CONTENTS
With the fall of the Roman Empire in 476, the Church became the most powerful force in Europe. It was a dark age. In the 11th century, the Holy Roman Emperor Fredrick Barbarossa challenged the authority of the Pope in civil matters. The Church and the aristocracy struggled for power through the late Middle Ages. The bourgeoisie grew in strength during the transition from the late Middle Ages to the early Renaissance. The Church and the aristocracy then united against the rising power of the bourgeoisie. The French Revolutio crushed the power of the aristocracy (feudalism) through great struggles, and when it became clear that the aristocracy would not recover, the Church joined the bourgeois class (the new exploiters and oppressors) against the proletarian class.
The Church hierarchy was a staunch allied of Hitler and Mussolini. It was during the regime of Mussolini that the Vatican signed the treaty of Latran, in which it was recognized as a sovereign State. In 1935, when Mussolini needed arms for invadin Ethiopia, a large part of these armaments was supplied by the Vatican's amunitions factory. The same year (1935), the Vatican signed an accord with Hitler, the means by which the Germa government applied a tax of 8-10 percent on wages. The millions of dollars collected through this tax went directly to the Vatican. This tax was maintained until the end of World War II In 1943 alone, the Vatican received the equivalent of more than $100 million (Au Nom de Dieu -In the Name of God, David Yallop, French Edition 1984.
In the same way, the journalist and writer Michel Collon in (Poker Menteur -Lying Poker, The Great Powers, Yugoslavia and the Coming Wars, EPO Edition, 1998) points out that at the end of the Second World War, the Catholic Holy See united with th Croatian Church, and together with the secret services of the US and Great Britain organize a clandestine network to protect Nazi criminals of the Croatian (ex-Yugoslav) fascist State. By means of this network, which had its center of operations in the Vatican, 20 thousand Croatian criminals were able to flee. This network also served to protect and enable important leader of the Nazi Gestapo to escape, as for example, the Commander of the Treblinka extermination camp Gustav Wagner, the Commander of the Sobibor extermination camp; and Adolf Eichmann the known organizer of the extermination of the Jews, which was called the "fina solution."
In Spain, the fascist clergy supported dictator Franco. During the conquest of Perú in the name of God and the kings of the Spanish empire, 80 percent of the native population was exterminated. Religion was imposed on all the people by blood and fire. Soldier and missionaries ransacked our wealth and divided our land. And in this Century, while th old Pope John Paul II takes advantage of the needs of the people in some countries to stir up unrest in favor of Yankee imperialism, he rabidly condemns genuine revolutionary movements such as the People's War in Perú.
Marx taught us that religion is the opiate of the people, which is a Marxist thesis valid today, and in the future. But he did not advocate the persecution of religion. These irrational ideas of the Church must be combated in the realm of ideas, via rational propaganda, like the Communist Party (PCP) does in Perú. The program of the PCP calls for the respect of freedom of religion and masterfully distinguishes the religiousness of the people from the actions of the ecclesiastic hierarchy, that old theocracy headed by the Pope. Although the people are religious, states the PCP, it does not prevent them from struggling for their class interests and serving the revolution, specifically, the People's War. The democratic character of the Peruvian revolution is manifested when honest priests and nuns have rejected the Papacy, and joined the People's War.
"Religion will wither away as exploitation and oppression are destroyed and eliminated. And since the Papacy serves the exploiting classes, and what will follow (that is, the proletariat) is not an exploiting class, the Papacy will not be able to survive, and religion itself will be swept away. In the meantime, the freedom of religious beliefs has to be recognized until mankind, advancing through objective conditions, will posses a clear, scientific and world-transforming consciousness." President Gonzalo.
As the Papacy (and the Church) defend the interests of the oppressors and exploiters and act as the ideological shield for the reactionaries, they adapt and try to fit their myths to the new situations. The Church's contribution to exploitation is principally in the realm of ideas. It struggles against human reason, promotes absurd myths as "truth," and teaches workers to turn the other cheek to those who oppress them.
Lenin combated intensely against religion. He said that there is nothing in common between the doctrine of socialist revolution and religious doctrine, and that popular conceptions of God are as delusional as popular conceptions of the Czar.
