The Rev. Robert Gahl, a moral theologian at Pontifical Holy Cross University in Rome, said it all boils down to Espinal’s intent in designing the cross and Morales’ intent in giving it to the pope.
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Pope Francis apologized for some of the Catholic church’s sins and strongly voiced a call for social justice and environmentalism in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.
It’s not the first time (nor the last, I would wager) that Francis has gone off-the-cuff, but in this case the setting and immediate audience certainly affected the dynamic of the address; a synergy was spontaneously and organically created.
Minutes later, during his homily, Francis blasted consumerism. “The future of humanity is in your hands”.
Jesus takes the little bread and fish available, the pope said, “he blesses them and then gives them to his disciples to share with the crowd”.
Evo Morales, Bolivia’s president is a longtime leftist critic of the church praised the pontiff – the first pope ever elected from Latin America – prior to the pope making his statement. “Many grave sins were committed against the native peoples of America in the name of God”. Saint John Paul II issued a sweeping apology in 2000 for the sins of the Church in the past.
Mexican Bishop Raul Vera, who said the church was passive in the enslavement of the continent by the Spanish, said Francis’ apology was especially moving given the setting and circumstances.
In his words, “I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offences of the Church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called ‘conquest of America.'”.
Francis said that in Bolivia the richness of a society is measured “in the elderly who manage to transmit their wisdom and the memory of their people to the youngest”.
(AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia). Delegates attend the World Meeting of Popular Movements in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, Thursday, July 9, 2015.
So let’s not be afraid to say it: we need change; we want change.
And inmate Adres de Jesus Cespedes described his astonishment arriving at the prison to find “so many people sleeping on the ground like animals”.
Speaking in South America’s poorest country, Francis decried the prevailing mentality of the world economy in which so many people – the poor, the elderly, the unproductive – are ” discarded”. “What more can we expect from a man like Pope Francis?” said Adolfo Chavez, a leader of a lowlands indigenous group.
Jerusalem – Israel on Thursday said that two of its citizens are being held captive in the Gaza Strip, an announcement that brought back bitter memories of the case of an Israeli soldier who was captured and imprisoned for five years by the Hamas militant group.
Beginning in the 1500s, Spanish conquerors, with the blessing of the Church, subjugated and enslaved indigenous peoples in the Americas, annihilating native cultures and forcing their conversion to Christianity.
Francisco made his speech longer 22 in the South American tour, a total of seven folios.
In September past year he lamented a rash of global conflicts, saying they were effectively a “piecemeal” third world war and condemning “terrorism”.
Yesterday he went from the oxygen-poor air of La Paz, which is more than 3,650 metres above sea level, to Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s largest and fastest-growing city, which is situated at the high altitude of 416 metres.
Prominent, too, are delegates from CONAMAQ, Bolivia’s main highlands indigenous organization, representing the dominant Quechua and Aymara ethnicities.
A person with a heart, the pope said, is moved not by cold statistics, but by “the pain of a suffering humanity, our own pain, our own flesh”. But the scene that has set a thousand tongues wagging is a gift from Bolivian president Evo Morales.
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Earlier on Wednesday, Francis had stopped to pray at the site where Espinal’s body was found in 1980. “You can dispute the significance and use of the symbol now, but the origin is from Espinal and the sense of it was about an open dialogue, not about a specific ideology”, Lombardi said, according to the Washington Post. He said Espinal had altered his crucifix to incorporate the Communists’ most potent symbol: the hammer and sickle.
