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Marxism, globalisation slammed
14/05/2007 12:03 - (SA)
Sao Paulo, Brazil - Pope Benedict XVI condemned Marxism and globalisation for many of Latin America's ills on the final day of his trip to Brazil, calling on the region's bishops to mould a new generation of political leaders to reverse Catholicism's declining influence here.
Benedict also criticised Latin America's wide gap between rich and poor, warned that legalised contraception and abortion threatens "the future of the peoples" and said the region's historical Catholic identity was at risk.
Before boarding a plane for Rome on Sunday, the pope criticised both unfettered capitalism and the Marxist influences that have motivated some grassroots Catholic activists in Latin America, remnants of the liberation theology movement he moved to crush when he was a cardinal.
"The Marxist system, where it found its way into government, not only left a sad heritage of economic and ecological destruction, but also a painful destruction of the human spirit," he said in his opening address at a two-week bishops' conference in Brazil's holiest shrine city aimed at re-energising the church in Latin America.
Benedict also warned of the effects of globalisation, blamed by many in Latin America for a deep divide between the rich and poor.
The pope said it could give "rise to a worrying degradation of personal dignity through drugs, alcohol and deceptive illusions of happiness".
The pope did not name any countries in his criticism of capitalism and Marxism, but Latin America has become deeply divided in recent years amid a political tilt to the left - with the election of leftist leaders in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua and the re-election of President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Centre-left leaders govern in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.
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