The announcement from Rome in recent days concerning the comments of Archbishop Parolin on the celibacy issue have been picked up by the press, both catholic and secular, no doubt with good reason, for they are indeed significant.  

What has slipped under the radar has been the meeting in Rome between Gustavo Guiterrez OP and Pope Francis. For years the work of the Liberation Theologians in South America , Guiterrez and Boff being the foremost, has been treated with a degree of hostility in Rome.  It was felt that their option for the poor depended too much on a Marxian analysis which was unacceptable. And so the arguments that it put forwarded were regarded with suspicion and those who championed them were considered, to a degree, unorthodox. Leonardo Boff, a Franciscan, set aside his priesthood in the early 90s. Boff joined the international group of Catholic Scholars who in 2012 issued the Jubilee Declaration on reform of authority in the Catholic Church.  

But it would appear that here too a re-examination of past practice is being undertaken. Guiterrez is quoted as saying that the problems experienced then belong to the past “because today liberation theology is better known and appreciated than back then” To quote Auden “Time tells you nothing but I told you so” . Guiterrez, now 85 years of age has remained true to the arguments he set out in his seminal book A Theology of Liberation back in the 70s, a book recently re-issued with the cover photograph shown at the head of this posting.  

Papa Francesco has shown us in so many ways where his values and sympathies lie, they are with the poor and a simple life pattern that reflects his concern.  

After reading the re-issued book, the front cover picture haunted me for a long while. It gave rise to this piece written last year.    

Gustavo

A lined and lived-in face

framing tired, distant, dark eyes,

the loaded sack

carried shoulder-high

on a bent and aging back.

Tousled, unkempt hair,

a black crown

for a working man

dressed in a one-piece cloth of brown

walking a rising path between hills.

His load, his life

his work, his survival

his speech, his expression

toiling

between dawn breaking

and dusk falling.

Coming back from fields

to eat what there is

and

to sleep where he can

this working man.

Hill walker

distant dreamer

soul searcher

Christ caller

Gustavo Gutierrez

Front Cover picture

Of Theology of Liberation

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