Brazil Catholics Divided Over Pope’s Silencing of Liberal Franciscan Monk

Pope John Paul II’s crackdown on the progressive clergy in Brazil, symbolized by the silencing of theologian Leonardo Boff, has sharpened divisions in the leadership here of the Roman Catholic Church, the world’s third largest.

At least 15 bishops have protested the Vatican order prohibiting Boff, a Franciscan monk, from teaching, speaking publicly or continuing to publish his controversial views on the so-called theology of liberation, which calls for a church committed to a social revolution in favor of the poor.

Speaking for the progressive clergy, Bishop Mauro Morelli of Duque de Caxias, an industrial suburb of this city, said the order silencing Boff was “the end of dialogue, the first shot in a war between brothers.”

Conservative View

But in the conservative wing of Brazil’s national conference of 380 bishops, the “penitential silence” imposed on Boff by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was greeted with jubilation and produced a call for more censorship of progressive teaching.

Bishop Manuel Pestana Filho of Anapolis, site of a large air base in the state of Goiaz, called on the national conference of bishops to appoint an administrator for Vozes Publishing Co., where Boff is an editorial director. Vozes, with offices in Petropolis, 40 miles from here, is Brazil’s leading publisher of progressive religious literature.

The Vatican order disciplining Boff, 46, only draws more attention to his theological teachings, which have already made his best-known work, “Church, Charisma and Power,” a best-seller here. It was also widely published abroad in translation.

Hearing in Vatican

Boff, who defended his writings before Ratzinger in a Vatican hearing last year, has bowed to the order. He also issued a statement saying he is not a Marxist but he believes that “in the situation of oppression in which we live, the mission of the church must be, without hesitation, one of liberation.”

Through Boff, the powerful conservative forces in the Vatican seem to be striking at higher figures in the Brazilian hierarchy, such as Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns, archbishop of Sao Paulo, and Aloisio Lorscheider, archbishop of Fortaleza, who are identified with the progressive majority.

The Pope had earlier given a clear signal that the Vatican hierarchy wants to moderate the political line of the church here when it named a nonpolitical bishop from the Carmelite order, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, to replace the internationally known Archbishop Helder Camara of Recife and Olinda, in Brazil’s northeast region. Camara was in frequent conflict with Brazil’s former military government over his militant leadership for social reform.

Social Reform Projects

The Brazilian church is already committed to activities such as promoting labor union development, peasant organizations and agrarian reform, as well as grass-roots “base communities” in slums, rural areas and intellectual circles.

Arns and the base community groups that have flourished in the industrial suburbs of Sao Paulo were accused this week by Luis Eulalio de Vidigal Bueno Filho, president of the powerful Sao Paulo Industrial Federation, of directly promoting a wave of strikes in Brazil’s most important economic state.

The strikes, calling for wage increases and shorter working hours, have put more than 500,000 workers into work stoppages affecting the automotive industry, bus transportation, the Sao Paulo subway system and the postal and telegraph service.

Many in Union

Many of the labor leaders who have developed the strike movement belong to the Workers Central Union, which was organized by union leaders closely tied to the workers’ party. That party is backed by progressive Roman Catholic bishops and priests and is a rival of the Communist-backed Central Union in the effort to create a strong labor union movement in Brazil.

These grass-roots organizations focus on community issues as well as discussions of religious teachings as they relate to daily life. In many cases, such discussions lead to organized community action, and sometimes they are closely tied to the formation of unions, cooperatives and political movements.

Progressive priests, nuns and lay activists have supplied some base communities with materials based on the teachings of the theology of liberation, which provides a doctrinal basis for social revolution by nonviolent means.

Conservatives Fearful

The conservative wing of the Brazilian church fears that the base communities are developing into an alternative to parish churches for some practitioners of Catholicism. The grass-roots groups are also seen as vulnerable to political activists, including Marxist revolutionaries whose goals coincide with those of Catholic radicals.

The Boff case is expected to be discussed in the monthly meeting next week of the Bishops’ Pastoral Commission, headed by Ivo Lorscheider, archbishop of Santa Maria, president of the National Conference of Bishops.

Lorscheider has been sympathetic to the progressive movement in the Brazilian church and has accepted the employment of liberation theology texts in teaching seminars for clergy.

Support From Vatican

But the conservatives have challenged the local church, with strong Vatican support from Cardinal Angelo Rossi, a Brazilian clergyman and former archbishop of Sao Paulo who is one of the Pope’s closest collaborators.

Rossi, who is administrator of the properties of the Holy See, has come here twice since the Boff controversy erupted last year to issue strong condemnations of the theology of liberation as misguided teachings, contrary to church doctrine and serving the Marxist objective of promoting class conflict.

The rising conservative influence coincides with preparations that have begun in the Brazilian Episcopal conference for the synod to be held Nov. 25-Dec. 8 in Rome. The purpose of the conclave is to review the decisions of Vatican Council II, which conservatives believe opened the door for church radicals and the teaching of the theology of liberation.

Rossi and other Brazilian conservatives want to neutralize the progressive bent of the Brazilian delegation of bishops that will attend the synod.