by W. E. Gutman
In Central America, where waste and want coexist in shameless intimacy, Xibalba is a familiar signpost on the well-traveled road to nowhere. Sadly, for indigenous communities in the Isthmus, there is no exit ramp. New dynasties of rich and powerful overlords are hell-bent on keeping them idling on the road to nowhere.
Mr. Gibson is a gifted actor and moviemaker. Will he have the moral courage to crown Apocalypto with a sequel that picks up where half-naked, bronze-skinned “savages” glance toward the sea, speechless, terrified and uncomprehending, as tall ships drop anchor in pristine bays, and helmeted hirsute men wielding swords and crosses steer their long boats ashore?
Could future Gibson blockbusters cast an honest cinematic eye at the horrors of the Crusades, which preceded the rape of the “New World,” and the “Holy” Inquisition which was already underway? Can the internecine savagery of the ancient Maya ever be compared with the depraved barbarism of their “civilized” conquerors?
LIBERATION THEOLOGY SHACKLED
Newsmen don’t live by fact alone. Fact may be the backbone of a story that can be told with the cardinal “who,” “what,” “where,” “when” and “how.” But there is a latticework of nerve and sinew and flesh -- the “why” or “why not” of an event or issue -- that begs to be dissected and bared because such autopsy helps advance the cause of truth. Bringing into focus the shadowy forces and peripheral influences that shape history, stirring the slime that percolates beneath actuality, is the duty of honest journalism. But doing so invites accusations of muckraking, rabble-rousing and radicalism, labels that the “mainstream” journalists work hard not to earn. Such timidity, driven by tacit covenants with or pressure from the government -- not scruples -- often leads to selective coverage and results in partial or hasty inferences slanted to conform to the orthodoxy of the moment. In this climate of coerced “political correctness,” intemperate nationalism and religious fervor, this pusillanimity also tends to corrupt the newsman.
Working in Central America would offer me unusual opportunities to break some taboos (exposing U.S. criminal activities in the Isthmus) and defy the canons of sanctioned journalism (ignoring my editors’ injunction to lay off certain subjects) -- sometimes at great peril. I’d long resolved to serve no master; I would neither pay lip service to America’s propaganda, nor would I obey the conditions imposed by some of the papers for which I free-lanced. In time, emboldened by the acrimony that my renderings inspired, seduced by the effect they had on readers in Central America and the U.S., I would take on some of history’s more sinister sideshows. One was the incestuous relationship between the Church and political power structures, that grotesque symbiosis during which religion and politics intersect, merge and feed on each other. The other was the destabilizing consequences of U.S. military adventurism in the region. The perfidious war waged by the Vatican against Liberation Theology and the wasteland of death and destruction left by alumni of the U.S. Army School of the Americas would provide me with additional targets.
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In appointing arch-conservative Bishop Fernando Saenz Lacalle to succeed slain Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, Pope John Paul II, then on a whirlwind tour of El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Venezuela, struck hard at the Theology of Liberation, the oxygen-rich doctrine that has redefined and, for the poor and voiceless, enlivened Roman Catholicism in Latin America in the past 50 years.
The roots of Liberation Theology are found in the prophetic tradition of evangelists and missionaries in early colonial Latin America -- clerics who questioned the Church’s elitism and denounced the way indigenous people and the poor were being treated. Antonio de Montesinos (1480-1540), Bartolomé de las Casas (1484-1566), and Antonio Vieira (1608-1697), were some of the men who inspired the social and ecclesiastic dynamism that would later emerge in the pastoral ministry of Liberation Theology.
It was in the 1960s that a great breeze of renewal wafted through the churches. They began to take their social mission seriously. Lay persons went to work among the poor. Charismatic bishops and priests called for progress and innovation. The work of these dedicated Christians, mostly middle class, was sustained scripturally by the European theology of earthly realities, among them the integral humanism of Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), the progressive evolutionism of Jacques Maritain (1882-1973), and the social personalism of Emmanuel Mounier (1905-1950).
