george
Cosmopolitan
Posts: 568
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Post by george on Mar 16, 2007 16:33:51 GMT -7
Just returned from a cruise that had two stops in Mexico. reminded me of certain Catholic peoples who wanted to help stop curb the horrible poverty in Latin American countries. Having been to Mexico i was repelled by the poverty i witnessed. It was unbelievable!! John Paul 2nd was critical of " Libertion Theologists" but checking out the poverty of Mexico, i now understand their issues. !0% of the people from wealth and 90 % from unbelievable poverty. It makes you want to cry.
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Post by Jaga on Mar 16, 2007 21:42:09 GMT -7
George, the pope did not critize the whole theology of liberation, just its part which was asking for people to use weapons to fight. is this what you saw?  but this is a picture from Venezuela the shanty town in Venezuela stroke me during the interview of barbara Walter with Chavez on 20/20. |
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Post by Jaga on Mar 16, 2007 21:44:31 GMT -7
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Post by Jaga on Mar 16, 2007 21:50:37 GMT -7
another picture:  |
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Post by joanzaniskey on Mar 17, 2007 11:46:43 GMT -7
Jaga,
Citgo, the major U.S. seller of Venezuelan oil is promoting its program to provide lower cost home heating oil to the the poor in the U.S. Their TV ads make direct reference to the generosity of the country of Venezuela. It appears the Chavez generosity does not extend to his own people.
No shanty towns in Europe? How would you refer to their slums? Excellent photos!
Joan
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george
Cosmopolitan
Posts: 568
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Post by george on Mar 17, 2007 12:22:48 GMT -7
Jaga....not sure of the answer concerning " liberation theology". However, whats been going on in this region for decades has not been the answer. When i see blow hard Bishops and Cardinal's cozy up to the people in power who allow this poverty it makes me ill. There has got to be a better way. Just as the Church was beneficial to Poland's cause i think they can be beneficial to Latin America's cause. Its much, much worse over there. When i was in Poland i kept on hearing from younger people that " I know were a poor country ". At one point i gathered them together and stated that they didn't know what poverty was. There parents and especially their grandparents knew what povery was. But they didin't. I told them i would take them to countries that would make their own country seem like a material paradise.
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Post by pieter on Mar 18, 2007 5:11:04 GMT -7
I don't like the Southern-American left Populism of Chavez, and the devision between Southern- and Northern-America.
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Post by jimpres on Mar 18, 2007 7:00:16 GMT -7
Tijuanna has a shanty town and the hovels are made of cardboard. A lot worse then the pictures above.
jim
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Post by Jaga on Mar 18, 2007 8:22:17 GMT -7
Jaga, No shanty towns in Europe? How would you refer to their slums? Excellent photos! Joan Joan, what slams in Europe? What do you talk about, could you explain please? |
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Post by joanzaniskey on Mar 18, 2007 20:32:30 GMT -7
Jaga,
Definition of slum:a densely populated usu. urban area marked by crowding, dirty run down housing, poverty, and social unrest. Think France, England, Germany, Denmark(recent riots when squatters were displaced) Italy, and many former Soviet bloc nations. Romania has shanty towns with populations of 1500 people. In England and France the housing may be newer but the problems are the same, unemployment, poverty and social unrest. Europe has an increasing immigrant population and despite its seeming economic wealth, the poverty still exists.
Check out un habitat, go to publications and click on Slums of the World. Sorry I can not give you a link and it requires Adobe acrobat. Mine doesn't seem to work.
