In search of 'liberation':
Kirby, Peadar
THREE EUROPEAN CARDINALS VISIT LATIN AMERICA 1 by 1! 71, In search of ...
...The acting laurels belong mostly to Sean Connery as continuous ascent up to modern enlightenment...
...At the moment the situation dialogue begun during recent ad limina visits in order to is at an impasse with the Vatican demanding that the conservaanalyze and deepen together certain themes of common inter- tive Latin American bishops' conference (CELAM) be alest...
...beyond Ratzinger...
...It says something you come across nowhere cardinals and their particular destinations were highly signifi- else, that liberation theology is not only useful and opportune cant, showing that they came for more than the pleasant but also necessary...
...As if to confirm the existence 24 October 1986: 551 of a new mood in Rome, Cardinal Hamer brought with him a (one on the ecclesiology of Vatican II and the other on the letter from the pope to Brazil's conference of religious, repeat- second Vatican Instruction on liberation theology), was his ing the warm tone of the previous papal letter to the bishops' statement that there are now no processes pending in his conference...
...It was very prophetic, very pastoral, and Three European cardinals did just that this summer...
...nique, fine acting, intellectual pretension, and sheer Annaud presents this debate comically, as a shouting match depravity...
...today, love for the church is stronger, and participation is In themselves, these visits could be seen as an indication of greater than ever before...
...A toothless hunchback shows up on cue, then a Middle Ages, then pretends he wants us to condemn the fruitcake "mystic" (played by William Hickey, who repeats spectacle...
...Though bishops were summoned to Rome in October 1984...
...Still, as Leonardo Boff told me, "it did not capture the deepest intuition of liberation theolI T IS VERY difficult to communicate to senior churchmen ogy" and was written more from a European point of view...
...ready for publication...
...But when Abraham the caricatures of medieval Catholicism that seem basic to the arrives in the last half of the film, no vital drama develops plot...
...With typical technical proficiency Annaud prepares may be mistaken in assuming that he provided Annaud with us for his entry with a scary buildup...
...Both are close Those who wished to "open Ratzinger's eyes," those personal friends since they were students together in Rome...
...He said he understood now that liberation look of the cardinal prefect of the Sacred Congregation theology springs from faith and the terrible suffering that for the Doctrine of the Faith...
...missionary priest told translated into practice...
...Annaud does a with bulging eyes only the most obvious of their gargoyle De Mille in reverse: he lasciviates in the cruelty of the Catholic features...
...1985...
...Significantly his two previous books - despite having cancer and having lost her husband in a road Hablar de Dios desde el sufrimiento del inocente (Speaking of accident recently, still leads a group of family catechists who God from the Suffering of the Innocent) and Drink from Your come to gather around her bed once a week...
...But Annaud lacks their satirical honesty...
...through the medium of ideas alone what is really happen- Pope John Paul's letter, written following a March meeting ing in the Latin American church, Father Leonardo Boff with the leadership of the Brazilian bishops' conference, is told me in Rio de Janeiro recently...
...One U.S...
...Leonardo Boff, who attended the seems then, that the pretended "orthodoxy" of these same meeting, said that Cardinal Simonis wept with joy to see sectors is much closer to the pre-conciliar and conservapoor Christians sharing their faith so openly in the presence of tive Lefevbre than to the ecclesial and theological outover fifty bishops...
...William's enemies seem scholar who turns sleuth and braves the wrath of the Inquisi- simply reactionary villains...
...He seems to like There are appropriately dark hints of perverse sexuality, them...
...Brazil, but for center of Vatican moves on liberation theology in recent years...
...Connery is not just James Bond in cowl and sandals...
...controversy is far from over, it can reasonably be hoped that it Some of Annaud's images of the Middle Ages are so farcical has become a dialogue between two positions that basically they resemble Monty Python's Jabberwocky and The Search understand one another, rather than a full-scale Vatican offen- for the Holy Grail...
...From what Bishop down at having their constant nostalgia for condemnaMorelli and Father Boff told me, both of whom had long tions unfulfilled...
...It was a set of negative "observations" on only be fully appreciated when it is realized that many the theology of Lima priest Gustavo Gutierrez sent by Cardinal bishops there held genuine fears that their conference was Ratzinger to the Peruvian bishops' conference in early 1983 going to be intervened by Rome, its elected leadership dewhich opened the recent series of Vatican moves on liberation posed, and a more conservative leadership put in its place...
...But the harum-scarum plot quickly undoes his effort at Gothic, way back when, a fact which Annaud never tires of openmindedness about closemindedness...
...The March instruction progressive, are gaining control of the situation, especially in was widely welcomed by Latin American liberation theolo- terms of our relationship to Rome...
...A second heartily disagreeing with my compatriot, Conor Cruise papal letter in July strongly commended the stance taken by the O'Brien, who argued in the August 1986 issue of The Atlantic Peruvian bishops after the June 19 massacre of some 250 Monthly that the pope has effectively been defeated in his prisoners by troops in Lima...
