Lone shining star on black sky

Matthew, a teenager from my neighbourhood, will be spending the New Year with his family, in Latin AMerica. Matthew visits my blog looking for Latin AMerican themes, asks: “Why did you choose Jesuits to showcase the revolutionary changes, the battle for a New World Order?”

I understand the confusion. Matthew’s parents are devout Eastern-European Catholics. If I’m not mistaken, the father studied at KUL, a Catholic university, under Jesuit scholars.

I say to Matthew, “Take any family, take your family for example – you bear the same last name, but I’m sure you and your father don’t agree on everything. Can’t treat all Jesuits as one either. You can’t throw into the same basket a European Jesuit with an American, and an American with a Latin-American. Latin AMerica takes a special toll on everyone who has a soul, from spies to Jesuits. To put it into a language of politics (and don’t let anyone tell you that Church stays away from politics) Jesuits, though one family, can speak a different language – staunchly conservative and progressive. Let’s remember that Jesuits are people too. Taking a vow of obedience to the Pope does not equal lobotomy, one doesn’t loose half a brain, one certainly doesn’t loose a heart. While some of my protagonists may be inspired by the likes of Fernando and Ernesto Cardenal, minister in the revolutionary Sandinista government and a guerrilla fighter, or Rafael Puente Calvo, the chief of police in the Evo Morales’ governement, or Morales’ spiritual advisor, my source of inspiration comes also from the great Jesuit thinkers, such as Jon Sobrino, or the slain scholars. To put it shortly ‘my’ Jesuits are followers of Pedro Arrupe, they are Jesuits inspired by Liberation Theology, that lone shining star on the black sky of oppression from which the region is finally liberating itself.”