Religion: Berating Marxism's False Hopes

The Vatican issues a challenge to liberation theology

Sweating profusely in the Nicaraguan heat on a March day in 1983, Pope John Paul II was forced to demand silence from a crowd of Sandinista hecklers present at an outdoor Mass in Managua. When Ernesto Cardenal Martinez, a Roman Catholic priest who also serves as Minister of Culture in Nicaragua's Marxist government, knelt to receive the Pope's blessing, John Paul wagged his finger in Cardenal's face and chided him, "You must straighten out your position with the church." These episodes, and his own keen observations...

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