...But Cardinal Ratzinger has blocked A letter from the pope brought by Cardinal Ratzinger ex- their release until he is given "supplementary guarantees of pressed hope for "a continuation of the fraternal ecclesial orthodoxy," says Leonardo Boff...
...Behind these words can be sensed the sigh of relief felt that Cardinal Ratzinger said or did nothing during his visit that THE desperate poverty of Peru seems to have had a similar could be taken as lending support to the militantly conservative impact on Cardinal Ratzinger...
...reference to the cardinal's German nationality was not lost on The first three volumes have appeared and a further five are those present...
...tion of Religious...
...Both have "Boff's punishment has, for me, to be placed within this caused deep tensions between the Brazilian church and Rome long fight between those who believe the faith is in danger, the in recent years...
...Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, visited Peru as the guest of its bishops' conference for a T IiE IMPACT of the pope's letter on the Brazilian church can week in late July...
...of church life in Latin America...
...met with the sixty members of the shantytown's pastoral team As Bishop Morelli put it, the big question now is how much during which some members spoke openly of their attempts to the pope's more favorable words on liberation theology will be build "a church of the poor...
...Abraham dignified Eco's horror...
...to be discarded like toys when the primary purposes of cruelty Movie critics have often noted the sly ambivalence of reliand caricature have been satisfied...
...attempt to stamp out Latin America's new faith in the "Dios Perhaps more significant than the two lengthy and highly de los pobres" and has instead decided to join what he could theoretical public talks given by Cardinal Ratzinger in Lima not defeat, there does seem to be a new sympathy, at least in Commonweal: 552 certain sectors of the Vatican, for this theology and the new to search the catacomb-like passages of the abbey (surrounded model of church emerging under its inspiration...
...He visited the huge shanty wing of the Peruvian church...
...It Christian communities...
...of the Name of the Rose for a simple reason...
...A harder task is to discern mysteries since the 1790s, must try to inject some rationality, what possible grains of truth such an attitude might embody...
...Furthermore, Cardinal Hamer was the guest of the congregation against liberation theologians...
...Brazilian church to create the conditions for elaborating an The two countries visited, Brazil and Peru, have been at the effective theology against injustice, not only for...
...church sectors which surrounded him all the time (much Cardinal Simonis was hosted by a Brazilian family who had to the annoyance of some), are undoubtedly feeling let promised "to introduce him to both sides...
...The cardinal got an opportunity the pope never had...
...As a result, it Eco's hero William of Baskerville, the visiting Franciscan never engages the thought of the past...
...flagellation, necrophilia, and other predictable paraphernalia of modern rationalist myth...
...Feodor Chaliapin, Jr., as an elder tion...
...theology and the pastoral practice derived from it...
...Those of us who subject and most especially in the pope's warm letter to the are more open and, though I don't like to use the word, more Brazilian bishops' conference in April...
...The one such theme mentioned by name was liberation lowed to appoint three bishops to join three bishops named by theology...
...But his vision makes serial murder, vivisection, his hammy Italian from Prizzi's Honor, perhaps assuming that impaling, burning at the stake, and disemboweling the center Annaud would appreciate the equation of monks and Mafia...
...Given similar short shrift are William's guilt over his past role in the Inquisition, and an interestTHE NAME OF THE ROSE combines skillful cinematic tech- ing debate with modern echoes, Christ's attitude to wealth...
...The prestigious controversial president of the bishops' conference, Bishop No Lima bi-monthly Que Hacer, which is close to progressive Lorscheiter, whose diocese of Santa Maria in the southern church sectors, summed up the visit by saying: Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul he visited...
...The idea of casting the two entry in the genre, as Connery, exactly like Jane Fonda, starts together again is good and their teamwork at times evokes 24 October 1986: 553...
...The cardinal also Own Wells - dealt with spiritual themes...
...The liberation theologians with the support of 115 bishops...
...I know Eco's book only at second hand, and Inquisitor...
...The pope gives a kind of mandate to the climate...
...The technique belongs to Jean Jacques An- between Franciscans and papal legates seemingly engaged in naud, who formerly made Quest for Fire, and who here the verbal trifle, "'Did Christ own his own garment or not...
...published his first book directly commenting on the liberaAgain I have it from an eyewitness that Ratzinger, too, shed tion theology debate, La verdad los tiara libres (The Truth tears when he was taken to visit a poor woman in her hut who, Will Make You Free...
...He also lacks the genuine curiosity of Bergman, who, rationalist though he is, appreciates mystery (is there a finer moment in religious film: than Death's sad confession in The Screen Seventh Seal that even he does not know about the afterlife...
...only a sublime recapitulation of what is already known...
...What Annaud seems to have lost, or discarded, is the between him and Connery, but simply a lame contest between genuine treatment of serious cultural and religious issues that superstition and reason, with all nuances eliminated...
...I think that the more conservatheology, expressed in last March's second Instruction on the tive were defeated, at least for the moment...
