Benedict XVI and the Opus Dei in Mathew 23

Mathew 23 describes Benedict XVI and the Opus Dei picture perfectly. The Notification by Benedict and the Silencing by the Opus Dei on Jon Sobrino -- are like the scribes' treatment on the prophets.

The ones in bold emphases refer to Benedict XVI and the Opus Dei.

Matthew
Chapter 23
1
1 Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples,
2
2 saying, "The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses.
3
Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice.
4
They tie up heavy burdens (hard to carry) and lay them on people's shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them.
5
4 All their works are performed to be seen. They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels.
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5 They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues,
7
greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation 'Rabbi.' (The latest book called "Benedict XVI: the Conscience of our age")
8
6 As for you, do not be called 'Rabbi.' You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers.
9
Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven.
10
Do not be called 'Master'; you have but one master, the Messiah.
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The greatest among you must be your servant.
12
Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
13
7 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You lock the kingdom of heaven 8 before human beings. You do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter.
14
) 9
15
10 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You traverse sea and land to make one convert, and when that happens you make him a child of Gehenna twice as much as yourselves.
16
11 "Woe to you, blind guides, who say, 'If one swears by the temple, it means nothing, but if one swears by the gold of the temple, one is obligated.'
17
Blind fools, which is greater, the gold, or the temple that made the gold sacred?
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And you say, 'If one swears by the altar, it means nothing, but if one swears by the gift on the altar, one is obligated.'
19
You blind ones, which is greater, the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred?
20
One who swears by the altar swears by it and all that is upon it;
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one who swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it;
22
one who swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who is seated on it.
23
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You pay tithes 12 of mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity. (But) these you should have done, without neglecting the others.
24
13 Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel!
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14 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence.
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Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean.
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15 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men's bones and every kind of filth.
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Even so, on the outside you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing.
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16 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the memorials of the righteous,
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and you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have joined them in shedding the prophets' blood.'
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Thus you bear witness against yourselves that you are the children of those who murdered the prophets;
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now fill up what your ancestors measured out!
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You serpents, you brood of vipers, how can you flee from the judgment of Gehenna?
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18 Therefore, behold, I send to you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, (like Jon Sobrino)
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so that there may come upon you all the righteous blood shed upon earth, from the righteous blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.
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Amen, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
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19 "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets (Jon Sobrino, Leonardo Boff, et al) and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her young under her wings, but you were unwilling!
38
Behold, your house will be abandoned, desolate. (The Opus Dei-Vatican shall crumble like the Temple of Solomon)

Benedict XVI and Jon Sobrino

Did Christ speak Latin?

So how can the Vicar of Christ make Latin the "official language" of the Mystical Body of Christ?

When did Christ ever wear red expensive shoes, don on ornate ceremonial albs, be surrounded and protected by a private army, be a political head of state, write Ph.D books no one can understand except himself and by a few men, oppress those who work with and for the poor like Jon Sobrino? If Christ were to visit Rome today, what would he say about the worse sins of pedophile priests seething beneath the Vatican archives (Crimen Sollicitationis) which are worse than the sins at the Temple of Solomon?

Would he recognize the Peter-the-Rock clones residing at the grand palace of the Vatican rivaling the palace of the Ceasars of Rome? Christ would gag at his ostentious "Vicar of Christ" when they meet for the first time, they'd be like the Prince and the Pauper, the Pope being (and dressed as) the Prince!

Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever and he would do like what he did when he got very angry with the marketeers at the Temple and turned the tables upside down because they have "made God's temple a den of thieves" . But this time the Temple of the Vatican has become the Opus Dei (Ambrosiano Bank)den ... worst of all now the Vatican has become a "den of High Priests-pedophiles"! So Christ would repeat the curse of the Temple of Solomon that "not one stone will be left standing" about the Temple of the Vatican now owned and operated by the Octopus Dei.

We follow-up on the autocracy of Benedict XVI and the Opus Dei Archbishop of El Salvador and their Galileo-style persecution on Jon Sobrino
---- http://pope-ratz.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html


International theologians views on the Notification
---- http://www.eatwot.org/TheologicalCommission
Free e-book 316 pages

Video clip of Jon Sobrino in PBS discussing Salvadoran war
---- http://www.pbs.org/itvs/enemiesofwar/people.html



The Cross of Liberation Theology
"Poor Suffering Christ"
















The papal cross of Benedict XVI
"Wealthy Sweet Jesus"











Interview with Jon Sobrino

When Jesus Ate with the Poorest
author: Jon Sobrino

"There is more poverty today than in the eighties and nineties. This is a gift of the privatization of democracy. Poverty has increased in all Latin America.. The world lives with a great sin. The needy and oppressed die slowly and violently. Believing in God means being in solidarity with them.. Whenever someone exposes the hypocritical conduct of the powerful, he is insulted, defamed and sometimes killed.."