"Today, as much in Europe as in Russia, any defense or justification of the idea of God, including the most refined and well-intentioned one, is a justification of reaction. Its whole definition is reactionary and bourgeois from the beginning to the end . . . The idea of God has always numbed and dulled social feelings, substituting life with putrescence . . . The idea of God has never blinded the individual from society without instilling in the oppressed classes the faith in the divine character of the oppressors . . . The popular notion of God and of the divine is befuddlement, ignorance, and popular obscurantism, exactly like the popular representation of the Czar, or like the cavemen dragging their wives by the hair." (12/1913 Letter of Lenin to the Soviet writer Maxim Gorki, published in 1924.)
From 1917 to 1923 Lenin carried out the following anti Orthodoxy policies:
Stalin, basically followed Lenin's policies regarding Church matters. However, it was revisionism since 1953 with Khrushchev that allowed the Church to return and serve its interests.
When the Cuban revolution came to power, the foreign priests were expelled along with the foreign gangsters, as parasites. However, the churches were not closed. Atheism was a requirement for membership in the Cuban Communist Party (removed recently). All of this gradually changed, especially after the fall of Soviet social imperialism, when its satellites themselves removed the mask of "communism" to openly restore capitalism. The Church has been an important vehicle in the process of restoration in these countries, and Cuba is not an exception.
On January 21-25, 1998, Pope John Paul II visited Cuba. There were 2,478 foreign journalists reporting this event, and among them, 1659 came from the United States. The Pope was received as a divine messenger by millions of Cubans who were mobilized by the huge propaganda apparatus of the regime. The leaders of the Cuban government praised the supposed "goodness and virtues of the Papacy," pretending to transform the science of Marxism into a myth. Castro said that "between Marxism and religion, there is no antagonistic contradiction." However, while he denies a basic principle of Marxism he claimed to speak from a Marxist-Leninist conception. Thus, according to the supposed "Socialist" Cuba's viewpoint, the activity of the Church has been justified, among other things, on the ideological ground because religion has stopped being "the opiate of the people," and on "Realpolitik" (the old code-word used by Russian revisionists during the Cold War to justify its collusion with imperialism) grounds to end the U.S. embargo.
Although in Latin America, the Church led by the Papacy as an institution, has been a staunch allied with bourgeois dictatorships, and rabidly opposed to revolution,( especially the People's War in Perú) in no country of Latin America has the Pope ever been so honored and adulated as in Cuba. Certainly, there is no comparison with the Pope's visit to Perú, when at the time his "Holiness" was calling the PCP to "surrender . . . please surrender to God," the Communist Party of Perú blacked out the city of Ayacucho, and detonated huge explosions to repudiate the Church's blessing to the bloody bayonets of the genocidal armed forces.
The attraction and support by Castro not only to the Pope's personality but to the Church's anticommunist activities in the Third World (e.g., "new evangelization and ecumenism") were evident. On its part, the reactionary Church and the Papacy still maintain the same myths from 500 years ago, when the first priests arrived at the American continent.
Castro, in a press conference, without middle hues, said:"The success of the visit of the Pope must be a success of the country, and a success of the Revolution." In the same tone, the Cuban leader referred to the "courage" of the Pope, and announced:"We see the visit of the Pope as an honor; we see it as a courageous gesture. He comes to Cuba, and it is nothing more than a visit to Cuba. It is a manifestation of confidence. We have to organize the Pope's visit to Cuba better than the way it may be organized anywhere else in the world."
He assured the success of the pilgrimage of the Pope, and promised that the head of the Catholic Church would leave "fully satisfied with his visit to Cuba." To prove what he said, on December 13 he announced at a public conference that the government was declaring December 25 a holiday from work. Castro said:"As a gesture to our guest, to Catholics, and to all Christians, we declare the 25th of December a national holiday." In this way, the Cuban regime again institutionalized and glorified the birth of Christ.
