Hmm, let me get this straight. According to the Associated Press, a prominent retired cardinal in Chile paused a tribute to the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, in order to offer his thoughts on Madonna's first tour to the country, which started Wednesday:
"This woman comes here and in an incredibly shameless manner, she provokes a crazy enthusiasm, an enthusiasm of lust, lustful thoughts, impure thoughts," said Medina, the cardinal who was chosen to announce the election of Pope Benedict XV.But it's OK to hold a mass in honor of a brutal dictator whose 17-year regime saw the deaths of some 3,200 people?
To make it worse, per the AP report, Medina thinks those who are seeking justice for Pinochet's human rights violations are simply seeking revenge! I know that Pinochet still divides the hearts of many Chileans (my host family included, I suspect) who sanctify him for saving the country from communism, but there's no doubt that his economic successes came hand in hand with brutal repression.
Which also seems to go hand in hand with religion--much of Pinochet's base was Chile's large conservative Catholic population. So don't expect to hear anything about Chile's human rights from the Pope. It's not like this is some rogue, washed-up old priest. As the AP said, he was the one selected to announce Benedict's election!
Luckily, when all is said and done, Chileans, albeit a tenuous majority, still favor democracy.
No comments:
Post a Comment