The Silencing of Jon Sobrino

While we're on the subject of Benedict XVI and the Roman Catholic Church, I point to another issue of importance. As reported in the LA Times, a move is being made, encouraged by the Opus Dei related archbishop of El Salvador, to silence Jon Sobrino, a leading Liberation Theologian and advocate for the poor in El Salvador. A Jesuit and close friend of murdered El Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, Sobrino had taught at the University of Central America in San Salvador and escaped the Death Squad murders of six nuns a number of years ago only because he was out of the country. Now in his late 60s and in poor health the Basque theologian is being censured for his supposedly heterodox Christology.

It's been a long time since I read Sobrino -- I read him for a Latin American theology class and used him in a Systematics paper on Liberationist Christologies back in seminary -- but it's sad that efforts are still being made to silence those who would advocate for the least of these.

Read a few responses from one of his defenders in the article:

Sobrino's defenders are convinced that the action against him is politically motivated.

Father Javier Vitoria Cormenzana, who teaches theology at the University of Deusto in Spain's Basque Country, said he had reviewed Sobrino's writings over the years and found no fault with them. He uses several as texts in class."This is nothing but a Vatican strategy that has lasted 30 years: looking for a way to condemn and silence Sobrino," Vitoria wrote Tuesday in the El Diario Vasco newspaper.

And it was a slap at the "thousands" of victims of violence in Latin America for whom Sobrino served as witness, Vitoria said. "His voice is their voice. Silencing it silences once again the victims of barbaric murder."