The Cuban press from the beginning of December, unfurled an intense campaign to show that Castro, being supposedly a "Marxist-Leninist," holds many things in common with religion, and even more with the Catholic Church. It sought to reinforce the idea that there is no contradiction between "Socialism and Christianism." Granma pointed out the following:"Meetings of Fidel with clergy of Latin America, the Caribbean, and North America have been numerous, over many years; indeed, during one of these exchanges of ideas, he declared that, in his judgement, 'there were many things in common between the doctrine of the Church and the Revolution'; among these points of contact, he cited the commandments of the law of God, which resembles ours."
Granma International continued:"Two of the most important streams of the thought and of the emotions of men, Christianism and Marxism, presented as irreconcilable by the adversaries of human progress, found in the book `Fidel and Religion', new and surprising paths toward comprehension, the questions about which all men seriously concerned over the fate of humanity are certainly interested in contemplating."
Granma emphasized the declarations of Fidel Castro:"From a strictly political point of view, and I believe that I know something about politics, I think that one can be a Marxist without stopping to be a Christian, and work united with Marxist communists to transform the world. The important thing is that in both cases, it is a question of sincere revolutionaries prepared to overcome the exploitation of man by man, and to struggle for the just distribution of social wealth, the equality, fraternity, and dignity of all human beings, that is to say, to be bearers of the most advanced political, economic, and social conscience, although starting, in the case of Christians, from a religious conception."
Castro in a confessional tone declared:"When some conflicts of class arose in our society, at the foundation of our revolutionary laws, I stated that to betray the Revolution was to betray Christ, I even remember that in the early times of the Revolution, I used some of the phrases of the Bible."
To reinforce the publicity campaign, Castro reaffirmed his ideas in common with the political discourse of the head of the Vatican. On December 13 he declared:"At the summit meeting of the FAO, where the Pope also spoke, and the Pope at those events speaks with absolute freedom, in the same way that Cuba speaks. I stated in an interview that the statements about the question of hunger, and that of all these things in the world resembled each other, because there is no doubt that he (the Pope) expresses his ideas with great freedom. The view points he defends, and well, in many of these points of view, there were, unquestionably, ideas in common between the Pope's speech and mine."
For his part the Pope, announced his arrival in a tone which made us remember the most remote epochs of Christianity in a 12/20 letter publicized by the Cuban press as the divine word:"Dear Cubans . . . I bring you good news, great happiness for all the people: There has been born to them a Savior, the Messiah, the Lord . . . God has been made man. Before this great day, and in the proximity of my apostolic voyage, when I will arrive as a messenger of truth and hope . . . This is the favorable moment. This is the day of salvation . . . "
The papal festival in Cuba took place on a large scale. According to the official press of the country, at least a million Cubans participated in the masses and religious manifestations. At the mass on the hill of the Capiro alone, the Government and its press assembled 150 thousand parishioners to hear the Pope. On January 23, the Pope was at the University of Havana. On this occasion, the Pope repeated his discourse used in his continuous pilgrimages to poor countries. He launched the Church's reactionary ideas about the "freedom of man," without changing the current social order. At the end of his campaign, at a full and spectacular meeting at the Plaza of the Revolution under Che Guevara's portrait, he awarded the "holyreign" to the Virgin of Charity of the Copper. Then the Pope was decorated by Fidel Castro.
The farewell ceremony took place on January 25 at the Cuban International Airport. It was reported live on the U.S. TV Station Univision. The head of the Cuban regime gave a discourse whose contents not only expressed his true confession of his Christian faith, but also his support of the tasks of "evangelization and ecumenism" that the Church carries out in Latin America on behalf of imperialism. Castro stated the following:"Holiness: ...I believe that we have given a good example to the world. You are visiting what some would call the last bastion of communism. We are receiving the religious leader, to whom some like to attribute the responsibility for having destroyed socialism in Europe. I am moved by the efforts which his Holiness makes for a more just world. States will disappear. The people will arrive at constructing a single human family. If the globalization of the solidarity which you proclaim spreads throughout the Earth, and the abundant goods produced by men with their talent and work is divided equally among all human beings who inhabits the planet today, a world for them could really be created, without hunger or poverty, without oppression or exploitation, without humiliation or scorn, without injustice or inequality, where they may live with full moral and material dignity, in true freedom and -- that would be a just world! Holiness, your ideas about evangelization and ecumenism would not be in contradiction with it."
