Column: Our Life and Times
March 1999

Pope in Mexico

The Papal visit to Mexico marked the 20th anniversary of Cardinal Wojtyla's first crusade abroad as newly-chosen Pope John Paul II when in 1979 he first engaged in Puebla, Mexico, with the vocal and vigorous advocates of liberation theology and began his own unrelenting campaign against the alliance within the Catholic Church of clergy and lay workers with Marxists.

In 1999, the Pope visited a purged Catholic establishment in Mexico, presided over by Cardinal Rivera, who had been promoted by the Pope after Rivera closed down a liberation theology oriented seminary in 1995. Reportedly, now only 2 of 117 Mexican bishops are identified with liberation theology. One is undoubtedly Samuel Ruiz in Chiapas, where 40 Catholic churches supporting the indigenous struggle have been shut forcibly by paramilitary squads. The word Chiapas did not cross the Pope's public lips.