Meet Jon Sobrino

It's a slow week in Catholicville though the Pope made some news Christmas Week with a statement for the preservation of the traditional family, even though he himself does not live in one. Go figure.

Anyway, thought I'd take this opportunity to introduce you regular Blog readers -- are there any? -- to the beauty of Jon Sobrino, a Jesuit priest who traveled to El Salvador in 1957 and was transformed. He awoke to the suffering of Third-World dwellers and he has shared his words and insights ever since. He and others have called for a new ecumenical council (Vatican III?) to address the concerns of those in Third World countries.

It's liberation theologians, and others who work so hard for global social justice, that keep what I consider the more progressive Catholics entrenched in this faith tradition. It's such a great legacy and Sobrino is one of its heroes, even though he wouldn't like that label.

In a 1991 article "Awakening from the Sleep of Humanity" published in The Christian Century, Sobrino wrote: "We have learned that the world's poor are practically of no consequence to anyone -- not the people who live in abundance nor to the people who have any kind of power. The First World is not interested in the Third World. As history shows, it is interested only in ways to despoil the Third World in order to increase its own abundance."

To read more Sobrino, check out any of the books listed here. He's a great person to meet as the New Year dawns.