Castro's complete capitulation is a preamble required by the world's policeman (Yankee imperialism) for Cuba's "return to the family of nations," to the era of globalization.
We should not be surprised that "El Comandante en Jefe" may soon stab the Cuban people on the back (before he visits on a one-way trip to Saint Peter's heavens) by "reinserting" and "privatizing" Cuban economy.
Experts say that the Cuban economy today is a horrifying mixture of the poverty and inequality of both revisionism and capitalism. The Cuban economist Pedro Montreal acknowledged the following:"A minority of the population owns a substantial majority of private financial assets on the island, and the distribution of wealth in Cuba no longer reflects socialist ideals." (The New Yorker, January 26, 1998, p. 49)
Is the U.S. blockade the MAIN cause for this situation as Castro claims? No. For about 30 years, Cuba depended on the ex-USSR, and as a result, the national industry, agriculture, and other kinds of production of the country were at the lowest level in Latin America. It was key for the strategic plans of the ex-USSR to maintain Cuba under its power, and submit the island to an aid policy. The economy of Cuba was subject to the will and requirements of the ex-Soviet Union. The supposed successes of the Cuban economic model were based exclusively upon the wealth of the former Soviet Union. Here, let's mention an example which portrays the fragile Cuban economic model. In the 80's, the USSR converted Cuba into an important oil exporter. Between 1983 and 1985, Cuba exported about three million tons of petroleum, which was 40 percent of the wealth flowing into the country. The curious thing in this case was that the oil production of Cuba was not even enough to cover internal needs. The exportation of "Cuban oil" was done with petroleum which the ex-USSR delivered in payment for the sugar which was received from the Cubans at artificially high prices. It was an economic exchange which converted Cuba into simply a sale's agent of the Soviets.
Those who think that the US blockade isolates Cuba completely from the capitalist world are mistaken. Although most of Cuba's economic relations were with the USSR, it has never stopped having good economic relations with various imperialist powers, especially republics of the imperialist orbit. The Cuban economists Julio Carranza and Aurelio Alonso have pointed out the following:"In spite of the incorporation of Cuba in the CAME (Soviet block trade organization) in 1972, and of the maintenance of the US blockade from 1962 to the late 1970's, Cuba maintained an important level of economic relations with capitalist countries, amounting to 40 percent of its total foreign trade, 30 percent with developed capitalist countries, and 10 percent with underdeveloped capitalist countries." (Essay, Cuban Economics: Adjustment with Socialism, Cuban Book Institute, 1994.)
The farewell address of the Pope was in accordance with the success of his political "pilgrimage" on the island. His trip was consulted with the Yankee State Department, and fits with the interests of the Clinton Administration's softening of its embargo to Cuba (and in general to bring the U.S. public in support of changing the use of `sanctions' as an effective imperialist foreign policy tool). Currently, Yankee imperialism has imposed unilateral sanctions on 70 countries, representing two-thirds of the world's population, without achieving the political the objectives it sought by imposing such sanctions. Even fascist U.S. Senator Jesse Helms agreed with the failure of their economic blackmail on Third World nations. He went along with Clinton on the lifting of the embargo on food and medicine to Cuba. Republican Senator Lugar in his Lugar-Hamilton Proposal states:"Sanction weakens U.S. trade competitiveness, damages our reputation as a reliable supplier and strains relations with staunch allies. All of this is without persuading the sanctioned country to change. In the worst cases, it actually undermines U.S. interests in the world." (Lugar-Hamilton-Crane Draft Bill, and N.Y. Times, 7/31/98). So, where is the so-called realpolitik of the Pope's visit? Where is the crack to the Yankee embargo? Whose interests did the Pope's visit serve?
The last message of John Paul II, before boarding the plane, was dedicated to making the Christian religion real, and presenting it as a spiritual force which requires the poor to save themselves from all the evils of humanity, especially hunger.
