All Cops Are Apostates

February 26, 2020 9:46 AM

“ For Torres and many others, including famed El Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Romero, expression of true faith meant advocacy for a revolutionary reorientation of society. If charity couldn’t feed the hungry, then the only choice was a more radical option.“ The Saints Of The Christian Left (Protean) The Institute for Christian Socialism is an ecumenical institute founded on the conviction that the socialism of the Gospel is irreconcilable with capitalism and demands Christian participation in the emergence of new forms of political economy today. - Current Affairs interview with IfCS co-founder Josh Davis on the history of Christianity and leftist movements (YouTube)
posted by The Whelk (9 comments total)

"He (Rev. Boyle) was a real leader in San Francisco and also inside the church for promoting social justice and racial equality, and I observed what he was doing and was very impressed by it,” said Reilly."
posted by clavdivs at 10:19 AM on February 26, 2020

Dear Evangelicals...
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 10:37 AM on February 26, 2020 [2 favorites]

I liked this from Pope Francis for Ash Wednesday:

“The Lord demands of us the courage to have a love that does not count the cost, because the measure of Jesus is love without measure." Jesus' commandment of love is not just a suggestion or even a challenge, the pope said. "It is the very heart of the Gospel."

"Where the command of universal love is concerned, let us not accept excuses or preach prudent caution," he said. "The Lord was not cautious; he did not yield to compromises. He asks of us the extremism of charity. It is the only legitimate kind of Christian extremism: the extremism of love."

Francis said he knew some people would object and say, "That is not how life really is! If I love and forgive, I will not survive in this world, where the logic of power prevails, and people seem to be concerned only with themselves."

"So is Jesus' logic, his way of seeing things, the logic of losers?" the pope asked. "In the eyes of the world, it is, but in the eyes of God it is the logic of winners.”

What Liberation Theology and other “radical” Catholic movements recognize is that Jesus didn’t just preach love, he preached love without fear or caution. Don’t measure your giving but give all you have, because you will always have more to give. The faith comes in when you start considering that as a math issue.

There was a great episode of the Netflix show Easy that starred Danielle Macdonald as a teenager who took this message to heart in defiance of her preachy parents, and the results of that impulse when dealing with a church that failed to live this message.

I would say to the Pope, where is your love extremism for the victims of the Church’s crimes? Why are you still cautious with that love? Jesus would say, let go of the fear of what the Church will lose here on earth if you tell the truth. There are vanishingly few people like the saints discussed in the piece who are willing to truly give all to follow that message.
posted by sallybrown at 11:15 AM on February 26, 2020 [22 favorites]

I would say to the Pope, where is your love extremism for the victims of the Church’s crimes? Why are you still cautious with that love?

Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man institution to enter the kingdom of God.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:26 AM on February 26, 2020 [3 favorites]

Religion is indispensable to socialism.
posted by No Robots at 12:27 PM on February 26, 2020 [1 favorite]

One of the things that always puzzled me when I left the cultural enclave I grew up in, "came South" as we euphemistically say, I was really confused by the very conservative and very right leaning Catholics I met at university. My father's peers and my grandfathers were all members of Catholic unions, co-ops, and fraternal groups who did good works in the community and my grandmother belonged to the local women's groups which collected for the disadvantaged.... so for us Catholicism had a very large component of what the right labels as "Marxism" or "socialism". The Catholics I met, people my own age, said and believed things that even my conservative, go-to-church everyday grandmother would have found over the top. After all these years I still find it so strange and alien. Even in recent years reading about right leaning Catholics supporting Trump... So utterly mystifying and disturbing. Christian religious belief does not have to equal militarism, Prosperity Gospel and selfishness.
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:58 PM on February 26, 2020 [3 favorites]

The 1949 Decree Against Communism probably has a lot to do with it.
posted by um at 4:53 PM on February 27, 2020

The Dig Podcast: Catholic Anticommunism “ The Catholic Church was a powerful force throughout the first half of the 20th century. It was a force for right-wing reaction. That’s what Dan discusses today with Giuliana Chamedes, the author of the remarkable book A Twentieth-Century Crusade: The Vatican’s Battle to Remake Christian Europe.”
posted by The Whelk at 4:06 PM on February 28, 2020

AOC: If Jesus came here and said what he said 2000 years ago, he’d be maligned as a radical and rejected
posted by The Whelk at 5:25 PM on February 28, 2020 [3 favorites]