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<DIV><A
href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-sobrino14mar14,0,7473789.story?track=ntothtml">http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-sobrino14mar14,0,7473789.story?track=ntothtml</A><BR>
<H1>Vatican to punish priest, sources say</H1>
<DIV class=storysubhead>Liberation theologian Father Jon Sobrino worked with the
poor of El Salvador amid violence targeting clerics.</DIV>By Tracy
Wilkinson<BR>Times Staff Writer<BR><BR>March 14, 2007<BR><BR>ROME — The Vatican
is preparing to discipline Father Jon Sobrino, a well-known proponent of
liberation theology who worked for decades in El Salvador even as fellow priests
were murdered, church sources said Tuesday.<BR><BR>Sobrino will be sanctioned
for alleged errors in his teachings and writings about the divinity of Jesus,
according to members of his Jesuit order in Rome. A Vatican spokesman this week
confirmed to reporters that an investigation was underway.<BR><BR>Sobrino, who
resides in San Salvador and is affiliated with the University of Central America
there, was expected to comment on the punishment after the Vatican makes a
formal announcement later this week, associates at the school
said.<BR><BR>Although the censure was expected to focus on specific theological
points, Sobrino's supporters immediately decried what they saw as the silencing
of an important voice for the poor and disenfranchised. <BR><BR>His punishment
reportedly will include a ban on future teaching and publishing. However, other
colleagues noted that the 68-year-old priest was weakened by diabetes and
semiretired, so it was unclear how great an impact the restriction would
have.<BR><BR>Still, many saw a message in the criticism of one of the last
champions of liberation theology, a political and sometimes radical
interpretation of Roman Catholicism that emphasizes justice for the poor. The
controversial school of thought was despised by the conservative church
hierarchy, which believed it departed from core dogma.<BR><BR>The order against
Sobrino will be issued by the Vatican's watchdog arm, the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, and will carry the approval of Pope Benedict XVI who, as
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, led efforts to stamp out liberation
theology.<BR><BR>The move comes just two months before Benedict is to make his
first trip to Latin America as pope. He will visit Brazil, another onetime
bastion of liberation theology.<BR><BR>A Spanish-born Basque, Sobrino was
assigned to El Salvador half a century ago. <BR><BR>He was part of an
intellectual team of Jesuit priests based for many years at the University of
Central America. Some believed in liberation theology, but all preached
Catholicism with a social conscience in a country that descended into civil war
in the 1980s. <BR><BR>A reactionary, U.S.-backed Salvadoran military regarded
the clerics' work as inspiration for leftist guerrillas, and in 1989 soldiers
murdered six of the priests, their cook and her daughter. Sobrino escaped death
only because he was out of the country.<BR><BR>Sobrino was also a close friend
of Oscar Romero, the archbishop of San Salvador who was slain as he prepared to
say Mass at a chapel in 1980. Romero was detested by the right because of his
advocacy of human rights and criticism of army abuses.<BR><BR>Today's archbishop
of San Salvador, Fernando Saenz Lacalle, is a member of Opus Dei, a right-wing
Catholic organization that has gained significant power in recent years. It
appeared that Saenz had pushed the Vatican to act against Sobrino, according to
Jesuit sources who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized
to speak publicly about the matter.<BR><BR>Saenz, also a former apostolic
administrator of the Salvadoran military, first announced the censure against
Sobrino in a news conference in San Salvador on Sunday. He said the Vatican had
concluded that Sobrino's writings questioned the divinity of Jesus. <BR><BR>"The
divinity of Jesus Christ, that he is truly the son of God made into man, is a
fundamental point of our faith," Saenz said, according to news agencies. Sobrino
"is aware of [Jesus'] humanity but not his divinity, so he is not
Catholic."<BR><BR>Others suggested that it was not so much what Sobrino had said
and written that troubled his Vatican critics, but rather his omissions. Those
who find fault would have preferred greater emphasis on Jesus' awareness of his
divinity, crucial to Christian theology because of his many calls on believers
to follow him.<BR><BR>The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith launched
its investigation of Sobrino in 2001, when the section was still headed by
Cardinal Ratzinger. It zeroed in on two of Sobrino's theological publications,
"Jesus the Liberator: A Historical-Theological Reading of Jesus of Nazareth"
(1991) and, from 1999, "Christ the Liberator: A View from the Victims."
<BR><BR>Sobrino received a warning in 2004 and was given a chance to "correct
his errors," but he declined, according to reports in the Catholic
media.<BR><BR>Because the Vatican ruling was not yet public, and officials would
not discuss it in detail, it was impossible to elaborate on its arguments. Nor
was it possible to discern the severity because sanctions can run the gamut from
mild rebukes to excommunication.<BR><BR>"Those of us who have known Father Jon
Sobrino over the years can attest to his utter loyalty to the church and its
teaching, both in his writings and lecturing," said Father Keith Pecklers,
professor of theology at the Jesuits' Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
<BR><BR>"In many ways, he exemplifies the best qualities of what it means to be
a Jesuit," Pecklers said. "He has consistently put his skills as a very able
theologian at the service of the poor, and for this, the rest of us in the
international theological community are very much in his debt."<BR><BR>Sobrino's
defenders are convinced that the action against him is politically
motivated.<BR><BR>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.<BR><BR>"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. <BR><BR>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."</DIV></BODY></HTML>