Re: Chavez' Religion

["Dan O'Coffey" <donaloc@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Walter blasted my forwarded comment thus:

> So Chavez is a Catholic? So what? So was Jose Antonio Echevarria!
So was Camilo Torres! And so are Ernesto and Fernando Cardenal!
Blase and Theresa Bompane, too!

> You can rest assured Hugo Chavez is NOT on the same side as are the
Catholic Church hierarchy down in Venezuela. We haven't read about
their role in Venezuela, but I'd bet my pixels they're not on the
side of the Bovarian Project.

> Citing for analysis of Hugo Chavez the FASCIST Lyndon Larouche isn't
great scholarship, either...

If you read what I wrote, it was private communication to Fred just meant to
answer where Chavez stood in terms of religion. It certainly wasn't (and
nowhere did I infer that it was) a 'claiming of Chavez for the Catholic
faith' - something I'm not a part of. Moreover, I noted the absolute
'disaster area' constituted by the Roman Catholic hierarchy. All I was
trying to do was answer a question raised so no need for the bileous
assaults.

For your information, the RC hierarchy has played a very much
anti-bolivarian course (mostly related to opposition to removal of clauses
in the constitution relating to safeguarding the life of the unborn). Of
course, this might be a cover for other issues but the RC church is quite
sharp on this issue generally. They appeared to have come to some
arrangement where the clause was removed from the core of the document and
inserted under the rights of mothers - this effectively leaves the battle
for another day.

As for Paulo Freire and his 'pedagogy of the oppressed' - I would view it as
quite a seminal work (in that it formulated a near marxist approach to
education in a manner easily accessible to religious people and in
particular those involved in Liberation Theology struggles). It has been
very well integrated into the thinking of most Irish Republicans as it sits
between Roman Catholicism (the background religion of most activists) and
Marxism (a philosophy of struggle). I personally know a number of
'Liberation Theology' priests over here and their support during the darkest
period of our struggle was significant. The antecedents were called the
'faeces of the church' for supporting the 1798 Republican rebellion and its
1803 follow up.

Republicans have a good memory of priests refusing to bury our dead, of
pulpit sermons which caused many to leave the church, of Mother Teresa of
Calcutta's brutal remarks to our 1981 hunger strikers. No one in Ireland
should underestimate the power of clandestine organisations like Opus Dei.
Yet, there is undeniably a strong link between our community and that
religion. No one should ignore the potency or role of that link in assessing
the correct strategy for victory. I'm sure that this is precisely what
Chavez is doing now.

At the same time, I have heard of first hand accounts of how US evangelicals
were supported in expanding into South and Central America to peddle their
own specific form of christian liberalism. As it is culturally derived from
the US - it's highly commodified. This in turn can be used to super-exploit
those in third world conditions or else to pacify them to their current
existence in deference to a coming paradise.

Walter, I hope that now that I've made my position clearer you can see I was
just offering the only hard information on the subject of Chavez' religion
available to me. As for the source, I've never heard of it before (I
realised the counterrevolutionary disposition before posting and assumed
Fred would too). Most media sources on the web are biased, that's something
we all have to take for granted. If you can find out more about Chavez'
alleged short-term conversion to a born again (protestant) christian from
another source. I would be interested as it may be related to RC hierarchy
opposition to the Bolivarian project.

Is mise
Domhnall.





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