The 1970s ushered a vigorous current of reformist thought that unmasked the true cause of underdevelopment, poverty, social alienation and widespread popular discontent: The Third World was being immolated so that the First World could continue to enjoy the fruits of its overabundance. More and more theologians became pastors, militant agents of inspiration for the grassroots life of the church. They took part in epistemological discussions in learned synods and congresses then returned to their parishes among the people where they immersed themselves in matters of ministry, trade unionism and community organization. Thus, Liberation Theology spread and codified Christian faith as it applies to the needs of the poor. As these developments took place, misgivings then open opposition began to animate those who feared that faith was becoming over-politicized and others who mistook the redemptive nature of Liberation Theology for Bolshevism.
Predictably, in a region bled dry by war, devoured by economic decay, and enfeebled by harsh austerity measures, Pope John Paul II’s choice came as a shock and resonated like thunder throughout Latin America, where dozens of activist bishops were being fired and replaced by pliant champions of Catholic doctrinal extremism.
According to the Rev. Joseph Mulligan, an American Jesuit I met in Nicaragua, these clerics “toe the line very carefully on issues of doctrine. They are ‘yes-men’ doing Rome’s bidding.” As a result, Mulligan said, the Church is “suffering a pulling back from the strong commitment to social justice that marked the past five decades.”
Now retired, Spanish-born Archbishop Saenz was a former Vatican liaison to the Salvadoran Armed Forces and a member of Opus Dei, the ultra-right-wing lay organization dedicated to promoting and enforcing Catholic dogma. His critics have accused him of cozying up to the ruling party, the plutocracy and the military. Their claims are not without merit: Saenz accepted over one million dollars from the Salvadoran government and the country’s richest families to resume erection of a cathedral left unfinished when Archbishop Romero proclaimed that it was “time to build the Church, not churches.” Much to the dismay of the Vatican, Romero had also long insisted that it is blasphemy to coddle men’s souls while ignoring their earthly needs.
It is easier to tolerate an idiot than a principled man.
In a plea for “compassion,” and in the name of “national reconciliation,” Saenz had asked the government to pardon two former national guardsmen convicted of raping and killing three American nuns, Ita Ford, Maura Clark and Dorothy Kazel, and of a social worker, Jean Donovan in 1980. The two soldiers served 19 years of their 30-year sentences. “Let us have mercy and pity for them. They have demonstrated their repentance,” the archbishop remarked without a trace of pity for their victims, who had confessed to killing the women on the orders of superiors who were never prosecuted. The victims' families, who filed suit against El Salvador’s former defense minister and the former director general of the National Guard, accusing them of covering up the killings, believe the women were attacked because officials suspected they sympathized with leftist guerrillas.
Short on resources and influence, but long on memory, the people of Central America were also mindful that former Salvadoran President Armando Calderon Sol was a member of the same political party that engineered Archbishop Romero’s assassination and masterminded -- under the command of death squad leader, CIA stooge and U.S. Army School of the Americas alumnus, Roberto d’Aubuisson -- the 1981 massacre of 900 men, women and children in the village of El Mozote. Nor will they ever forget that the Pope paid a courtesy call on Calderon, cavorted with barrel-chested colonels and generals bristling with medals, and
granted audiences to high society women sporting low-cut dresses and dripping with diamonds -- instead of kneeling at the grave of six Jesuits slain in 1989 by a Salvadoran Army death squad.
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It was during a visit to Central America that Pope John Paul II first clashed with supporters of Liberation Theology. In Managua, Nicaragua, he publicly humiliated the Rev. Ernesto Cardenal, a noted writer, philosopher and social activist who would later be suspended from the priesthood. The Pontiff would “retire” scores of vocal Latin American liberal clerics. The headstrong or the unrepentant, among them Rev. Bertrand Aristide of Haiti and Rev. Fernando Cardenal (Ernesto’s brother), would also be unceremoniously defrocked.
