In 1962, Pope John XXIII launched an effort at Vatican II to renew the teaching of the Gospels. Liberation theology gained popularity, and a wave of socialist theology—in accord with the founding principles of Christianity—swept across Latin America.
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It was immediately met with incredible violence from the traditional rogue superpower. Popular governments were overthrown, and dictatorships installed.
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The most violent decade was the 1980s. It started with the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero on March 24, 1980.
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Romero pleaded with President Carter: “Christian to Christian…[aiding the junta] will increase injustice and sharpen the repression that has been unleashed against the people.” Carter ignored, and Romero was killed.
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The decade ended with the assassination of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador by an elite Salvadoran battalion, trained at the School of the Americas. Liberation theology was seemingly irreparably crushed.
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Then, in 1990, something remarkable happened. The Haitian people, in a remarkable display of grassroots activism and democracy, elected a populist priest and proponent of liberation theology: Jean Bertrand Aristide.
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zach carter Retweeted zach carter
Predictably, this was unacceptable. Aristide was ousted.https://twitter.com/zachjcarter/status/860130800532115456 …
zach carter added,
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Since then, there has been a reiteration or Pope John XXIII’s call 55 years ago. Pope Francis’ message echoes the basic tenets of the “preferential option for the poor.”
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There is great suffering in the world. The Rohingya, Palestinians, and Yemeni children are only a few. We’re in a new geological epoch racing to the precipice of human extinction.
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We should think a lot these next few days about how we can draw from the inspiration of liberation theology and advocate for the poor and the suffering.
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I was looking into how the historical norm of stock compensation was set in Silicon Valley and two of the founders who established it as a precedent in the late 1940s grew up here:https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/radiance-from-halcyon …
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Replying to @kimmaicutler @zachjcarter
And this place’s theology at the turn of the century viewed religion and science as intertwined. How sad to lose a version of spirituality that integrates the unseen with the science & technology that makes it visible.
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