Why the pope could not inspire Latin Americans.

last updated 8 January 2015

Mexico

Carlos Martinez Garcia

Pope Benedict XVI’s recent visit to Brazil was a failure, said Carlos Martinez Garcia in Mexico City’s La Jornada. The Americas have been hemorrhaging Catholics for decades, as huge numbers of Mexicans, Brazilians, Bolivians, and others have turned to Pentecostalism. So across Latin America, Catholics were watching closely to see whether this pope would give us a vision of the church that would inspire loyalty. Some of the more outspoken bishops and archbishops here “had argued that the church should give more support to rural priests,” those who in another era identified as liberation theologists. Such priests crusade against poverty because they care deeply about their flocks. The pope, though, wasn’t interested in empowering the church at the parish level. His vision of Catholicism remains “vertical and closed,” with power “concentrated at the papal level.” It’s not particularly surprising: Before he became pope, Cardinal Ratzinger was the leading opponent of liberation theology. It is, however, disappointing. Latin America is home to more than half the world’s Catholics. To alienate us is to doom the church to irrelevance—and all because of “doctrinal myopia.”