Tag: Catholic Church

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El olvido que seremos (Colombia’s “violence” from a personal perspective)–a book review

Abad Faciolince, Hector. El olvido que seremos (Bogotá: Planeta, 2006). [English below]

El autor escribe un elogio apasionante a su padre en El olvido que seremos y una denuncia enérgica de sus asesinos, al mismo tiempo. También es una memoria de su infancia y su íntima relación con su padre, tierna evocación que además nos ofrece una mirada conmovedora a la “violencia” colombiana, tan larga y tan dolorosa.

Abad pinta a su padre como un educador totalmente entregado a tender una mano a sus prójimos y abrir las puertas a jóvenes estudiosos pero desprovistos. Nos habla de su devoción total por levantar los estándares de vida de la gente pobre. Y también nos cuenta como esta mentalidad se vuelve subversiva en un conservadurismo empedernido y salvajemente criminal, incluyendo al clero católico. Es asesinado. Irónicamente, el autor nos hace ver, además, que sus familiares pertenecen a esta corriente tradicional retrógrada como obispos, monseñores y monjes, y por ende el lector descubre a nivel personal el laberinto enredoso atrás de estas circunstancias.

A pesar de incluir varias páginas verborreadas que parecen ser productos de la emoción causada al recordar ciertos eventos, El olvido me ayudó a entender la tal llamada “violencia” colombiana. Por eso vale este libro. Creo que a los colombianos les faltó una revolución para deshacerse de un conservadurismo de corte colonial.

The author writes an enthralling eulogy to his father in El olvido que seremos (The Forgotten That We’ll Become) and an energetic condemnation of his murderers, at the same time. It is also a memory of his childhood and his intimate relationship with his father, a tender recall that also provides the reader a distressing look at Colombia’s long and painful “violence.”

Abad describes his father as a totally dedicated educator who reaches out to his community by opening doors to young but destitute scholars. He tells us of his father’s total devotion to raising the living standards of poor people, and how this world view became subversive to hardened and criminal conservatives, including the Catholic clergy. He’s assassinated. Ironically, the author’s family members belong to these retrograde institutions as bishops, monsignors and monks, so the reader can catch a glimpse of how intricate and complicated these situations can be up close.

Despite pages in which a verbal diarrhea seizes the author, no doubt triggered by the emotion that comes from remembering certain events, El olvido helped me understand Colombia’s infamous “violence.” That’s why this book is worth reading. I believe that Colombia missed having a revolution that might have shaken away its colonial conservatism.

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December 12th: Dia de la Virgen de Guadalupe

Today is December 12th, a day in which the entire Spanish language world pays tribute to La Virgen de Guadalupe. Special masses were being said today in Buenos Aires, Madrid, and Mexico City. And, of course, in San Fernando, California, my hometown—and, nowadays, here in Seattle too.

December 12th was hard to overlook, when I was a boy, because we rose early in the morning, before dark, to attend “Las Mañanitas,” sung full throat by hundreds of Mexicans jammed into our Santa Rosa Church. We sang “Las Mañanitas” because it was her birthday. When I was in my 20s, mariachi musicians became accepted as part of the musical tributes, which had been entirely religious up to that point. I remember attending a December 12th mass in Tijuana in the early 1970s, when I was in a very emotional period, and feeling gratified and comforted by it. I’ve witnessed the overwhelmingly exotic December 12th festivities in the famous Basilica in Mexico City many times too.

There is a fascinating story that gave rise to the culto, or the sum total of devotional happenings, around La Virgen de Guadalupe. Legend has it that she appeared about 15 or so years after Hernan Cortes, in the company of his fellow Spaniards, conquered Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital. It was a bloody conquest, of course, and a spiritual one too: it was Catholicism over Aztec paganism, which had included human sacrifice. Many people heralded the Spanish victory with mystical significance even though the winners were no more than a bunch of bawdy and rough-hewn Iberians who didn’t know what they were getting into.

The basic point here is that the legendary appearances, which form the core of the culto, served to solidify the conquest psychologically. Historical studies show that the subjugated Indians became more willing to abandon their ancient beliefs and begin to accept Spanish Christian ones, after word spread about the Guadalupe appearances.

There is a mountain of historical information about this, but suffice to say here that December 12th always tugs at my heart and soul even though my religious fervor cooled long ago. Nevertheless, I still remember and pine for those old feelings. They’re so comforting.

 

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MEXICAN CARDINAL CONDEMNS TRUMP’S BORDER WALL AS IMMORAL AND BIGOTED

The head of the Mexican Catholic Church condemned President Trump’s proposed border wall in the harshest words I’ve seen so far. He also blasted any Mexican company willing to help build the wall, and he also threw a strong jab at Mexican government officials for not speaking more forcefully on the matter.

A March 26, 2017 article in a leading Mexico City daily printed the hard-hitting words of Norberto Rivera Carrera, Cardinal and Archbishop of Mexico, condemning President Trump’s wall project as “immoral” and “bigoted.” He said that “Trump’s wall can only nurture discrimination and serve to subjugate millions of people.”

The article in El Universal referred, first, to President Trump allotting 2 billion dollars to build the wall, and, second, to Mexican contractors announcing their interest in bidding for it. Archbishop Rivera condemned the move by Mexican entrepreneurs in no uncertain terms: “It would be immoral for any [Mexican] company intending to invest in the wall of that zealot Trump, but more than anything else, the shareholders and owners ought to be considered traitors of the nation.” These are strong words indeed!

El Universal quoted from an editorial entitled “The Betrayal of the Nation,” printed in a church weekly by the name of Desde la Fe, issued on the same date.

The Cardinal added that the companies justifying their actions as “job producing” was nothing more than bogus; what they want, he stated, is to profit from the “shameful wall.” He lamented businessmen in Mexico who would collaborate in such a bigoted enterprise. “Taking part in a project that affronts human dignity is to shoot yourself in the foot.”

He also lambasted the government’s pussy-footing about it by parroting that the United States may do whatever it wants on its side of the border. But, “it is the usual short-sighted people who cannot see that the wall represents a threat that can only weaken the relations between the two countries and endanger peace.”

Referring to President Trump’s drive to deport undocumented workers from the United States, the church leader considered it “showing off the power to terrorize, by deporting people who have not committed a crime or faulted a regulation, according to law.”

Regarding the wall, he also declared that it “represents a monument to intimidation and silencing, it symbolizes xenophobic hate that seeks to drown out the voices of ill paid and ill-treated workers, of families who lack protection and of people who are violated.”

The idea of a wall represents “a departure from the noblest desires of mankind[; it is a retreat] which has brought much shedding of blood; it is a prelude to the destruction of democratic values and social rights.” He also added, “The wall represents the power of a country that is considered good, [yet endowed] with a manifest destiny to overwhelm a nation that it considers perverted and corrupt: Mexico.”

–Carlos B. Gil