Day 34: La teología de la liberación y Carlos Mejía Godoy

Friday, February 5
As per request of Jesse, a post on liberation theology.

It was a short flight from Guatemala, Guatemala to Managua, Nicaragua, but that didn't mean that Friday wasn't a long day or that we weren't exhausted. We stayed at Palm Point, a fancy little hostel used by missionary groups, where we napped in hammocks and had class. Probably the worst thing you can do planning wise is schedule a 6am flight and a concert on the same day. What were the profs thinking? When evening rolled around and I was in the middle of a blissful nap, we were roused to go see the man himself, Carlos Mejía Godoy.

In our our prep class last semester, Latin American Culture and Civilization, our prof introduced the topic of liberation theology to us with a song, Vos sos el Dios de los pobres, by Carlos Mejía Godoy. How does popular folk music fit into theology? Let's back up to the Second Vatican Council held from 1962-1965.

The world was changing and it was about time the Catholic Church did some major housecleaning. The result of Vatican II was a church more accessible to the laity. Mass was now to be held in the vernacular of the people, not Latin, and more emphasis was placed on the Bible. (Previous Church decrees discouraged or even forbid lay people to read the Bible in their mother-tongue, for fear of bad translations or misinterpretations.) Now, the amount of scripture to be read in mass was greatly expanded, and lay people were encouraged to study the Bible for themselves in their own language. Additionally, Protestants and Eastern Orthodox Christians were declared "separated brethren" rather than outright heathen.

How did the "spirit of Vatican II" affect the Church in Latin America? In 1968 in Medellín, Colombia, all the Latin American bishops got together. Where before priests had gone alongside conquistadors, and later with oppressive governments, the conference recognized that the Church should stand with the poor. This "preferential option for the poor" meant that God loved the poor and oppressed in a special way, and that he didn't want for their suffering to continue.

Another development were base communities. Latin America, then and today, had a scarcity of priests. No priest, no mass, right? Not anymore. In base communities, Catholics met to study the Bible and also to take positive action in their towns and neighborhoods. They became active in politics and in finding practical ways to improve their standard of living. When a priest visited, they did all the sacraments, but base communities were so much more than liturgy. Some were even ecumenical, bridging the rift between Protestants and Catholics.

The thought behind all this became known as liberation theology: the teaching that the suffering of the poor is preventable, it's systematic, and by golly let's do something to change that.

Henri, an ex-priest turned Protestant and a teacher at Casa Xelaju, explained liberation theology like this: there are some travesuras that come from God, and some travesuras that come from people. Some of the bad stuff in the world, some suffering, some mischief, is indeed from God. But far too often people say, "this travesura is from God, it's my lot in life, I can't do anything about it," when really it's the fault of people. And understanding that much of the travesuras in life are from people, and are changeable, that's liberation theology.

It's important to understand that liberation theology wasn't actually a new thing. Caring for the poor has always been commanded of believers. It wasn't "Christianized Marxism." It was the message of the gospels interpreted and claimed by people who knew the depths of poverty and systematic oppression. It was the enthusiasm of the masses given access to the Word of God.  

Of course, this was going on in the 60s and 70s, at the same time that popular revolutions were happening and regimes were being toppled all over Latin America. Some took the idea of liberation theology, of changing their lot in life, and ran with it to support violent uprisings. Most believed in peaceful measures. Dictators saw any peasant organization, education, or sympathetic clergy as a threat. Conveniently label such activities as communist, and the United States Government during the Cold War pours out money and military aid to bad dictators.

So where does Carlos Mejía Godoy come in? In the 60s and 70s Nicaragua was going through a revolution to get rid of the Somoza family dictatorship. Mejía Godoy, talented musician and witty song writer, avidly supported the revolution and the FSLN (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional) and composed songs to stir up feelings of patriotism and activism. (He's not a big fan of the FSLN or Daniel Ortega now.)

One of his albums, La Misa Campesina Nicaragüense, is an entire liturgy for mass that uses common instruments like the marimba and guitar, and depicts
God as close, personal, as one of the people. 

Vos sos el Dios de los pobres (You are the God of the poor), is different first of all because it uses vos. Traditionally you talk to God in usted -- the formal, respectful way to say "you." Then there's tú, the informal way we were taught in Spanish class. But Nicaragua has a third way to say "you," a colloquial form that wouldn't be found in academic writing. That's vos. The way you address God, as a distant Lord in all his glory or as a close, intimate friend, is huge. 

The song goes on to describe God. He's the God who sweats in the streets, the God with the tanned face, the God who eats in the park with Pancho and Juan José. God stands in line to get payed at the end of the day. And when the snow-cone guy doesn't put enough syrup on, God protests to get his money worth. He wears overalls and pumps gasoline, he sells lottery tickets -- the job reserved for blind people, he is el Cristo trabajador.

At the restaurant where the old man Carlos Mejía Godoy and his band performs every Friday night, we struggled to keep from nodding off while folk music was played loudly and enthusiastically, and Mejía Godoy cracked jokes none of us understood. He sang a different song from his misa campesina, El Cristo de Palacaguina. It tells the tale of how baby Jesus was born in Nicaragua, in the little pueblo of Palacaguina. Everyone in the crowded, tobacco filled room sang along.