Here are some passages of the eloquence of the representative of God:"As Successor of the Apostle Peter, and following the mandate of the Lord, I have come, as a messenger of truth and hope, to confirm you in the faith, and leave you a message of peace and reconciliation in Christ. Before leaving this Capital, I want to say an emotional good-bye to all the children of this Country, and I am confident that you will continue preserving and promoting the most genuine values of the Cuban soul, which, faithful to the inheritance of your ancestors, must know how to show, even in the middle of difficulties, your confidence in God, your Christian faith, your ties to the Church, your love of culture and national traditions, your call for justice and freedom. In this process, all Cubans are called to contribute to the "common good," in a climate of mutual respect, and with a deep feeling of solidarity."
"Why do the Cuban heavens cry? Because the 'Pope goes from us, because he is leaving us? It would be a superficial analysis; this seems to me to be the most common interpretation. The rain of the last hours of stay in Cuba could signify a breath . . . that this rain may be a good sign, of a new breath in our history . . . Praised Be Jesus Christ!"
Cardinal Augusto Vargas Alzamora returned from Cuba praising Fidel Castro for the "respect and caring he showed for Pope John Paul II ..." and the pope "for stating freely and voluntarily that the restrictive measures imposed from outside to Cuba are unjust and ethically unacceptable." (Comercio, Lima January 30, 1998).
Another member of the Church hierarchy Monsignor José Dammert Bellido quoted the Pope telling the Cuban youth:"You must not seek the answers only in structures, in the political system or in the economic embargo that are always condemned for harming the needy" So, according to this Pope, the people are causing their own misery and they should seek the answers in God, leaving the old order intact. The words of the Pope, this Monsignor hypocritically said, "are applicable to Perú as well, because of the insensitivity of the Government and the foreign creditors." This is demagoguery and opportunism. After eight years of being accomplices of the crimes of the Fujimori regime, and seing the dictator's power crumbling, the Church is trying to accomodate itself as "opposition." The Church sees the daily protests of the people, seeks to control their struggle, and suffocate them from within. Parishes are converted into run-of-the-mill state offices of food distribution in exchange for the submissiveness of the masses. Marx was correct when he said that the Papacy doesn't practice what it preaches.
The Church hierarchy in Perú has never detached itself from the existing political power. Nominally, every constitution in effect separates the Church and State. But the reality is that the Catholic Church has always been involved in the political decisions in Perú from the time of Pizarro to Fujimori. Cardinal Vargas Alzamora, for example, during the presidential elections of 1990 openly backed his relative Mario Vargas Llosa, and after the writer conceded defeat, the shameless Cardinal (then Archbishop of Lima) quickly jumped on Fujimori's bandwagon.
In August 1990, the Church supported the brutal economic package (shock measures consisting of 5,000 percent increase in the price of gasoline) imposed by the IMF and implemented by the government. As a result, millions of Peruvians were plunged into brutal misery, but the self-proclaimed "defender of the poor" (Church hierarchy) that today sheds crocodile tears about "the insensitivity of the Government and its creditors," did not have any hesitation in publicly supporting such economic measures. Monsignor Ricardo Durand of the Episcopal Conference pointed out:" I think that the economic policy that President Fujimori intends to implement is realistic. I believe that adjustment is the only viable method of overcoming the crisis that we are going through." At the same time, he reaffirmed the Catholic Church's participation in the palliatives launched by the new government to contain the social explosion:"The Church will directly attend two million people of scarce means within the framework of the Emergency Social Program of the government."
Bishop Luis Bambaren (a big landlord in the city of Chimbote) published a communique denouncing the armed rebellion of the people:"We should know how to accept legitimate expressions of protest but we should banish insurgent violence that unleashes repressive violence. Faith in God, Love and the force of the spirit should be our answer because God sees the pain of his children and listens to their pleas." There was not one word of rejection or condemnation against the criminal policies of Fujimori.
Cardinal Vargas went even further in support of the genocidal dictator Fujimori and the reactionary armed forces, when he called for the death penalty of the combatants of the Communist Party of Perú. He was asked by the bourgeois SI Magazine (No. 284, August 3, 1992, p. 21) "Do you believe that the decision of the death penalty is effective as part of the counterinsurgency strategy?" The Cardinal responded:"I am not a legislator but it seems to me that the goal is not to dissuade, but to defend the lives of others. It's like when you defend yourself from the wild beast who attacks you. You have to kill it."
