Word: boff
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When Father Leonardo Boff completed his doctoral dissertation at the University of Munich 14 years ago, German Theologian Joseph Ratzinger steered it to a publisher. Matters have become more problematic since then. Boff, 45, is now Brazil's leading exponent of "liberation theology," a controversial movement that blends elements of Marxism with Christianity. Ratzinger is a Cardinal, and Pope John Paul's most powerful theological watchdog at the Vatican...
...will meet on Sept. 7 at the Vatican, when Ratzinger's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will begin an interrogation of Boff to decide whether retractions should be required. It will be the first notable face-to-face grilling of a scholar since left-wing Father Edward Schillebeeckx of The Netherlands was summoned to Rome in 1979. The Boff case could prove far more important, since a movement is on trial as much...
...Though Boff has been under close Vatican scrutiny since 1975, the current crisis results from his 1981 book, Church: Charism and Power (due in English next January from Crossroad). Like all liberation theologians, Boff sees the essential mission of Christianity as a political mobilization of the poor. But his book fervently applies similar revolutionary analysis to the structure of the church. In one of the controversial passages, Boff writes that in the classic view "the churchgoer has nothing" while "the bishops and the priests received everything. It is true capitalism." As he explains to TIME, "The Vatican wants to centralize...
...liberation theology, Boff contends, "there is no direct link to Marxism"; theologians may employ Marxist theory and terms, but they are anticapitalist not pro-Marxist. Boff states, "We oppose state socialism because it is authoritarianism. We do, however, recognize that countries like Cuba are better off now than before the revolution. For one thing, there are no slums in Cuba...
...feel inestimably uncomfortable writing about religion in these pages: it is as close to a taboo subject as there is in this community. But Boff describes Jesus at one place as the "omega point" of evolution--a goal to be aimed at, though not achieved. I don't know; my journey is only recently begun in earnest and may yet be sidetracked or derailed. But if Graham's eloquent example proves nothing else, it is that such a goal must at least be considered...