Good News: Vatican does not ban Liberation Theologian...
Thursday, 15th March 2007

Dear friends,

There's genuinely good news carried in the headlines this morning that the Spanish Jesuit and Liberation Theologian, Fr Jon Sobrino, has not been banned or barred by the Vatican from teaching. For some time now it has been slowly becoming evident that the Vatican has been changing the manner in which it deals with theologians who might have differences of opinion to the official line. I think this is an enormously welcome development if the institutional Church is to begin moving forward in the world again. The sending of theologians and priests to Coventry has done enormous damage to the institution in recent decades. In many cases the particular individuals have ended up attracting far larger audiences for their books and lectures than they could ever hoped to have attracted without being the focus of Vatican attention.

But this is not just about an issue of "damage control". The fact that we do have these high profile individuals who are quite prepared to go to some sort of equivalent of the gallows for their beliefs underlines the confusion and lack of unanimity today on some very fundamental theological questions. If we (the Church and Christian people) are to move forward we need to be talking to one another and reaching some kind of agreement as to what God is trying to say to us. We do not achieve that by acts of terrorism nor by acts that endeavour to make intelligent people "persona non grata".

It is a hopeful sign that the Vatican is now attempting to dialogue rather than impose excommunication and bans on those who, in good conscience, endeavour to persuade the institution that some fundamental theological issues might be looked at from a fresh point of view. We do owe a great debt to people like Professor Len Swidler who established the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church who have valiantly stood up for the unconscionable treatment that was meted out to theologians like Hans Kung, Leonardo Boff, Charles Curran, Tissa Balasuriya and even the Australian priests, Michael Morwood and Paul Collins.

I will not be publishing an email commentary tomorrow as I will be attending the Day3 Digital Conference at the Mary Mackillop Centre in North Sydney. Hopefully I'll be able to bring some kind of report on that Conference late tomorrow night or on Saturday.

Best wishes for a great day wherever you happen to be ... in life, and in our world,

Brian Coyne
Editor and Publisher
Catholica Australia