Leonardo Boff (86 years old), a philosopher, theologian and Brazilian environmentalist, is an intellectual with worldwide recognition. He and the deceased Gustavo Gutiérrez (1928-2024), a Peruvian priest, are considered the “parents” of Catholic liberation theology in Latin America. On the conclave that starts next Wednesday in Rome the Brazilian says that “I dare to think that, since most Catholics live outside the European galaxy, the potatoes, after Pope Francis, They will be chosen from the new churchescapable of dialogue with other religions and living the new situation of humanity, inhabiting the only ‘common house’ “.
The intellectual, who today dedicates much of his time to support the environmental struggle worldwide. It bases its position remembering that “in the European Church only 25% of Catholics live” and “in the Americas 65% and the remaining on several continents.” According to Boff “European Christianity is agonized. There are closed churches because no faithful attend them“On the other hand, he maintains,”In the Americas a Christianity-source and no more mirror of Europeans are being consolidated“Because” after more than 500 years of Christian presence, new church faces emerged, the church at the base of the faithful, dispossessed bishops, not living in palaces but in the middle of the people, priests who live in the peripheries, a huge series of lay movements, which assume their autonomy, and many religious who live inside the Amazon. ” It still persists “much of the Roman church style” but “it is not this that leads to the future.”
Boff has been a Catholic priest of the Order of the Franciscans between 1970 and 1992, at which time he decided to leave the ministerial priesthood after disagreements, unauthorizations and sanctions of the Vatican for his theological texts. The above did not prevent him from continuing with his intellectual production (more than 60 books) and, with the arrival of Jorge Bergoglio to the Papacy, he recovered a frequent dialogue with ecclesiastical institutionality.
when referring to the conclave that will choose Francisco’s successor the Brazilian asks not to be “naive” and assume the existence of “conflicts” that, “in a way they are natural, because the Catholic Church as a religious institution is not organized around the book of the Gospels, but around Community power (sacred power)“Understanding that” since the third century the central category that supports the ecclesial institutionality is power, inherited from the Roman emperors. “And to base it, he argues that” thus continues until today, to the point that the small state of the Vatican is the only absolute monarchy that still exists. “
For all this, he continues to say, “In the conclave also reverbera the issue of power”This is, says Boff, that“ there are ultraconservatives such as Cardinals Robert Sarah in Guinea, cardinal Leo Burke of US return to the Mass in Latin with the priest with his back to the people. “He also denounces that”There is also a conspiracy organization Red Hat Report Financed by American conservative Catholics, by magnates linked to Trump and the Ultraconservator Brennan, who uses the services of the CIA and the FBI to collect data from the private life of progressive cardinals with the intention of manipulating them and vitiating the conclave. His interest is to avoid the choice of a progressive Pope, uncomfortable to government orientation and prefer a conservative who is refined with the authoritarian policies of the current administration. ”
But Boff points out that, in the midst of “a range of orientations” there are also “some cardinals that are more progressive, in the sense of walking with the modern world; other progressive progressives with modernities are suspicious of contaminating the faithful with thoughts little aligned to official Christianity. There are other frankly Francisquistaswho opt for the poor, defend a more flexible moral with reference to the divorced, welcome people of another sexual option, open to dialogue with all as Pope Francis did. ”
Regarding the result of the Boff conclave states that “no one can know where the option of so many cardinals will go with so many theological and pastoral lines.” However, he recalls that “the hypothesis is known: when a certain consensus is not achieved even among the ‘papabili’, someone more discreet seeks to dialogue with the different parts, suitable for creating a consensus.”
Beyond that he has his own proposal to happen to Francisco. “I suggest the name of Cardinal de Manaos (Brazil) Leonardo Ulrich Steiner, Franciscan”, He says. And he argues:“ He has good world experience, he speaks with Portuguese fluent, Italian and German, he enjoys a safe theological-spiritual training. And the most decisive: he is the only cardinal of the immense Amazon bioma. (,,,) Cardinal Leonardo stood out for the defense of the original peoples, the riverside and villages of the jungle, was hard against former president Bolsonaro for letting many people from Covid-19 die, especially for leaving hospitals without oxygen. ”To reinforce his argument he adds personality characteristics:“ It is of a serene and tender temperament, with a deep look towards people, especially those who suffer. Could the consensus figure be perhaps? If it were, I would not admire if I assumed this name: Pope Francis II ”.
In 2013 Leonardo Boff wrote the book “Francisco de Asís and Francisco de Rome: a new spring in the Church.” On the trajectory of the deceased Pope the Brazilian intellectual assures that “Francisco is enrolled in the framework of Argentine -style liberation theology: release the silenced culture and the oppressed people. ”
Regarding his own relationship with Francisco, the Brazilian says that “we remain to meet several times but due to internal problems of the Vatican it was not possible. But I have affectionate letters of him and a photograph together, when we were in Buenos Aires in 1972 giving lectures” recalls with affection.
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