...Bishop Mauro Morelli of the diocese of Duque de Caxias and Brazil, which later came center stage in the liberation theol- Sao Joao de Meriti on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro explained ogy controversy with the summoning of Father Leonardo Boff to me that for some years "a small group of Brazilian bishops to Rome in September 1984 and his subsequent silencing for in partnership with a group in Rome have been trying to change almost a year, was the destination of Utrecht's Cardinal Adrian the course of the church in Brazil...
...He walked the sandy, unpaved streets among the people's simple O N THE EVE of the Ratzinger visit, Father Gustavo Gutierrez homes made from reed matting...
...For Bishop Morelli, the pope's the Vatican's now apparent new openness toward liberation letter "opened a new moment...
...Brazilian people are going through," Bishop Morelli said...
...It is But Connery has a second, more limiting archetype to easy to attack this, and easy to identify the mistakes that have inhabit - that of the Englishman, who, as in all Gothic plagued church history because of it...
...For Boff, it takes "a step experience it for themselves," he said...
...In the film, ideas are trifled with, only mugs well but his role is dramatically inert...
...repeating as his camera devours the abbey as the ultimate F. Murray Abraham is similarly straitjacketed as a sadistic haunted house...
...gious epics like The Ten Commandments, where De Mille Annaud's hand is tipped when Connery and his ward, Aldo combined prurience and moralism: viewers were treated to a of Metz (Christian Slater) first enter the abbey: all the monks lush spectacle of sin, only to be reminded, quite late in such have been taken from central casting at Planet of the Apes, films, how much the naughty were punished...
...Although the key issue in the plot involves the survival of Aristotle's manuscript on comedy, the reputed, missing second part of the Poetics, Annaud presents its significance in a. BAD HABITS garbled fashion, and never fully explores the rich tension of 'ROSE' & 'TOUGH GUYS' comedy and faith, or the importance of comedy to the faith of William of Baskerville...
...all the Latin American sub-continent, and for other countries The person at the center of those moves, Cardinal Joseph in similar (socio-economic) situations...
...Under Cardinal Hamer's direct scrutiny It's all part of a long process, trying to keep the relationship come the many religious who are at the forefront of liberation with Rome tense and have the Holy See intervene here...
...The a great support...
...While the by scores of skulls...
...The tone of the letter appears a marked change from the Brazilian bishops' conference and one named by the Vatithe pressure on the Peruvian bishops' conference throughout can to overview the collection's publication...
...sive on something more feared than understood...
...Indeed, at times I thought that I T OUGH GUYS wastes the still considerable talents of Kirk had accidentally wandered back into Agnes of God, last year's Douglas and Burt Lancaster...
...Already theologians are chaffing at the cardinal that he had come "as do so many U.S., Irish, or Cardinal Ratzinger's blocking of a major compendium of German missionaries" thinking he had so much to tell the theology in fifty-four volumes being produced by over 100 people, only to find that the people evangelized him...
...Cardinal Simonis's appointment as Dutch church is running away from its spiritual mission and will be primate, it will be remembered, was widely regarded as a destroyed, and those of us who believe that faith is more alive . papal move to bring the rebel Dutch church into line...
...provides some entertaining, camp sequences based on Um- Behind the travesty of The Name of the Rose is the Whig berto Eco's thriller set in an Italian Benedictine Abbey in interpretation of history, the notion of the centuries as one 1327...
...as Benedictine, almost transcends the caricature when he prohis name indicates, he is also a genuine Sherlock and plays his nounces with fervor, "There is no progress in knowledge, role with deadpan wit and convincing charm...
...gians as indicating a far more positive tone than the first The visits of Cardinals Hamer and Simonis, therefore,, which just a few months previous would have been seen by PEADAR KIRBY is an Irish Journalist currently working with Noticias progressives in an ominous light, were regarded as opportuniAliadas/Latinamerica Press in Lima, Peru...
...THREE EUROPEAN CARDINALS VISIT LATIN AMERICA 1 by 1! 71, In search of f `liberation' PEADAR KIRBY Instruction of August 1984...
...theology...
...Eco provided the raw materials for a literal voice...
...Unlike the situation in Brazil, town of Villa El Salvador on the outskirts of Lima where the where liberation theologians can count on the support of their pope had had a highly emotional meeting with an estimated bishops' conference, Peru's bishops are deeply divided on the two million slumdwellers during his Peruvian visit in February subject...
...There have been so many Simonis and Cardinal Jerome Hamer, prefect of the Congrega- letters to Rome, so many denunciations against many of us...
...It seems obvious that the German carconversations with the Dutch cardinal, the highlight of the visit dinal was infinitely more shrewd than they in seeing the for him was attendance at the sixth national meeting of base true problems of the country and the Peruvian church...
...1983 and 1984 to reach agreement on a statement on liberation Whatever the outcome of disputes like this, it does seem theology which was finally issued only when all Peru's clear that a new era has opened for liberation theology...
...They must come and seen in an entirely different light...
...He recently spent a. ties to further introduce key European churchmen to the reality month in Brazil...
...health, and humor into a world of crazed (here, fanatically For a moment, Chaliapin made this possible simply by tone of religious) Italians...
Vol. 113 • October 1986 • No. 18