The Jesuit Jon Sobrino on an historical law that existed long before the theology of liberation and Karl Marx

[This interview originally published in: "Freitag", a Berlin weekly, on May 23, 2003 is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, http://www.elsalvador-info.org/htm/sobrino.htm. Jon Sobrino, one of El Salvador's best-known liberation theologians, survived the massacre in November 1989 because he was abroad.]

Many things suggest that liberation theology no longer enjoys the same rank in Central America today as ten or fifteen years ago because it is helpless toward the real living conditions of the poor. Is that your impression?

Jon Sobrino: Firstly, liberation theology touches the reality of this world more directly than any other theology of our days. For liberation theology, reality always rules. The six Jesuit fathers at my university were not murdered by accident. The self-image of liberation theology is not put in question but its present-day observance.

Liberation theology is certainly not surrounded by the same worldly brilliance as in earlier years. Most students in El Salvador are hardly still interested. We experience a globalization of disinterest. We witness the globalization of the conviction that money is most important in life, not a mission or commitment. In the meantime, there are few books about this theology, few open bishops and few base communities. Still I believe the teaching of Leonardo Boff or Gustavo Gutierrez is still present in the collective consciousness of Christians. Why else would so many people be searching?

Have living conditions changed so much in El Salvador after the civil war that the social mission of liberation theology could be exhausted?

Jon Sobrino: On the contrary, there is more poverty today than in the eighties and nineties. That is a gift of the privatization of democracy. Poverty has increased in all Latin America. Chile and Uruguay are the only exceptions. It is cynical to speculate what could be left of liberation theology without asking why more people live in poverty.

What remains of the founding intention of your religious doctrine?

Jon Sobrino: What the disciples of our movement have said from the beginning. The world lives with a great sin. The needy and oppressed die slowly and violently. Believing in God means being in solidarity with them... In this connection, liberation theology has often been reproached for being a carrier of Marxist theory. Liberation theologians, the prophets and the archbishop of San Salvador Oscar Arnulfo Romero murdered in 1980 have all said: The accumulation of riches is a horrible scandal! This is true - with or without Marx.

The Vatican has constantly urged that liberation theologians argue offensively and critically with Marx.

Jon Sobrino: Certainly, but firstly Marx was an important theoretician. Secondly, there was always a very specific definition of Marxism in El Salvador. Marxism is what may not be, what is simply evil. When Jesus ate with the poorest, they called him a drunkard. When he made friends with sinners and prostitutes, he was despised and scorned. Whenever someone exposes the hypocritical conduct of the powerful, he is insulted, defamed and sometimes killed. That is an historical law that has existed long before liberation theology and before Karl Marx.


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http://newsweaver.ie/jesuits/e_article000782708.cfm?x=b11,b4b28SK4,w
Reflections on the Sobrino Notification

by Michael O'Sullivan SJ
March 28, 2007

Michael O’Sullivan has taught liberation theology at third level and with community groups for over 20 years and has lived and worked with the economically poor in El Salvador and elsewhere for almost as many years. He was the co-organiser and the chairperson of the first conference in Ireland on Liberation theology in 1976, and the editor of the conference proceedings entitled The Liberation of Theology: Theology of Liberation and the Irish Context (Dublin: Student Christian Movement, 1978).


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The Latin American Catholic bishops met for only the second time at Medellín, Colombia, in 1968. (1) They met, three years after the end of Vatican II, to reflect on “the Church in the present-day transformation of Latin America in the Light of the Council.” They knew 80% of the people in the continent were living in dire straits of economic poverty while unrest concerning the cry of the poor was growing. They were also aware of the Conciliar teaching calling on Christians to read the historical signs of the times (GS 4) (2) and to be in solidarity with “the joy and hope, the grief and anxiety of the people of this time in history, especially those who are poor” (GS 1).

In the light of such teaching they urged the Latin American Christian community, which numbered 90% of the population, to make a preferential option for the poor. They conceived this option in terms of a commitment to the liberation of the poor from their poverty, and derived their meaning for liberation from the doctrines of sin and salvation. For example, they said, “In the fullness of time, (God) sends his (sic) Son in the flesh, so that he might come to liberate men (sic) from the slavery to which sin has subjected them: hunger, misery, oppression, and ignorance (MC, n. 3); (3) “it (the current situation) appears to be a time full of zeal for…liberation from every form of servitude (MC, n. 4)…As Christians we believe this historical stage of Latin America is intimately linked to the history of salvation” (MC, p. 19). Consequently, pledged the bishops, “by its own vocation Latin America will undertake its liberation at the cost of whatever sacrifice” (MC, p. 23).

