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Pope attacks 'authoritarian' governments at end of Latin America mission
AFP
SAO PAULO
Petroleumworld.com 05 15 07Pope Benedict XVI criticized "authoritarian governments" at the end of a tour to galvanize the Roman Catholic church in Latin America, during which he also condemned abortion and warned drug dealers of the wrath of God.
The pontiff headed back to the Vatican on Monday at the end of the five-day trip to Brazil that aimed to reverse a trend that has seen millions convert to evangelical Protestantism.
Opening a key conference of Latin American bishops Sunday, Benedict warned capitalist and Marxist governments in the region, and also highlighted the continent's growing wealth gap.
Despite "notable progress towards democracy ... there are grounds for concern in the face of authoritarian forms of government and regimes wedded to certain ideologies that we thought had been superseded," he said.
They "do not correspond to the Christian vision of man and society," the pope said in the attack that did not name any individual government.
Some analysts said it was a reference to Venezuela and its ally, communist Cuba. Venezuela's Information Minister William Lara however said the comment should not be interpreted as a jab at President Hugo Chavez.
The pontiff also called on countries that have adopted a "liberal economy" to redress "the ever-increasing sectors of society that find themselves oppressed by immense poverty or even despoiled of their own natural resources."
The pope said both the Marxist and capitalist systems, "the dominant tendencies of the last century," had committed a "most destructive error ... as we can see from the results."
The pope also renewed his criticism of liberation theology, a liberal Catholic movement that remains popular across Latin America, which is beset by a growing disparity between rich and poor, violence, drug trafficking and corruption.
"The Church is the advocate of justice and of the poor, precisely because it does not identify with politicians nor with partisan interests," the pope argued.
Yet for more than two decades, faithful in Latin America have been voting with their feet.
Many are convinced evangelical groups are more focused on lifting up the poor, and many see this pontiff and his predecessor as linked to the better-off economic and political establishment.
Brazil, with a population of nearly 190 million, has the world's largest concentration of Catholics, but their numbers have plunged just in the past decade, from 74 to 64 percent of the population, according to a recent survey.
The Catholic Church has especially lost ground in Brazilian cities where the growing numbers moving from the countryside have been drawn to the highly active newer faiths which often call for social change leading to better earthly lives.
As the Vatican's chief doctrinal enforcer for more than two decades before becoming pope, Benedict led a campaign to stifle liberation theology; in March, a leading liberation theology exponent, Jesuit priest Jon Sobrino, was warned over his writings.Alternately stern and gentle over his five-day stay, his first to the Americas since his election, the 80-year-old German pontiff railed against abortion, hedonism and sex out of wedlock while lauding Latin Americans' "great thirst for God."
Up to a million people flocked to an open-air mass in Sao Paulo on Friday when Benedict created Brazil's first saint, Franciscan monk Antonio de Sant'Ana Galvao.
Abortion was an especially sensitive issue during the visit, since Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said his government views it as a public health issue.
Saturday the pope warned drug dealers, who flourish in many Latin American countries, that "God will call you to account."
Visiting a Catholic drug rehabilitation center, the pontiff warned drug dealers to "reflect on the grave harm they are inflicting on countless young people and on adults from every level of society.
" God will call you to account for your deeds. Human dignity cannot be trampled upon in this way," Benedict said.
Evangelical churches were stung when Benedict charged on Friday that they are using "aggressive" recruiting tactics.
The pope had said that people who are "insufficiently evangelized (are) most vulnerable to the aggressive proselytizing of (evangelical) sects -- a just cause for concern."
Benedict said such people "are easily influenced because their faith is weak, confused, easily shaken and naive, despite their innate religiosity."
gd-mdl/
AFP 14 1547 GMT 05 07
Copyright© 2007 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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