This criminal priest has completely forgot the "thou shall not kill" of the bible. Once again, Marx was right when he said that the Church doesn't practice what it preaches!
Cardinal Juan Landazuri Rickets proposed the immediate creation of a single anti subversive leadership command to direct the war against the armed groups . . . He added that in the war the country is going through, the joint participation of all Peruvians is necessary. (Daily Expreso, 7/30/92 p. 9). The Church hierarchy even recruited foreign priests with experience in Counterinsurgency warfare ("Legion of Christ" and others). Some of them were already linked with foreign intelligence services. They were spread in strategic locations (Ayacucho, Huallaga, Lima, Huaraz, etc.) where the People's War is more intense, and worked in close coordination with the security forces. Like in the times of the Spanish conquest, the killer priests carry the bible in one hand, and in the other hand they carry the sword. It was an open holy crusade against the revolution. The mercenary priests were conducting intelligence gathering in the support bases and training paramilitaries (e.g., rondas of Civil Defense). In a few months, hundreds of peasants disappeared, mass graves were proliferating, and leaders of PCP support bases were being murdered by the armed forces. At the same time, the priests involved were being detected and exposed by the people, especially by the generated mass organizations of the Communist Party of Perú. One of them unmasked was the infamous priest from the U.S. (alias Father Mariano) in the Upper Huallaga Valley, who had a paramilitary group under his control. His paramilitary gang was smashed by the People's Guerrilla Army made up of native Ashaninkas, and by sheer luck, Father Mariano fled in a U.S. army helicopter to Lima avoiding justice for his crimes against the Peruvian people. Thus, he never confronted militarily the PCP as The New York Times once claimed.
However, three agents, using the cover of priests, and two of them who worked in the "Solidarity Movement" of Walesa to overthrow the revisionist regime in that country, and one Italian paramilitary (Legion of Christ), did not have the same luck. On August 9, Mikhail Tomasek, and T. Zbjniev, who were sent directly by the Pope to fight the insurgency, were executed by the People's Guerrilla Army while they were training the peasant patrols (rondas). Both priests were based in the Diocese of Huaraz whose bishop was the Basque José Ramon Gurruchaga, a member of the Spanish sect Opus Dei.
Two weeks later, the Italian Alessandro Dori based in El Santa (Northern Peru) was also executed by the guerrillas, after his involvement in the counterinsurgency actions carried out by the armed forces, was proven. There are still "killer priests" working directly in counterinsurgency, such as the Spaniard Juan Luis Cipriani in Ayacucho (who blesses the bloody bayonets of the military every time), the Belgium Lanseurs (the recruiter of informants and capitulators in the prisons), etc.
Except for these three selective examples in which the PCP publicly acknowledged in its document "The Two Hills," the revolution has fully respected and ensured that universal principle known as the "Bill of Rights." No one has been punished for his ideas nor for his/her opposition to the revolution on ideological and political grounds, but the PCP has always been strict to punish those who have debts of blood with the people. Even so, these cases are fully investigated and proven, based on clear and convincing evidence, before any action is taken.
The above show that the Catholic Church, and this Pope especially, carry out their tasks according to the plans and strategies which serve the economic, political, and ideological interests of the imperialist powers. In Latin America, the activities of the Catholic Church, as well as other religions (especially those based in the U.S.), support the system of oppression, the interests of the big foreign corporations, and the native big bourgeoisie.