Joan
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Post by pieter on Mar 18, 2007 20:54:25 GMT -7
In Belgium you have a very poor part, which is called the Borinage, over the border you have the poor region of Northern France, with a lot of unemployment and dispair (under both the French underclass and the large amount of foreigners -most Algerians- there). Just over the Border in the German Rührgebiet, there are a lot of empty old industrial complexes, and very poor towns with a lot of unemployment. In Eastern-Germany there is the same problem. These problems causes political radicalism or extremism, both in France and Germany you have far right forces that thrive on unemployment problems of the youth, and you have their fair left competitors (Populist Left) and Islamism or Ethnic nationalism (Turkish or Arab). Most European cities/Metropoles have more or less problems with unemployment, hidden poverty and old, shaby neigbourhoods. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borinage |
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Post by troubledgoodangel on Jun 3, 2007 12:51:43 GMT -7
The photo from Venezuela reminds me of my time in Caracas. Compared to this poverty, our barrio (district) San Bernardino was a tropical paradise. The streets were strewn with flower petals, the trees were in bloom, and the poor were nowhere to be seen. Earlier in Argentina, I saw many villas miseria, which is the Argentine equivalent of a shantytown. But to tell the truth, whether in the villa miserias or in the Brasilian favelas, these shabby appearances can be quite delusive. Of course the people were poor by the American standards, but my experience has been that there was always more than a reasonable amount of food and wine! As a matter of fact, I stayed long 14 years in Argentina observing the poor eating meat each day, the so-called asado (grilled beef), puchero (beef soup), and corderito asado (rosted lamb). I can't do that even today, in Poland, myself! Wine was also extremely cheap and available, in Argentina. In Poland a bottle of wine costs minimum 10 dollars today, and one could live one month, room and board, on three such bottles in Guatemala, when I moved there in 1973! But one thing stood out: there was no economic future neither in Argentina, nor in Guatemala! The wealth in those countries was concentrated in the hands of no more than 30 families! The populations had plenty of work, but there were no savings at all. As an example, in 14 years of hard work, I saw qualified engineers saving no more than 150 dollars ... enough to escape! This says it all. In Guatemala the situation was identical. Millions of cholos and cholas (local men and women), lived on 30 dollars a month, which was the cost of room and board. The military was the only upper class, alongside with a couple dozen millionaires. There was no ethics at all. Many colonels, even generals, went hunting at night not for deer, but for guerrillas. We saw their corpses floating in the mornings down the river. When I voiced my outrage to one such colonel at a bar at our hotel, I was advised by my own family to flee Guatemala, and so I did. There was no free speech in Guatemala at all, and Bishop Romero learned it the hard way. This brings me to the liberation theology, which I have studied in Rome with one of its greatest Peruvian exponents, Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez. Neither John Paul II nor Benedict XVI were at any moment denying the opción preferencial para el pobre, proclaimed by the Synods in Medellin, Colombia, and later in Mexico's Puebla. Those Synods shocked the conscience of the Church. Something wasn't right in a Christian society where millions were at the absolute mercy of a few families. Something was dramatically unlike the early Church, where the rich "placed their wealth at the feet of the Apostles, to insure that no one went hungry"! In Puebla, the expression "injusticia institucionalizada" (institutionalized injustice) was used in the pontifical documents for the first time ever in the history of the Church, 2,000 after the last Christian placed his home at the feet of Peter! (the first to use this phrase was Card. Lorscheider (l'Osservatore romano, 24 sept., 1978)). The Polish Pope was so moved, that he took of his papal gold ring and gave it to the Brasilians at a favela. Pope Benedict, according to accounts, was also deeply moved. But the wheels of the truth move slower than human sentiments. No one knows how many years will pass, before the imbalance between "opción preferencial for the poor" and the "injusticia institucionalizada" ceases to be! Christ would have never endorsed a revolution! The only tangible hope is therefore Christ Himself, His Spirit moving the Christians to give more, much more than they do now! But even this wont be enough, lest many, with the Spirit's help, get involved in searching for creative non-violent ways to help the poor of the world! This, I think, is a challenge not just to theologians, politicians, laity, and priests, but to the Vatican itself!
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Post by kaima on Jun 3, 2007 13:31:55 GMT -7
No shanty towns in Europe? How would you refer to their slums? Excellent photos! Joan Joan, where have you seen slums in Europe? I have never seen any, other than some shabby villages that were identified as Gypsy settlements. Kai |
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Post by kaima on Jun 3, 2007 13:41:15 GMT -7
I disagree with the former Pope and the Church - and think they have a moral obligation to favor, nurture and guide Liberation Theology. They support the oligarchies and the super rich structure that exists today, and yet they wonder why so many protestant denominations are making headway in converting people from Catholicism?
The Polish Pope especially disappointed me. With his background in Poland, with the Nazis and the Commies I expected him to recognize the injustice and oppression and not to give Church approval to the current conditions. That he worked in opposition to Nazi and Communist oppression and refused to recognize the similar and extreme conditions in South America astounds me.
I do believe in Liberty and Justice for All, and if revolution is necessary to overcome an oppressive institutional government, and the Church supports this oppressive and unjust system, then the Church must also be opposed. The Church has abandoned morality.
Kai
Kai
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