User talk:Sighter Goliant

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[edit] Liberation theology

Thank you for your edits to Liberation theology and moderating the discussion between myself and Roydosan. I need to discuss with you a paragraph I deleted which you re-inserted, claiming it was deleted without discussion. First, my understanding of Wikipedia policy is that while articles cannot be deleted without discussion, text certainly can be. I am talking about the paragraph beginning "Barred from attending..." In any count, here's the discussion: 1. The paragraph is badly written to the point of being incomprehensible. The phrase, "managed to partially obstruct the orthodoxy's effort to ensure that the Puebla documents satisfied their concerns," is emblematic of this. I have read it 5-8 times, and turns of phrase like "the orthodoxy's effort" are stilted, and whose concerns are "their" concerns - the orthodoxy or the dissidents? 2. The paragraph is irrelevant. In the history of liberation theology, which affected millions of people, knowing the whereabouts of a few key theologians during one particular dispute at a conference is irrelevant and misses the point of the movement. Who refuted the Pope or contested an official set of "documents" is not really of any importance in the history of liberation theology, unless one (like Roydosan) is trying to depict that the entire movement was some kind of effort by a handful of Marxists, or at least bishops without authority, to subvert church doctrine. To spend that much space in a Wikipedia article about who was doing what or where at the Puebla conference is to give disproportionate weight to a minor historical incident. 3. The fact that this discussion is followed by claims that Marxists and uninvited theologians wrote 25% of the documents is a similar attempt to discredit the movement - plus this is all uncited info. 4. Mentioning that "Despite the disavowal of liberation theology by Catholic church authorities and large groups of the Latin American laity, however, the movement after Puebla managed to persist in some areas" also shows a lack of historical understanding. The movement more than "managed to persist in some areas"; Berryman argues it was a major basis of the revolutions that consumed Central America for another decade. Saying it merely "managed to persist in some areas" makes them sound as relevant as Shakers, but the movement involved thousands of people and derived its authority from the Biblical interpretations of the poor and lay people. 5. Roydosan's insistence that Cardinal Ratzinger didn't condemn all of liberation theology is also an attempt to argue that those that felt that way were sectarian, extreme, and even violent. Having said all that, there's no need for this paragraph; it's a confusing diversion that adds nothing to our understanding of what liberation theology actually is. Bruxism 04:10, 4 May 2007 (UTC)