Contrary to what bourgeois exports say, that wherever the Pope visited it led to positive changes, the continuous visits of John Paul II to Russia, his meetings with Gorbachev, and the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox religion, preluded the economic crisis that the people of Russia face today. In Eastern Europe, the Catholic Church in alliance with the most reactionary forces of those countries, worked intensely to liquidate the few democratic conquests the people had in what was known as "socialism." In Latin America, it has not been different. His trip to Chile in support of the fascist Pinochet emphasized the collusion of the Chilean Church with the Dictator. In March of 1983, the Pope had a pilgrimage to "Sandinista" Nicaragua. Daniel Ortega the Nicaraguan president in that epoch, extended himself in eulogies toward the holy father, and the priest Ernesto Cardenal (Minister of Culture) knelt to kiss the hand of his holiness offering repentance. The religious hierarchy of that country led by the contra Bishop Obando redoubled their attacks calling for the return of Somocism. Gorbachev and Carter negotiated the return of Nicaragua to Yankee imperialism, and while the people sink deeper into poverty and misery, the heirs of Anastasio Somoza now back in power, control the wealth of the country again.
While the Pope's trips may have some political importance in Third World countries, in imperialist countries they are irrelevant. During his visit to the Unites States, for example, the Pope told the North Americans that they are too "materialistic" and don't care about the poor. While all of that was true, it had no impact on the people. It was not intended to.
The current Pope Karol Wojtilia, since his appointment in 1978, has been a relentless activist against what he considers communism, and against all democratic, and progressive currents. He rules the Papacy as a ruthless dictator who silences any sign of dissent. This Pope has repeated without ceasing the theses minted by the ideologues of imperialism, about the superiority of the system of "freedom" (capitalism) over communism. He employs double talk to mislead people and calls for "the end of savage capitalism," but he defends the "free market" and "neoliberalism" that are key components of that savage capitalism. The Pope advocates "economic and political integration between North and South," without changing the rules and constraints controlled and imposed by the imperialist powers.
The leaders of the Church have always moved within lies, and demagogic declarations. The very belief in Christ, in Saints and miracles arises from myths fabricated upon the base of the ignorance and prejudices of the human being. Pope John Paul II has spoken publicly against the blockades of Iraq and Libya, and other countries, but he has supported the bombings and killings inflicted by imperialism against those countries.
The Vatican not only has religious tentacles throughout the world, but also entrepreneurial ones. English journalist David Yallop in his book "In the Name of God" reveals that the capital of the Vatican rises to 13 billion dollars. This capital is invested in gold, arms manufacturing, finance, hotels, etc. The businesses of the Catholic Church move in the principal banks of London, of Wall St., Paris, Switzerland, and in Italy, where the Church is the principal stockholder in various important enterprises and in some local banks. The money of the Church is invested in the activities of important imperialist corporations such as General Motors, Shell, Gulf Oil, General Electric, IBM, TWA, etc. They have also large investments and properties in Mexico, Washington, New York, and Canada.
Aside from the entrepreneurial tentacles of the Church, it is necessary to note that no other international organism can compare with the gigantic apparatus which controls the Church, which is located strategically in society, and occupies key posts in apparatus which interact with the State. Its preferred places are education and volunteer aid work. In both places it works closely with the State and the alternating regimes in power. The statistics for 1989 show that the Church at the world level controlled 48,835 kindergartens, which provided services to 4,272,180 children. In primary education, it had 80,255 schools, with a capacity for 23,946,540 students. In secondary education, it had 31,031 schools of different ranks, and 12,153,870 students. In the sector of universities and institutes of higher learning, it had 2,646,808 students. (Spanish Episcopal Council, Office of Statistics and Sociology of the Church, 1996).
Franciscan priest Leonardo Boff (silenced by the Pope in 1984), said:"The current Congregation of the doctrine of the faith is the old Inquisition . . . it is the same logic, the same way of dealing with problems, as if it possessed the total truth, and it neither sees nor hears anything. The Church has changed because historical conditions no longer permit it to physically castigate people, or to burn them . . . But now the new Holy Office destroys people psychologically." (Spanish Daily "Cambio" 7/13/1992.)
On May 17, 1992, John Paul II canonized José Maria Escriva de Balaguer, founder of the Opus Dei. As is known, the Opus Dei is a Christian force supported by the current Pope. The moralists of the Opus Dei participate in fascist, criminal, and anticommunist governments of different parts of the world. In Spain the Opus Dei supported the government of the reactionary José Maria Aznar of the Partido Popular. Aznar has been denounced by a Spanish publication of maintaining close ties with the Cuban mafia (Gusanos), which operates from the US under the label of the CIA-engender Cuban American Foundation of Miami. (Resumen de Latino America No. 33, Feb. 1998.)
