mission of the Church and not its social mission that was dominant. Had he said, ”Let’s support the poor and commit to the Church through reform in the name of the Gospel and the prophetic tradition”, the political fate of Latin America would have been very different.

Instead, he organised the conservative restoration of the entire continent: he replaced prophetic bishops with others that were distanced from the day-to-day life of the people; he closed theological institutions and penalised their instructors.

There was a major contradiction between the actions and the teachings of John Paul II. To the outside, he presented himself as a champion of dialogue, of liberty, tolerance, peace, and ecumenism. He apologised on various occasions for ecclesiastical errors and condemnations of the past and met with leaders of other religions to pray for world peace. But within the Church he shuttered the right of expression, banned dialogue, and created a theology with powerful fundamentalist overtones.

The political-ecclesiastical project of the Pope did not solve the problems relating to reform, modernity, and poverty. Rather, it made them worse, deferring a true settling of accounts.

The limitations of his style of church government did not prevent John Paul II from attaining a high level of personal sanctity, however. He did, in the context of an ”old-style” religion with great devotion to saints and especially to Our Lady, reliquaries, and places of pilgrimage. He was a profound orator. During prayer he was transfigured, would blanche and at times emit sighs and tears. He was once found in his chapel extended on the floor in the figure of the cross as if in ecstasy.

Who will have the last word on the pontificate of John Paul II? History and God. We can only accede to history, which will determine what his true significance was to Christianity and the world in this era of shifting paradigms and the change of millennia. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Leonardo Boff and - -
RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 1 2004 (IPS)

Throughout the recently concluded US presidential campaign, the world has looked on in fear as violence raged in Iraq and President Bush responded with bellicose declarations, with his adversary Kerry not far behind, perhaps a shade less warlike. This violence is an integral part of the imperial spirit deeply rooted in western culture, which has always shown itself to be imperialist, imposing itself on all \’\’others\’\’, those who are \’\’different\’\’. The re-election of Bush assures the continuity of this tragic policy if not an intensification of it, writes Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian theologian and environmentalist. In the name of national security, constitutional rights that were an integral element of the US are being suppressed. Those accused of terrorism are arrested and kept in secret locations, sometimes outside of their own countries, without access to family, lawyers, or even the International Red Cross. And as if this weren\’t enough, the superpower now practices pre-emptive military actions and cooperates with only those international organisations that serve its ends. This is the return of the-state-as-Leviathan envisioned by Hobbes, visceral enemy of any strategy for peace. His logic admits no future either for peace or for humanity.

Throughout the recently concluded US presidential campaign, the world has looked on in fear as violence raged in Iraq and President Bush responded with bellicose declarations, with his adversary Kerry not far behind, perhaps a shade less warlike. This violence is an integral part of the imperial spirit deeply rooted in western culture, which has always shown itself to be imperialist, imposing itself on all ”others”, those who are ”different”. The re-election of Bush assures the continuity of this tragic policy if not an intensification of it.

It is part of the imperialist logic that one sad day it will be ”internationalised”; that is to say placed in the service of the interests of the new globo-colonisers. Given its globalised interests, it will be capable of anything, from occupation to even wars of conquest to take over scarce natural resources.

These days, lamentably, there are few lovers of peace — and many obsessed with war. The world desperately needs new sources of inspiration for peace. One of the most consistent was formulated by Immanuel Kant in his essay from 1795 suggestively entitled, ”Perpetual Peace” (Zum ewigen Frieden). Kant proposes a world republic founded on world citizenship, the primary characteristic of which is ”general hospitality”. The reason for this, the philosopher argues, is that all humans share the same planet and without exception have a right to live on it and visit its places and peoples who live on it as well. The earth belongs to all equally.

This citizenry rules itself by law and never by violence. Kant calls for the suppression of all armies, since as long as they exist, the strong will threaten the weak and tensions will emerge between states, destroying the foundations of any real peace.

