In Pursuit of the Kingdom
Cort, John C.
BISHOP, PREACHER, POET IN PURSUIT OF THE KINGDOM Writings 1968-1988 Pedro Casald~iliga Orbis Books, $14.95,254 pp. John C. Cort _9 ishop Casaldfiliga will D never be elected pope, but it...
...622: Commonweal...
...And another damned important point...
...In Pursuit of the Kingdom is a collection of the bishop's writings from the time he arrived in Brazil at the age of forty until 1988...
...You do not try to expel an Aristide from Haiti when it is evident that the Catholic faithful are overwhelmingly behind him because of his courage and commitment to justice and truth...
...You do not try to humiliate them, as the Vatican has tried to humiliate Casald~iliga, not to mention our own Archbishops Raymond Hunthausen and Rembert Weakland...
...You do not appoint someone like Jose Sobrinho to succeed the noble Dom Helder Camara as archbishop of Recife, Brazil, a man who not only withdrew support from Camara's programs for the poor but refused him permission to speak in his own former archdiocese...
...What is going on over there...
...A priest standing beside him was killed by a bullet most probably meant for himself...
...I think it is time they did so...
...I do not share the kind of reflexive opposition to any Vatican position that one finds in the pages of the National Catholic Reporter or Penny Lemoux's People of God...
...I read Boff's Church: Charism and Power and as an ex-Protestant I think I can recognize a Protestant book when I see one...
...But even more careful reading of this last one makes me wonder...
...Within three years he was named a bishop by Paul VI...
...I haven't read either one in the original, but I would guess he is as good a poet as Ernesto Cardenal, at least as gutsy and impassioned a defender of the poor, and a darned sight more sensible...
...In 1985, with the backing of twenty-three other Brazilian bishops, Casald~iliga went to Nicaragua to join the fast of Miguel d' Escoto, the Maryknoll priest and foreign minister...
...Fortunately, Archbishop Luciano Mendes, president of the Brazilian bishops' conference, interceded in his behalf and sidetracked this unhappy venture...
...John C. Cort _9 ishop Casaldfiliga will D never be elected pope, but it might not be a bad idea...
...When men like Bishop Casald~iliga or Fathers Aristide in Haiti or d'Escoto and Cardenal in Nicaragua are putting their lives on the line for the poor and oppressed, you give them even more understanding, patience, tolerance, respect, and consideration than your Christian faith would dictate that you give to some knowit-all theologian holed up in an ivory tower...
...This does not mean I would second every one of his positions, but it does lead me to suggest an important distinction that the Vatican, and John Paul, would do well to keep in mind in their ongoing effort to silence all dissent...
...You do not wag your finger at them in public...
...Broun said that whenever he was in doubt as to what position to take on a public question, he waited for Bishop Manning to take a position and then he took the opposite...
...He tried to meet with the Nicaraguan bishops, but they refused and Cardinal Miguel Obando complained to the Vatican, which called Casald(diga on the carpet and tried, unsuccessfully, to make him sign a confession of errors and faults, with corresponding firm purposes of amendment...
...The Brazilian and the U.S...
...If you want more reasons why, read Bishop Casald~iliga's book...
...Nevertheless, manner and process are damned important in any church that pretends to be Christian...
...I am so reactionary in theological matters that I could not bring myself to protest the Vatican's actions against Fathers Charles Curran or Leonardo Boff...
...The manner and process of the censures are another matter, but I can see the sense to wanting an orthodox theologian in the church's own "pontifical university...
...bishops conferences are big enough, and still progressive enough, to make the Vatican and John Paul consider some firm purposes of amendment of their own...
...Based on careful readings of his e n c y c l i c a l s Laborem exercens and Solicitudo rei socialis, I used to think that John Paul II shared the concerns of these priests and bishops for social justice...
...Has Michael Novak taken over the Vatican's Commission for Justice and Peace...
...It is not likely that John Paul II would have...
...These remind me of Heywood Broun's remark about Bishop Manning, the Episcopal bishop of New York back in the twenties and thirties...
...D A Spanish Claretian, he went to Brazil in 1968 as a missionary to the poor Indians of a remote area of the Amazon and was quickly embroiled in battles with the rich landholders and the reactionary government...
...An eloquent writer, preacher, and poet, Bishop Casal&iliga has become famous throughout Latin America as a socialist rebel and critic of right-wing elements in the church of whom John Paul, since the publication of Centesimus annus, has now declared himself the undisputed champion...
Vol. 118 • October 1991 • No. 18