In Latin America, the situation is not different from the case mentioned above. For example, the representative of the Opus Dei in Peru, Luis Cipriani, promoted to Bishop of Ayacucho, declared himself not only a political supporter of the tyrant Alberto Fujimori, but is also actively involved in the antisubversive plans of the criminal Armed Forces. Cipriani has publicly supported the proposal and decision of the Peruvian government to apply the death penalty to Peruvians who they considered to be subversives. Cipriani also collaborated as informant with the elite troops of the army who on April 22, 1997 murdered all the MRTA members, who had captured the Japanese embassy in Lima.
The force known as the "Legion of Christ" is a special Branch of John Paul II. This organism was founded in 1941 by Pope Pius XII, and relied upon the support of the fascist government of Italy. The current Pope personally directs the "Legion of Christ." The objectives of the organization are, according to its own religious leaders:"to mold and gain the leaders of Latin America and the world for Christ." In other words, to win over the rich and powerful. Besides the Opus Dei and the "Legion of Christ" the "guerrillas of Christ the King," are right wing groups formed by fascist students. (Le Monde Diplomatique, December 1996).
The Catholic religion, or any other religious current, can only develop in a society divided into social classes. That is to say, it only develops in a society divided into antagonistic classes. The oppressor class, which holds the power of the State, also imposes its religious ideas. Religion serves it by giving a divine character to its power, and maintaining the oppressed befuddled under religious beliefs that are turned toward a superior being, God. This truth is historical, is encountered in the whole process of human civilization, and most concretely in the process of the rise of private property.
Within this same aspect, it is necessary to mention that the hegemonic aspirations of the Vatican are united with the hegemonic aspirations of Yankee imperialism as the only imperialist superpower of the current epoch.
Within the hegemonic objectives of the Church, Pope John Paul II has put into execution what is called the geopolitics of "the reconquest of the authority of the Church over society." Toward this end, the Pope inaugurated what is known as the "New Evangelization" in 1984, or the famous re-Christianization of the poor of the world. The "New Evangelization" has an objective to restore Christianity in the entire world by the year 2000.
The "New Evangelization" has its most concrete application in Latin America, in the increasing participation of the Catholic Church in the affairs of the State. It is necessary to mention that the Catholic Church, which has almost 50 percent of its parishioners in Latin America, is one of the most active allies of imperialism and of the ruling classes. The Church participates indirectly or directly in the deceitful electoral processes. It directs hundreds of thousands of organizations and NGOs that are involved in aid such as distribution of food, sponsorship programs, etc. It controls schools and universities, and it is tied to Political parties of the right, of the extreme right, and also with revisionism -those who refer to themselves as being on the left.
It is necessary to begin to understand that the Catholic Church not only defends and supports the imperialist powers, but that the Vatican itself, from an ideological point of view, functions as an empire. Religion as promoter of inequality and obscurantism, seeks to extend itself at the moments of greatest social and political uncertainty of the poor. It is common to see the increase of sects and strange religious currents in Latin America in situations of crisis or civil war as in Peru.
Many times the alternating rulers themselves invent miracles and create Saints with the objective of deflating social tensions. In Peru for example, all the Saints and V irgins were created in moments of major crisis of the dominant social system.
One of the causes of the loss of interest in religion is found in the ties of the ecclesiastic hierarchy with the tyrannical and criminal regimes of Latin America. In the past 50 years, there is not one government in Latin America which has not relied upon the support of the Catholic Church. From the criminal Pinochet to the tyrant Fujimori, they have had the sanctifying compliance of the Church, and especially of the Holy See.
In summary: First, the Cuban government's publicity about a Church concerned for the poor is false, reactionary and opportunist. Second, the Church has a role in the "pacification" plan, which is the plan of imperialism and Peruvian reaction to annihilate the People's War. The Church pretends to be above the social classes, but in word and deed support the exploiting classes. The Church's role as an ideological, political and organizational shield, is an active part of the general counterrevolutionary offensive.
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