The rule of law and diffusion of hospitality must create a culture of rights and generate a ”community of peoples”. The conscience of this community will be able to grow to the point that the violation of a right in one place will be felt in every other — an idea that would be repeated later by Ernesto Che Guevara. Addressing the pragmatists of politics, who are generally lacking in any ethical sense in social relations, Kant emphasizes, ”World citizenship is not a fantasy but a necessity imposed by lasting peace.” If we want a perennial peace and not merely a truce or momentary pacification, we must live with hospitality and respect the rights of all others.

The ethical-political vision of Kant established a paradigm for globalisation and peace. Peace is a consequence of the rule of law and juridically ordered and institutionalised cooperation for all states and peoples. For the philosopher, rights are the ”the apple of God’s eye” and ”the most sacred of all that God placed on earth”. Respect for rights nurtures the growth of a community of peace and security that puts a definitive end to ”odious war”.

The vision of the other theoretician of the state and globalisation, Thomas Hobbes, stands in stark contrast to that of Kant. For him peace is a negative concept: it means the absence of war and an equilibrium of intimidation between states and peoples. This vision served as the foundation for a paradigm that predominated for centuries and that has vigorously reasserted itself since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The US decided to fight terrorism with war, pushing aside the perspective of peace. It established a regime of national and international security animated by a perverse logic: everyone is suspect. Simply being an Arab or Muslim makes one an eventual terrorist.

In the name of national security, constitutional rights that were an integral element of the United States are being suppressed. Those accused of terrorism are arrested and kept in secret locations, sometimes outside of their own countries, without access to family, lawyers, or even the International Red Cross. And as if this weren’t enough, the superpower now practices pre-emptive military actions and cooperates with only those international organisations that serve its ends, as we saw with the United Nations and the Security Council.

This is the return of the-state-as-Leviathan envisioned by Hobbes, visceral enemy of any strategy for peace. His logic admits no future either for peace or for humanity. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Leonardo Boff and - -
RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 1 2004 (IPS)

The complex social division of labour, the participation of women in public life, and their harsh criticism of the patriarchy and machismo have thrown the father figure into crisis. In a sense, what has emerged is a fatherless society, or one in which the father is absent, writes Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian writer and theologian. In this article, Boff writes that the eclipse of the father figure has destabilised the traditional family. The increase in divorce brought with it considerable and at times dramatic consequences. According to recent official statistics from the US, 90 percent of children that run away from home come from fatherless families; 70 percent of juvenile crime is committed by youth from homes without fathers; 85 percent of juveniles in prison and 63 percent of juvenile suicides grow up without fathers. It is the father figure that provides an understanding of the difference between the world of the family and the social world, where there is not only well-being but also work; where there is both kindness and conflict; where there is both winning and losing. The absence of a father figure deprives children of structure, leaves them adrift, and erodes their desire to commit to a life plan. We have to bring the father back.

The complex social division of labour, the participation of women in public life, and their harsh criticism of the patriarchy and machismo have thrown the father figure into crisis. In a sense, what has emerged is a fatherless society, or one in which the father is absent.

The eclipse of the father figure, however, destabilised the traditional family. It must be recognised that the increase in divorce brought with it considerable and at times dramatic consequences. According to recent official statistics from the US, 90 percent of children that run away from home come from fatherless families; 70 percent of juvenile crime is committed by youth from homes without fathers; 85 percent of juveniles in prison and 63 percent of juvenile suicides grow up without fathers.

The absence of a father figure deprives children of structure, leaves them adrift, and erodes their desire to commit to a life plan. We have to bring the father back.

To restore the relevance of the father figure it is important to distinguish between the anthropological principle of the father and the models of the father, which vary according to time and culture, from patriarch, tyrant, participant, companion, to friend. The anthropological principle of the father is a permanent structure necessary to the complex process of human individuation which operates in all models, though without being exhausted in any. The crisis of the father models causes the father principle to take on new expressions.

The psychoanalytic tradition made clear the unique importance of the father as an anthropological principle. The figure of the father is responsible for the first and necessary rupture of the mother/child bond and the introduction of the child into the interpersonal world of siblings, relatives, and society.

