"DON'T CRY FOR ME, ARGENTINA...

...Cry For the Catholic Church"

From Mary E. Hunt at Religious Dispatches:

Two women drinking coffee together in a Buenos Aires café during the dictatorship (1973-1983) could have been arrested merely for being together. Today they can marry. What a difference a few decades can make. Eva Peron was right in her address to her people from the balcony, as crooned memorably by Madonna in the movie Evita: “The truth is I never left you/All through my wild days/My mad existence/I kept my promise/don’t keep your distance…”

Argentina delivered same-sex marriage on July 15, 2010 (the bill was officially signed into law on July 21) after a bitter but decisive legislative battle. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s supporters backed it and some commentators have alleged that the 33-27 vote in the Senate was less a sign of major cultural change than a way for the president’s husband, Nestor Kirchner (former president of Argentina hankering to run again), to look liberal enough to be reelected in 2011. That may well be, but it misses an important religious angle; namely, that the Roman Catholic Church was defeated as soundly as the political opposition on this one. Maybe it is a sign of things to come in Latin America—on abortion, for example—and around the world as the institutional church fritters away its symbolic capital.
....

The institutional church was notoriously silent on much of the so-called “Dirty War.” It left to groups like Servicio Paz y Justicia (whose head, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980) to defend human rights. They did so along with the Mothers and the many secular and ecumenical groups that worked heroically to bring Argentina back to democracy. They pressed for the prosecution of those guilty of kidnapping and/or killing many young people.

God calls all Christian churches to be at the forefront of such battles against injustice and oppression. Leaders, take as your example Saint Óscar Romero. Ah, but look what happened to him. The archbishop was martyred for his courageous stand with the poor and oppressed against the government in El Salvador.

Or take as your example the living saint, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, for his brave stand against aparthied, who recently announced his retirement from public life. I will miss his voice terribly, if he does not continue to speak out. The good archbishop says:

“On the whole, I will shut up. Sometimes I m-i-i-ght find I can’t resist,” he said, with his trademark chuckle.

I hope he can't resist.

And the followers amongst us must join the fight and urge our religious leaders on in the battle against injustice and oppression and even goad them, if necessary.

MAKE NO PEACE WITH OPPRESSION!

Thanks to Ann V. for the link.