With the assassination of Rutilio Grande in March 1977, and of Ignacio Ellacuria and companions in November 1989, the Jesuits in El Salvador learned just how great a sacrifice such a vocation could bring. They learned this also from their bonds of solidarity with the poor who were being slaughtered on a shocking scale. Jon Sobrino would have been killed with his community in 1989 had he not been out of the country at that time. Having avoided assassination he now finds himself at 68 years of age in poor health, and confronted with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s (CDF) negative judgement on aspects of his theology, which he developed from a deeply held and contextualised faith in Jesus Christ. Having lived in community with him in El Salvador, having accompanied him in some of his ministry among basic Christian communities, having an awareness of how much he has strengthened and developed the faith of numerous people, some among the most economically poor on the earth, and having read some of his writings, I am of the view that he may well be a saint.










It is not possible in the space available to me to comment in detail on the charges made against Sobrino by the recent Notification, or to do so in a way that might construe the document in a better light. And so I will confine myself to a few points. Firstly, Liberation theology, of which Sobrino is a leading exponent, is the only theology to my knowledge that has brought the embodied and historical concreteness of the poverty of the great majority of the world’s people to the very heart of its endeavour. This makes it a frightening theology for those who are not subjected daily to such poverty. Unlike Jon, they have not chosen to live and work in solidarity with people unable to avoid such poverty, or, like him, suffered the loss of loved ones who were assassinated because they took seriously what the bishops said at Medellín.

Secondly, the CDF Notification accuses Sobrino, among other things, of not doing justice to the divinity of Jesus. Since doing justice to the mystery of Jesus Christ in language and concept is a complex task, misunderstandings can easily arise. However, a surprising feature of the Notification is that it seems in places to go against some very reputable scholarship published in the last forty years and more. (4) This may help to explain Sobrino’s view that the CDF, according to information sent to me by friends of his in El Salvador, has misrepresented him. Like other liberation theologians, Jon has cherished the long standing belief in the tradition that Jesus was “like us in all respects but sin” (Heb 2:17) (5) which indicates that Jesus also “grew in wisdom” (Lk 2:40). It was not felt necessary in the past to add that Jesus was also unlike us because of his divinity. But this is what the Notification would appear now to require. However, a danger with its present position is that it could underemphasise faith in the real humanity of Jesus, which could, in turn, undermine faith in the doctrine of salvation since for centuries Christians have been guided by Gregory of Nazianzus’ belief that “what is not assumed (taken on) is not redeemed”. (6)

Sobrino’s emphasis on the humanity of Jesus is partly influenced by his desire to overcome heretical tendencies concerning the Incarnation. He is concerned that we believe Jesus really was incarnate. If Jesus had a real humanity, and “did not cling to his equality with God” (Phil 2:6), then he was not impervious to his own, and other people’s, suffering having a real effect on him. This makes the love he exercised on behalf of our salvation all the more astonishing since if his love came from his divinity but only appeared to pass through suffering in his humanity it would be much less impressive and do an injustice to the transcendence love sourced in our humanity requires of us. But for Sobrino, and the other liberation theologians, the Incarnation is not just about Jesus becoming human. What makes it truly extraordinary, in their view, is that Jesus became human “from below,” to use Gustavo Gutierrez’s phrase, in the sense that be became human from a position of low social standing, and was “the human and ordinary God,” to use the phrase of Carlos Mejía Godoy, the Nicaraguan composer.

This emphasis on the manner, and not simply the fact, of Jesus’ humanity is part of an overall emphasis by liberation theologians like Sobrino on the historical praxis (7) of liberation of Jesus. It enables them to highlight the soteriological value of the whole lived form of the Incarnation. It is in virtue of the reality of Jesus living a human and ordinary life precisely and carrying out the work of our salvation from the side of the poor, whatever the cost, that he reveals the divine quality of God’s love and draws us to believe in his own divinity: It takes God to love like that and it takes God with us in the form of God’s power at work in and among us for us to do something similar. The resurrection of Jesus verifies such faith, for liberation theologians, by vindicating the historical person and project of Jesus; so that for us to believe in his resurrection without living a life patterned on his at the level of contemporary knowledge and need would be a contradiction. At this point resurrection faith drives the liberation project and helps to explain the courage of countless Christians in Latin America. The really challenging question posed by Sobrino and other liberation theologians, therefore, is this: Are we willing to learn from God through this Jesus what salvation means and to act accordingly?