In this other world there is order, discipline, authority, and limits. People have to work and complete projects; for this they need courage, a sense of security, and a willingness to make sacrifices.

The father is the symbolic personification of these qualities. He is the bridge to the interpersonal, social world, in the passage to which children orient themselves by the father-hero archetype who knows, can, and does. If they lack this reference, they feel insecure, lost, and without initiative. It is the father figure that provides an understanding of the difference between the world of the family and the social world, where there is not only well- being but also work; where there is both kindness and conflict; where there is both winning and losing.

If television shows fan desire by making people believe that the sky is the limit, it is the father who must show that there are always limits, that we are all incomplete and mortal. To teach this troublesome but vital lesson is to heed the call of the anthropological principle of the father, without which a child would be permanently damaged.

From a well-realised father figure, the child can build a positive image of God the Father. Despite the difficulties, there is never a lack of father figures that we know who are immunised against the patriarchal mentality and live with dignity within the complex modern world, work hard, fulfil their duties as fathers, and show determination and responsibility. In this manner they fulfil their symbolic, archetypical function for their children, which is indispensable for them to mature without trauma and confusion, grow autonomous, and finally become mothers and fathers themselves. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Leonardo Boff and - -
RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 1 2004 (IPS)

The atrocious massacres of innocent people in Iraq, Palestine, and Rusia bring to mind two Biblical expressions that Christians use when confronted by staggering injustice or a degree of perversity that stuns reason and obliterates human sensibility: \’\’the abomination of desolation\’\’ and the \’\’second coming of the Anti-Christ\’\’, writes Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian theologian and writer. There are times, like the present, in which the Anti-Christ seems to prevail. It erupts so fearfully that it paralyses us and almost strips the just of any hope. The category of Anti-Christ has been wielded throughout history by those who would demonise their adversaries. For this reason we must be cautious in using it and avoid facile labelling. But today, when the perversity at work in the world is so great, we must use it both to denounce and to give warning. The Anti-Christ is among us and is active on both fronts, politics and religion. Both have in common a disregard for human life and a lack of pity for the innocent. And both are cold-blooded killers.

The atrocious massacres of innocent people in Iraq, Palestine, and Rusia bring to mind two Biblical expressions that Christians use when confronted by staggering injustice or a degree of perversity that stuns reason and obliterates human sensibility: ”the abomination of desolation” and the ”second coming of the Anti-Christ”.

”The abomination of desolation” refers to a situation in which violence occurs with such virulence that it unhinges sight, burns away tears, and leaves us speechless. This is what happened to the people in Beslan. Afterwards, at the burial of the victims, it seemed you could hear the words of Saint Matthew on Herod’s the killing of the innocents: ”In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be consoled, because they are not.” It is infinite suffering and perpetual mourning.

The Anti-Christ can create another situation of extreme wickedness, one that can take root in people and movements. It is the reverse of Christ. Christ was not originally a person, in this case Jesus of Nazareth. Christ is a dimension, a way of being, a term to designate the presence of love, goodness, giving, compassion, and forgiveness in the world, from the just Abel to the last elect. This Christ-dimension makes itself present in each human being. In figures like Buddha, Krishna, Miriam of Nazareth, Gandhi, Dom Helder, and Sister Dulce, this dimension is condensed in a singular form. For Christians, the most sublime expression of this dimension was Jesus of Nazareth, who was called Christ for this reason. However, by no means did this imply a monopoly of the Christ dimension, which can also be found in other historical figures.

The Anti-Christ dimension stands in stark opposition to the Christ dimension. It represents the history of perversity, inhumanity, and destructiveness in the highest degree. It finds expression in forms of terrible injustice, ideologies that call for the elimination of ethnicities, and in political tendencies that choose violence and aggression as the only mode of resolving problems. It can also take the form of perverse figures, of which the 20th century offers a broad range of terrifying examples.

The Anti-Christ makes use of two weapons: politics and religion. In its savage, tyrannical, and arrogant political expression, it imposes itself on everyone and slaughters its opponents. In its religious manifestation, it uses holy symbols and the name of God to seduce people to its adopt its causes, convert them, and confer legitimacy on its wicked policies. Its greatest blasphemy, according to Saint Paul, consists in ”raising itself above everything that is called God”.

