🚀 go-pugleaf

> On May 10, 2025, at 03:03, Michael Meeropol via groups.io <mameerop=gmail.com@groups.io> wrote:
> 
> https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n09/colm-toibin/the-pope-and-pachamama?utm_campaign=1320530_20250510icymi&utm_medium=email&utm_source=LRB%20email&dm_i=7NIQ,SAXE,2E3FYS,2CQC9,1

That is a fascinating article because it plumbed the politics beneath the symbolism. Francis, for example, spurned the papal palace for a spartan room. A nod towards the doctrine of poverty and also so none of his opponents in the bureaucracy could see who he was meeting with orwhat he was doing. 

Personally, I come from a Catholic family. My extended family was split between reactionary and social-justice catholics, and the split was largely along class lines as it is pretty much throughout the US. Many of the more devout in my extended family have become evangelicals today.

What makes this relevant to us was explained by Mike Davis in City of Quartz, where social-justice versus anti-abortion Catholics struggled against each other as the city filled with refugees during the Dirty Wars in Latin America in the 1980s. Davis noted that the archbishop of the LA diocese was Irish and represented the white, native-born wing of the church. Archbishop Timothy Manning exiled Father Luis Olivares, who actively supported Central American refugees, turning his church into a refugee sanctuary. Manning had Olivares reassigned to a Fort Worth parish as Manning built an anti-abortion campaign as the LA refugee population swelled and the newly-arrived had settled in places like East LA, largely ignored by the church. A more welcoming or at least politically-neutral church might have helped lead to a larger, secular immigrant-rights movement. Instead, the population was neglected and gangs took root - until Bill Clinton deported them to El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. Clinton thereby exported US gang culture to further destabilize those nations. Democrat Clinton provided the model for Republican Trump in this, socal welfare elimination, and in other things. 

The Catholic church is much less influential today than it was in the 1980s, but it is still influential enough that it can help or hinder a fledgling immigrant rights movement, which is what we should care about.

Mark



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I like Toibin's non-fictional writing but he is a genuine conservative
(i.e. not a right wing radical), one who worried about the possibility of a
Sinn Fein Govt in Ireland. His advice to the current Pope is basically -
keep a cunning and ruthless eye on one's enemies and do nothing about the
great causes of our time.

That is of course the kind of advice that will see the continued decline of
the Church of Rome. But then I would say that because I have always been
something of a "Dreamer of the Absolute".

Comradely

Gary

Comradely

Gary

On Sat, May 10, 2025 at 8:03 PM Michael Meeropol via groups.io <mameerop=
gmail.com@groups.io> wrote:

> This might be off the subject --- but some Catholic teachings --- the
> "special option for the poor" have given support to those priests and lay
> people who become revolutiionaries --- religion does not have to merely be
> an "opiate" --- it can be part of the intellectual underpinnings of a
> communist commitment.
>
> THus -- I find this article relevant to our ongoing discussions and
> self-education
>
>
> https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n09/colm-toibin/the-pope-and-pachamama?utm_campaign=1320530_20250510icymi&utm_medium=email&utm_source=LRB%20email&dm_i=7NIQ,SAXE,2E3FYS,2CQC9,1
>
> 
>
>


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<div dir="ltr">I like Toibin's non-fictional writing but he is a genuine conservative (i.e. not a right wing radical), one who worried about the possibility of a Sinn Fein Govt in Ireland. His advice to the current Pope is basically - keep a cunning and ruthless eye on one's enemies and do nothing about the great causes of our time.<div><br></div><div>That is of course the kind of advice that will see the continued decline of the Church of Rome. But then I would say that because I have always been something of a "Dreamer of the Absolute".</div><div><br></div><div>Comradely</div><div><br></div><div>Gary</div><div><br></div><div>Comradely</div><div><br></div><div>Gary</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, May 10, 2025 at 8:03 PM Michael Meeropol via <a href="http://groups.io">groups.io</a> <mameerop=<a href="mailto:gmail.com@groups.io">gmail.com@groups.io</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">This might be off the subject --- but some Catholic teachings --- the "special option for the poor" have given support to those priests and lay people who become revolutiionaries --- religion does not have to merely be an "opiate" --- it can be part of the intellectual underpinnings of a communist commitment.<div><br></div><div>THus -- I find this article relevant to our ongoing discussions and self-education</div><div><br></div><div><a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n09/colm-toibin/the-pope-and-pachamama?utm_campaign=1320530_20250510icymi&utm_medium=email&utm_source=LRB%20email&dm_i=7NIQ,SAXE,2E3FYS,2CQC9,1" target="_blank">https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n09/colm-toibin/the-pope-and-pachamama?utm_campaign=1320530_20250510icymi&utm_medium=email&utm_source=LRB%20email&dm_i=7NIQ,SAXE,2E3FYS,2CQC9,1</a><br></div><div><br></div></div>




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