I have written this piece on the anniversary of Archbishop Oscar Romero’s assassination (March 24th – he and Sobrino were good friends; Jon was often his advisor). Outside my office, in the grounds of Milltown, rows of lit candles frame the plaque of Oscar inviting people to remember him and pray for the people of El Salvador. As I stood at this plaque today and that of Sobrino’s martyred community which faces it, (8) I wondered, when will the Vatican issue a statement about the writings of theologians who fail to take the situation of the economically poor seriously enough, and when will it issue a statement expressing gratitude to all those who have lived out their vocation for the liberation of the poor at a cost of considerable sacrifice.

FOOTNOTES

1. The first meeting was held in Rio de Janeiro in 1955. The President of the Conference of Bishops at the time was Manuel Larrain of Chile, who was a great friend of St. Alberto Hurtado and gave the homily at his funeral Mass in 1952. The Executive Secretary was Helder Camara of Recife, Brazil.

2. GS = Gaudium et spes (1965).

3. MC = Medellín Conclusions.

4. For example, read what the Vatican Notification has to say about the divinity of Jesus and the knowledge of Jesus in conjunction with Peter Schineller’s “The Newer Approaches to Christology and Their Use in the Spiritual Exercises,” Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits 12/4-5 (1980).

5. It should also be said, however, that this received formulation is not free of androcentric bias.

6.Gregory of Nazianzus, “Epistle 101,” Christology of the Later Fathers. Vol. 3, ed. Edward R. Hardy (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1954), 215-224 at 218. This formulation, too, is not free of androcentric bias.

7. Praxis means to think and theorise in and in relation to a situation for the sake of transforming it.

8. A memorial to the martyred Jesuits, to the woman and her daughter who had come to the residence a few days earlier because their home had been damaged by gunfire only to be murdered with the Jesuits so as to leave no witnesses, and to Oscar Romero, was erected on the grounds of Milltown Institute in 1991/92. One of the slain Jesuits had studied theology at Milltown and another had done a year of his training in Dublin. Also, some staff and students at Milltown had been prominent over the years in public shows of discontent against U.S. foreign policy in Latin America, and there was a desire on the part of the Institute to be associated with the spirit of the Christian faith that does justice characteristic of the Jesuit University of San Salvador

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The International Theological Commission

EATWOT, Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians
(ASETT, Asociación Ecuménica de Teólogos/as del Tercer Mundo)

CONTENTS

Prologue, Getting the Poor Down From the Cross, Leonardo BOFF . 11
Introduction, José María VIGIL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Questions to the CDF Regarding Jon Sobrino’s Notification.
Tissa BALASURIYA, Colombo, Sri Lanka. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Jesus de Nazaré, Orixá da Compaixão.
Marcelo BARROS, Goiâs, Brazil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

A Christology Based on the Nazarene.
Leonardo BOFF, Petrópolis, Brazil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

The Commitment to Taking the Poor Down from the Cross.
Vera Ivanise BOMBONATTO, São Paulo, Brazil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

The Primacy of the Poor in the Miission of Jesus and the Church.
Teófilo CABESTRERO, Guatemala, Guatemala . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Jesus, the Poor and Theology.
Oscar CAMPANA, Buenos Aires, Argentina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

The Poor, the Church and Theology.
Víctor CODINA, Santa Cruz, Bolivia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Reflections on the Notification Sent to Jon Sobrino.
José COMBLIN, João Pessoa, Brazil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Christology and Spirituality that Nourishes Us.
CONFER of Nicaragua, Managua . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Jesus of History, Christs of Faith, and Hope that Another World Is Possible.
Lee CORMIE, Toronto, Canada . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

An Analysis of the ‘Notificatio’ from a Biblical Point of View.
Eduardo DE LA SERNA, Quilmes, Argentina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Jesus Christ as Chakana. Outline of an Andean Christology of Liberation.
José ESTERMANN, La Paz, Bolivia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Jesus Christ Liberator: Christology in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Benedicto FERRARO, Campinas SP, Brasil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

A Global Vision of Jesus Christ in the Notification about Sobrino.
Eduardo FRADES, Caracas, Venezuela . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

The Apostolicity of the Option for the Poor.
Luis Arturo GARCÍA DÁVALOS, Mexico City, Mexico. . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Plural Christologies.
Ivone GEBARA, Camaragibe, Pernambuco, Brazil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

The Gospels and the Formulae of the Old Councils: Text and Context.
Eduardo HOORNAERT, Salvador BA, Brazil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Christology Becomes Provocative.
Diego IRARRÁZAVAL, Santiago, Chile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

A Liberating Christology is a Pluralistic Christology-with Muscle!
Paul KNITTER, New York, USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

The Rediscovery of the Kingdom in Theology.
João à___Bautista LIBÂNIO, Belo Horizonte, Brazil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

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