Chavez cites Catholic Church encyclicals to defend war on landed estates

Chavez cites Catholic Church encyclicals to defend war on landed estates

Venezuelan President Chavez Frias has pulled one over on Venezuela's bishops citing Church documents to defend his government's agrarian reform. Speaking during his Sunday radio address from Cuara in Lara State, the President read pieces from the Church documents of Vatican II and Papal encyclicals: Quadragesimo Anno and Mater et Magistra. The documents reaffirm that God created the earth for everyone and property should be used for the public good. Chavez Frias says he has chosen the quotations to tranquilize sectors of the middle class who believe the opposition media blitz demonizing the government's war on landed estates.

The government's current line is to plug the fact that landed estates do not exist in any developed democratic country and the reform is not an attack on private property. Executive Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel also used Catholic church documents yesterday during a march in Caracas against landed estates, stating that governments have the right and duty to regulate the legitimate exercise of property in function of the common good. The Bishops are expected to reply to the use of Church documents but what is surprising to outsiders is the absence of Catholic movements supporting the government's agrarian reform, unlike in Brazil.

In fact, reviewing liberal Catholic websites in Latin America such as www.servicioskoinonia.org there is plenty of cover on observations of Catholic theologians on the Worker's Party's internal crisis but nothing on the process in Venezuela. The influential and advanced Jesuits in Venezuela are against President Chavez Frias. Perhaps the only Catholic source that has a positive reflection on the Venezuelan process is the USA National Catholic Reporter.
One thing is certain is that the Venezuelan bishops cannot deny the Church's social doctrine, despite what Cardinal Castillo Lara says about Communism.

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=46308

of Dr. Seuss if he thought it would help rationalize the land grab.

(If you didn't mean that in a derogatory way, do not read any more. However, if you were insulting Chavez's policies and land distribution in general, please read the next paragraph)

It's called justice for the people, and I really don't care what he uses to help the cause, because it is a right one. If you oppose the redistribution of land to people who deserve it so they can have a better life for them and their families, that is beyond wrong and disgusting. The fact that inequality seems fair to you is patently ridiculous. Get real.

For the present it is land reform. Time will tell if the acquisition of private lands become a land grab or not.

My apologies for such a confrontational post. I believe the redistribution will not become a land grab, as it has been fair. It is true that we will see with time, but I would place quite a bit on the continuation of the reasonable policies.

which has not been en-vogue in the Vatican since around 1980 and JPII's crackdown. Most of the hierarchy's fixation on "tradionalism" usually gravitates towards the upper classes.