Hastened by papal nepotism strongly biased in favor of diehard bishops, this dilution in the ranks of progressive clergy has gained new impetus in Latin America. Tragically, in the most Catholic domain on earth, the peaceful message of Jesus has been subverted by martial attitudes that view the faithful as the very enemies of the state. Astute and opportunistic, the Church continues to tap into the reactionary power base to maintain both doctrinal monopoly and political custody over the masses.
There is a precedent -- and a disquieting parallel. Nine hundred years ago, bloodhounds of orthodoxy sniffed out heretics and the carnage began. People who held unacceptable views were thrown in dungeons. There, they were tortured with inventive cruelty, then killed. They were accused of harboring heterodox opinions. They were forced to confess that they worshipped the devil (translation: they were freethinkers); engaged in heretical pursuits (they hungered for knowledge); and conspired against the established order (they spoke out against corruption and intellectual turpitude).
The Church’s obscene quest for supremacy, inspired and abetted by successive papal dynasties, was prelude to six “Crusades” during which hundreds of thousands of “infidels” -- Moslems and Jews were slaughtered. The same religious fervor later fanned nearly four centuries of inquisitorial frenzy that devoured Europe and sent another half a million innocent people to the stake while their possessions, confiscated as “evidence” fattened the Church’s bulging coffers.
Like Karl Marx, who scorned the proletariat, the Church has never fully expiated its contempt for the masses, its feigned homophobia or its misogyny. It steadfastly rejects the notion that people can govern their conscience without its guidance or control. Worse, it denies them the right to manage their political destinies by consigning their existence to the same Pharisaic elite that Jesus rebuked.
Few of Christianity’s rulers, however outwardly pious, have lived up to the principles of Jesus, the Jewish radical who preached compassion, pacifism and egalitarianism. Faced with a choice between Jesus’ ethic and political expediency, Pope John Paul II and his successor, Benedict XVI, opted for the latter. They came to Latin America and told the poor that poverty is good. They then urged the rich to reject materialism -- they might as well have sweet-talked hyenas into giving up a simmering carcass. In Mexico, donning silk and gilded vestments, Benedict -- who had looked the other way when anecdotal reports of sexual misconduct by some of his foot soldiers soon revealed a global pattern of priestly promiscuity -- called for a return to “traditional Christian values.” A day later, in Cuba, he praised democracy then flew back to his sumptuous lodgings in the Vatican, the richest and most autarchic empire on Earth. In casting out the good shepherds of Christianity from the fold, both John Paul II and his successor also surrendered the flock to the carnivores.
GOD’S “WORK”
Outside its own doctrinaire circle of followers and fans, Opus Dei, or God’s Work, has a dappled reputation, mostly bad. Andrew Greeley (b. 1928), the eminent American Catholic priest, sociologist, journalist and best-selling author, has described it as
“a devious, antidemocratic, reactionary, semi-fascist institution, desperately famished for absolute dominion in the Church and quite possibly very close now to having that power.”
Calling the elite group, “authoritarian and power-mad,” Greeley warns that
“Opus Dei is an extremely dangerous organization because it appeals to the love of secrecy and the power lust of certain kinds of religious personalities. It may well be the most powerful group in the Church today. It is capable of doing an enormous amount of harm. It ought to be forced out of the shadows or suppressed.”
Opus Dei has about one million members worldwide. At least 2,000 are ordained priests. With this international cohort of dedicated warriors, Opus Dei has successfully penetrated schools and universities, banks, publishing firms, television and radio stations, ad agencies and film companies. It has been accused of deceptive and aggressive recruitment practices, including “love bombing” -- the deliberate and syrupy show of affection by an individual or group as a tool of conscription or conversion -- and instructing celibate members to form friendships, attend social gatherings and submit written reports on potential converts.
