That being a given, it is still hard to figure out this religion and politics deal. For instance, in Cuba, Nicaragua and El Salvador, once deeply Catholic countries, things got pretty mixed up during and after the revolutions. Not that they weren't always pretty bewildering.
Many of those men, high up in the hierarchies, were heavily intrenched in the money and power game. They were very conservative and deeply aligned with the repressive dictatorships. The devout parishioners had a bit of a mind-fuck to sort out. How to be believers and at the same time how to stand up for the words of Christ. "Love your neighbor as yourself", for example.
And that darn Karl Marx, with his "religion is the opiate of the masses". Then to Nica and Salvador came Liberation Theology, and some brilliant heroic martyrs to it. And simultaneously the CIA got to many priests and bishops and the people's priests and bishops started being assassinated, thus causing governments like Cuba to ban much activity of the church and of course then justifying all the threats of the communist monster.
So. The very people who were the public champions of religious freedom were, through covert operations, assuring the failure of freedom.
How are we to understand these layers and our role in them except by seeing with our own eyes.
We met with Samuel Ruiz, my kids and I, when we brought aid to the hidden Guatemalan refugee camp in Chiapas. He was an outcast by those in power, giving huge aid to the oppressed. (look him up). I went with tens of thousands of the 'faithful' on the march to commemorate the 10the anniversary of the assassination of Oscar Romero in Salvador. Courage, hope, defiance, glowed from the faces of the religious.
I can never hope to sort it all out. But, I suspect we could substitute many religions and many historical moments in time and see some very familiar patterns. Carl Jung is said to have said, "I rejoice in the infinite variety of human experience."
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