The Christ dimension and the Anti-Christ dimension draw all of us into dramatic confrontations. There are times, like the present, in which the Anti-Christ dimension seems to prevail. It erupts so fearfully that it paralyses us and almost strips the just of any hope. In times like these, Saint Paul provides this consolation: ”And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the breath of his mouth.” But when?

The category of Anti-Christ has been wielded throughout history by those who would demonise their adversaries. For this reason we must be cautious in using it and avoid facile labelling. But there are times, like this, when the perversity at work in the world is so great that we must use it both to denounce and to give warning. Yes, the Anti-Christ is among us and is active on both fronts, politics and religion. Both have in common a disregard for human life and a lack of pity for the innocent. And both are cold-blooded killers.(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Leonardo Boff and - -
MADRID, Sep 1 2004 (IPS)

Speaking on September 20 at the Summit against Poverty, in New York, Spanish president Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero announced that his government will be actively involved in exchanging debt for social development initiatives, and especially in the field of primary education, writes Antonio Vereda del Abril, president of the Iberoamerican Foundation for Development (FIDE). In this article, the author writes that exchanging foreign debt for development co-operation amounts to freeing up resources so that poor countries can invest in the education and health of their citizens, fund microcredit operations that can result in the creation of great numbers of jobs, and in general, have the resources to spur their own development. Through foreign debt, finance has become an instrument of domination and inequality. Many countries have to channel 30 percent of their budgets to service their foreign debt, thus becoming exporters of capital, which prevents them from investing in their own development.

Development and poverty elimination constitute a process of liberation from within that requires knowledge and means, which the majority of people need access to through the co-operation of a few individuals and peoples with the many who need it.

For this to happen, what is needed is a Globalisation of Solidarity, starting with education, microcredit, and development. Globalising knowledge by using the new technologies is a major opportunity that we have not had for twenty years, since the tools of globalisation can now help us bring knowledge, tools, and social and technical services to all peoples. This co-operation in the development of all human beings so that they can bring about their own development from below and from within is the new face of solidarity.

Speaking on September 20 at the Summit against Poverty, in New York, Spanish president Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero announced that his government will be actively involved in exchanging debt for social development initiatives, and especially in the field of primary education.

For the majority of informal workers, peasants, and indigenous peoples, foreign debt means blood, sweat, and tears. The people have already spoken through cries of suffering and desperation. The service of this debt has meant higher taxes for the poor, which traps them in poverty and cuts off their future, robs them of equal opportunity, and leaves their children staggering under the weight of foreign debt from birth.

Thus is accomplished the greatest expropriation of the income of the poorest. Although it is often said that they do not pay taxes, the reality is that they are hit with inflation and consumption taxes imposed so the state can pay its foreign debt. It is a debt that is not amortised, that is continuously refinanced, and on which only interest is paid, which grows larger and more difficult to pay. Through foreign debt, finance has become an instrument of domination and inequality. Many countries have to channel 30 percent of their budgets to service their foreign debt, thus becoming exporters of capital, which prevents them from investing in their own development.

Exchanging foreign debt for development co-operation amounts to freeing up resources so that poor countries can invest in the education and health of their citizens, fund microcredit operations that can result in the creation of great numbers of jobs, and in general, have the resources to spur their own development. It means redirecting these freed-up resources so that the countries can invest them and make them available to the majority of their citizens, who with the requisite knowledge and tools can begin a process of development from below and within.

Exchanging debt for development means investing in co-operation on development. Since the debt is foreign, with other countries, it depends on both parties, creditor and debtor, to come to an agreement, a new global contract between the rich countries and financial institutions that are the creditors, and the poor and developing countries that are the debtors. The former must offer this debt or development, but it is the latter, the debtors, who must commit to channelling the freed-up debt into programmes that benefit the people.

