Posted on 07/27/2006 6:35:33 AM PDT by Marius3188
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) - President Evo Morales said yesterday that members of the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy are behaving as if they were in "the times of the Inquisition" as he defended his government's plan to remove Catholicism as the sole religion taught in schools.
His comments came a day after Education Minister Felix Patzi referred to Catholic "monsignors" as "liars" and said they have been serving the oligarchy for the 514 years since Spain colonised the country.
"I want to ask the (church) hierarchies that they understand freedom of religion and beliefs in our country," Morales told reporters. "It's not possible to impose their views." He said he was "worried by the behaviour of some Catholic Church leaders who are acting like in times of the Inquisition."
Last month, Patzi proposed removing Catholic education from both public and private schools, including those run by religious groups. Faced with strong opposition from Bolivia's large Catholic population he has since said that Catholicism will be taught alongside world religions, especially Bolivian Indian religions.
Many Catholics have expressed concern at the government's stance. One Catholic organisation in the eastern city of Santa Cruz organised a street march Tuesday to defend the teaching of their religion in schools.
Bolivia's Cardinal Julio Terrazas told Catholics Sunday to stop being "passive" and defend their faith.
"Great wars began with small theories ... with this discourse of hate, rancor, of unforgiveness," Terrazas said. Recent polls show that roughly two-thirds of Bolivians consider themselves Catholic.
Patzi, sociologist and Aymara Indian, has said the government hopes to "decolonise" Bolivia's education system by knocking down "ethnic borders" that for more than 500 years have marginalised Indians.
When Communists take over the first ones they go after are the clergy.
His minister of culture boasts of performing animal sacrifices in government offices.
The rhetoric is "freedom of religion" but the new laws involve forbidding privately owned religious schools from teaching religion to their students.
Classic Communist propaganda.
"I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition."
Democracy at work in Bolivia...
The Bolivian people voted for this. Bolivians collectively voted for a marxist, and now they will pay the price - and so will we.
Very sad indeed.
How is preventing Catholic education in private schools "freedom of religion"?
Freedom is slavery.
To be fair, he got 49.7% of the votes actually cast, and only 84% of the population voted in a country where voting is compulsory by law.
Many reports are that Morales thugs prevented tens of thousands of voters from getting to the polls with threats of violence.
You can set your watch.
The Conquistidors did things both bad and good. They--almost alone of all Christian nations who took over much of the world's landmass--slaughtered many people, and had many forced or pressured nominal conversions. This could be influence from the Muslims. The Spaniards and the Portuguese mass-murdered and forced people to convert in the New World. The English almost completely ignored the Amerindians in terms of religious conversions, and the French sent priests out to evangelize peacefully. England and France were not controlled by Muslims. iberia was controlled by the Moors for around half a millennium. So it is logical that Muslim attitudes rubbed off on the iberian Roman Catholics. Muslims (of the Arab variety) and the Spanish/Latinos at least have many cultural similarities--and both of their cultures are cruddy. Both are rife with hyper-hyperbole and too little common logic. They should all adopt a more American--not Western--lifestyle (there a many cruddy Western cultures, too, though the Arab/Latino/iberian one is rather cruddy).
Hey if the Bolivian schools want to revive and teach the ancient arts of ritual sacrifice to gods of nature, shouldn't this be encouraged in the name of diversity? After all, Marxists are jiggy with human sacrifice ... breaking a few eggs and all that. Besides, all religions lead to God, right?
(sarc meter off)
Good analysis. I agree with it.
I guess they're going to celebrate diversity by bringing back human sacrifice.
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