Pope Declares Synod Won’t Look Backward

Pope John Paul II began his sixth visit to Latin America on Saturday with a ringing condemnation of radical elements of liberation theology and a benign explanation of his surprise call Friday for an extraordinary conference of bishops to review the historic church reforms of Vatican II.

The meeting of leaders of the world’s Roman Catholic episcopal conferences will be “a confirmation of the Second Vatican Council,” the pontiff told reporters on the chartered Alitalia DC-10 in which he flew to Caracas.

To critics of his conservative philosophy who feared that the call for a synod might be a move to limit some of the reforms drawn up 20 years ago by Vatican II, as it is often called, John Paul scoffed that “people looking backward don’t see progress.”

Unity Among Christians

He said the unusual meeting, the first extraordinary synod to be called since 1967, would discuss unity among Christians as one of its main topics. John Paul’s top aide, Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, the Vatican secretary of state, said the synod, which was “a personal idea of the Pope,” would try to “draw up a balance sheet” of the two decades since Vatican II.

Casaroli said the Pope firmly supports the decisions of Vatican II, in which he participated as an archbishop, and does not seek to alter the reforms. In his remarks to reporters on the plane, the pontiff added that the purpose of the extraordinary synod would be “to hold the line, the orientation of the (Second) Council. I am convinced that through the council, the Holy Spirit spoke to us.”

In Caracas, the leader of the world’s 795 million Roman Catholics plunged directly into one of the most burning of church issues in a pre-dinner speech to Venezuelan bishops at the Apostolic Palace. He admonished them to discipline what he called “erring” priests who “disfigure the gospel message, using it at the service of ideologies and political strategies in search of an illusory earthly liberation. . . .”

His reference was to specialists in the so-called “theology of liberation,” leaders of a movement in the church, particularly in the Third World, who have been cautioned by the Vatican and the pontiff against allowing Marxist concepts and modes of thought to “corrupt” the social and religious work and message of the church.

John Paul sternly exhorted Venezuelan bishops to be vigilant “in order to remove from the flock the errors which threaten it--a delicate duty which requires a special pastoral tact, both in order to win over the errant and to prevent the faith of the community from being damaged.”

John Paul added that “unfortunately, there are not lacking those who, abusing the mission to teach (that they) received from the church, proclaim not the truth of Christ but their own theories; at times in open contrast to the magisterium of the church.”

He asked the bishops to firmly correct those preachers and theologians who he believes have strayed from “correct doctrine” and “above all impede he who abuses the authority received from the church.”

The pontiff received an enthusiastic but not an overwhelming welcome on his arrival in Caracas and during his motorcade into the city, where the people, although overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, are less observant of their religion than in most other Latin American countries. Only about 10% of Venezuela’s 16 million population are regular churchgoers, and local bishops felt compelled to mount an advertising campaign to arouse enthusiasm for John Paul’s visit.

“The Pope wants to be your friend,” and “Meet him and find yourself” were two of the church-sponsored commercials that have been running on local media.

Although troubled by the fourth-highest foreign debt burden in Latin America--$35 billion--oil-rich Venezuela remains South America’s most affluent country in terms of per capita income. Yet it is troubled by deep social divisions and widespread poverty, made worse by the economic pinch that followed the collapse in world oil prices in 1982.

Noting the country’s oil wealth, John Paul deplored in his arrival speech the fact that there is a “wide social strata sunk in poverty and even in extreme poverty.”

He said that the condition of the poor “testifies to a bad distribution and poor utilization of society’s resources.”

The somewhat stiff ceremonial welcome was enlivened by a children’s choir singing folk songs and hymns as the pontiff and Venezuelan President Jaime Lusinchi took a formal salute.

It marked the 25th papal trip away from Italy since John Paul became Pope in 1978. The pontiff will remain in Venezuela until Tuesday, when he will fly to Ecuador for a little more than two days, then proceed to Peru.