In the debtor nations, the equivalent of their foreign debt payments would stay in their countries to be invested in their own development. In terms of bookkeeping, for the creditor state the proposal would mean a expense-free way of shifting money owed them to finance part of the development co-operation. To debtors it would mean cancellation of foreign debt without money crossing their border.

This proposal would also mean the transfer of the management of development resources from the states, financial institutions, and major firms to civil society organisations (CSOs), which have set their sights on cutting the states’ social debt to their people. It is a new way of financing development that benefits the majority of the people and brings about the transfer of a small part of the financial resources locked in the debt to the co-operation on the development of all peoples.

With this debt exchange for development of the debtor country, plus the co-operation of the creditor, it is possible to create funds for bilateral co-operation, which through agreements between both parties, will allocate the total capital and oversee its management and control, appointing a small number of government and CSO representatives to form a bilateral or directive committee and a technical committee, with a technical office for the presentation and selection of projects.

Thus there are three methods to finance the Global Proposal for the Eradication of Poverty and the Inclusion of the Majority of the Population. More than the classic direct financing among NGOs, two other funding sources are suggested: one deriving from the social responsibility of businesses, and the second, debt-for-development swaps between states, which would provide the resources necessary to promote another form of development, from below and within. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Leonardo Boff and - -
RIO DE JANEIRO, May 1 2004 (IPS)

Generalised terrorism, whether that of Al Qaeda, of Sharon in Israel, or of US President Bush, arouses very real fears of calamity in the near future, writes Leonardo Boff, a writer and theologian. At times it seems we haven\’t yet seen the worst that could befall us. This situation raises a philosophical question: can we still place any hope in human beings? Are we capable of improving our social behaviour, our sense of humanity and morality, or are we condemned to live this tragedy to the very end until we destroy ourselves? It is always possible to improve, Boff writes, but humanity will improve only if the majority of its members do so. If this does not happen, we are finished. We will increase our destructive capabilities until tragedy is inevitable. But for this not to happen, one must assume the existence of a second factor: a philosophy of hope.

Italian philosopher Norberto Bobbio, though melancholy by temperament, believed in the possibilities of the two great revolutions of the West: that of human rights and that of democracy.

Both served as foundations for his proposal for a juridical and political pacifism that could break the habit of using violence to resolve antagonism between states. But acts of global terrorism destroyed his convictions. In one of his last interviews Bobbio said: ”I can’t say how I think the Third Millennium will be. My certainties are disappearing and only an enormous question mark turns in my head: with this be the millennium of a war of extermination, or of harmony between all human beings? I have no answer to this question.”

At the end of his life, the eminent historian Arnold Toynbee, after writing twelve tomes on the great civilisations of history, expressed the following sombre opinion in his autobiographical essay ”Experiences” (1969): ”I lived to see the end of human history turn into an intrahistorical possibility that could be brought about not by an act of God but by acts of men.”

And to further deepen by disquiet, I cite a source completely above suspicion, Samuel P. Huntington, former Pentagon advisor and perspicacious analyst of the process of globalisation. At the end of his ”Clash of Civilisations” he writes: ”Law and order are the first prerequisites for civilisation: in much of the world it seems they are evaporating. On a global scale civilisation seems in many aspects to be giving way to barbarism, generating the spectre of an unprecedented phenomenon, a global Dark Ages looming over humanity.” And we could name many names.

These visions of severe realism grow more acute with generalised terrorism, whether that of Al Qaeda, of Sharon in Israel, or US President Bush, which arouses very real fears of calamity in the near future. At times it seems we haven’t yet seen the worst that could befall us.

This situation raises a philosophical question: can we still place any hope in human beings? Are we capable of improving our social behaviour, our sense of humanity and morality, or are we condemned to live this tragedy to the very end until we destroy ourselves?

Of course there can be no correct answer to such radical questions. But I do see two elements that keep the path open: it is always possible to improve, but humanity will improve only if the majority of its members do so. If this does not happen, we are finished. We will increase our destructive capabilities until tragedy is inevitable. But for this not to happen, one must assume the existence of a second factor: a philosophy of hope.