The core precept of Opus Dei is “to help shape the world in a Catholic manner.” Helpers include clergy, captains of industry, high-ranking military officers and government officials. The group “comes surrounded by a political miasma,” the British daily, The Guardian, noted recently. The super-stealthy organization was founded just before the Spanish Civil War and blossomed in the halcyon Catholic days of El Caudillo, fascist dictator Francisco Franco’s “crusade” against the Republican left. When Opus Dei came to prominence in the late 1960s it was because Franco’s cabinet included an inordinate number of Opusdeistas -- too many to be the result of coincidence.
Opus Dei, which strives for a reunification of church and state, arms its members with special and far-reaching powers driven by the God-driven longing to cleanse the world of heretics and deliver sinful, rudderless humanity, by force if necessary, into Christ’s loving arms.
The 900-year-old organization was formerly known as the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of the Saints John of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta. Modeled after an ancient group of soldier-monks who massacred “infidels,” (Muslims, Jews and Cathars) Knights of Malta, ceremonies and rituals “inculcate lessons of chivalry and courage, and inspire a militant spirit in opposition to all non-Christian ideologies and powers.” With over 10,000 members in 42 countries, the Knights are influential Vatican surrogates with extensive ties to right-wing intelligence networks.
Originally trained as ruthless tactical fighters, later adopting a fiercely anti-communist stance, the Knights were instrumental in the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency. They also took part in U.S. global “black” (covert) operations. The founding fathers of the CIA, William “Wild Bill” Donovan and Allen Dulles, the longest-serving CIA director, were Knights, as were many in the CIA hierarchy, including John F. Kennedy’s director, John McCone and Ronald Reagan’s director, William Casey. McCone helped engineer the 1973 military coup against Chile’s democratically elected president, Salvador Allende. According to journalist Carl Bernstein, Casey gave Pope John Paul II unparalleled access to CIA intelligence, including data on spy satellites and field operatives.
There is compelling evidence that the Knights of Malta were linked to the “Rat Run,” the post-World War II getaway route used by Nazi top brass and death camp “scientists” from defeated Germany to the Americas. These thugs were issued new identities and special credentials that ensured escape from prosecution for crimes against humanity. One of them, Major General Reinhard Gehlen, a devout Catholic and legendary Cold War spymaster, surrendered to the U.S. Army Counter-Intelligence Corps in 1945. Because of his experience and useful contacts in the Soviet Union, he was freed, as were seven of his senior officers, in exchange for their pledge to gather intelligence for the United States. Flown to Washington, Gehlen went to work for Donovan and Dulles, then the Office of Strategic Services station chief in Switzerland. Gehlen handed over the names of several OSS officers who were members of the U.S. Communist Party.
A year later, Gehlen was flown back to Germany where he resumed his spy work, this
time as a lackey of the U.S. He set up a dummy organization composed of 350 former German intelligence officers. That number eventually grew to 4,000. For many years, the “V-men,” (V-mann or Vertrauensmann -- trusted man) as they were known, were the eyes and ears of the CIA in Western Europe and the Soviet Bloc during the Cold War. Recruited among men who had as little culture, common sense, objectivity or logic as possible, they were used primarily to maintain surveillance of civilian populations in Germany and occupied countries.
Overall, the Gehlen organization’s performance was at best disappointing. One rare successful mission infiltrated some 5,000 anti-communists of Eastern European origin into the Soviet Union and its satellites. These agents were trained at a facility named Oberammergau, site of the yearly staging of one of Hitler’s favorite diversions, the unambiguously anti-Semitic Passion Plays. The organization was severely compromised when it was infiltrated by communist moles -- as were the CIA and the British MI6. One of the double-agents was the illustrious Harold “Kim” Philby, spy-extraordinaire who served the communist cause until his death in Moscow in 1988.
Gehlen employed hundreds of “ex-Nazis,” among them Alois Brunner, Adolf Eichmann’s right-hand-man and commander of the Drancy internment camp near Paris. Brunner was responsible for the slaughter of 140,000 Jews. His death has never been confirmed; he was believed to be still alive in 2007. The CIA turned a blind eye and, owing the exigencies of the Cold War, even took part in some of Gehlen’s operations.