This philosophy has an objective basis: the virtual character of reality. Objective facts are not all of what is real. The real also includes the realm of potential, the utopian, that which still is not yet could be. The current state of things tells us that we are wolves among wolves; but this is not all, nor are we condemned to perpetuate this state. We also have within us the potential to be brothers and sisters. This also is part of our reality. And if it is, it can be activated, it can be made into a political and personal project, and it can inspire practices that will give a better sense to history. It is always worth hoping. And thus we will be able to look back with God and say, ”It was all good.” (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Leonardo Boff and - -
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 5 2004 (IPS)

Walking down my street, where almost nothing even happens, I counted 58 dead beetles in just fifty meters. As we don\’t see ourselves in these our smaller brothers and sisters, we step on them and run them over with our cars. Were Saint Francis still alive he would weep with compassion, writes Leonardo Boff, a writer and theologian. In this article, Boff tells a myth of the Maue indians of Brazil. When the world was created there was no night. There was only day and light penetrated every space. The Maue, as much as they wanted to, couldn\’t sleep. They were always tired and their eyes hurt from too much light. One day, one of them got up his courage and went to talk to the Great Cobra, the sururiju, completely dark, which was considered the high master of the night. The Cobra agreed to make a deal: you give me poison and let me distribute it to my defenceless little relatives. This way you will watch where you\’re going and not step on the little creatures. They will be able to defend themselves. And in exchange I will give you a coconut full of night.\’\’ In the end they lived peacefully together and in mutual respect. Why is it that we big creatures don\’t look out for the small creatures?

Walking down my street, where almost nothing even happens, I counted 58 dead beetles in just fifty meters. As we don’t see ourselves in these our smaller brothers and sisters, we step on them and run them over with our cars. Were Saint Francis still alive he would weep with compassion. This reminded me of a beautiful myth of the Maue indians, who have a lot to teach us. The Maue are part of a cultural area that extends between the Tapajos and Madeira Rivers in Northeastern Brazil. We could all learn a few lessons from this tale, whether for the field of ecology or international politics.

The myth goes like this: when the world was created there was no night. There was only day and light penetrated every space. Only it didn’t reach the deep waters of the river. The Maue, as much as they wanted to, couldn’t sleep. They were always tired and their eyes hurt from too much light. One day, one of them got up his courage and went to talk to the Great Cobra, the sururiju, completely dark, which was considered the high master of the night. It was she that kept the night imprisoned in the depths of the river.

The Great Cobra heard the laments of the Indian and seeing his skin blackened by the scorching sun and his eyes red from too much light took pity on him. After weighing the possible risks, she proposed a pact: ”I am great and powerful. I can defend myself and need no one. But many of my relatives are small and defenceless. No one takes care of them, especially you who pitilessly trample and kill them as you walk around without looking. How can they defend themselves? Let’s make a deal: you give me poison and let me distribute it to my defenceless little relatives. This way you will watch where you’re going and not step on the little creatures. They will be able to defend themselves. And in exchange I will give you a coconut full of night.”

The Maue accepted the agreement. He ran to the forest and quickly returned with the poison for the Great Cobra, who in turn gave him the coconut full of night. As they exchanged their items, the Cobra made this recommendation to the Maue: ”Don’t open the coconut outside of the hut.” The indian promised to do as the cobra had told but the other Maue were overwhelmed with curiosity and together opened the coconut. They wanted to know what this much-awaited night would be like and opened the shell right there in the middle of a planted field. And then the disaster happened: darkness covered the world. They couldn’t see anything at all. And a terrible, unforseen anguish crept into the heart of the Maue.

Chaos ensued for a while, and in the running this way and that no one thought about the little creatures, which had already been given poison by the Great Cobra. The first to get it were the spiders, small snakes, and scorpions, who defended themselves from the rush of Indians by biting them in the foot. What a calamity! The few that survived the poisonous bites now know how to behave. And from then on they watched out for the little creatures and took care not to step on them and avoided getting bitten. From that time on they lived peacefully together and in mutual respect. Why is it that we big creatures don’t look out for the small creatures? (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt: