[Buddha-l] Silence ?

[Stanley J. Ziobro II]

On Tue, 5 Apr 2005, Richard P. Hayes wrote:

> On Tue, 2005-04-05 at 20:58 -0400, Stanley J. Ziobro II wrote:
>
> > Actually, this Pope was his own person and not nearly as rigid as rigid
> > liberals seem to characterize him.
>
> Forget the terms "liberal" and "conservative", for they have pretty much
> lost all meaning in today's world. The Pope's anti-Communist views seem
> to have prevented him from seeing any validity in the work of Romero and
> other liberation theologians, which seems to me to represent an
> inflexibility, almost a blindness.

I would agree that the terms "liberal" and "conservative" are not simple
referents, but it is overstating the case by claiming that they've lost
"all meaning" in contemporary society.  As for the Pope's anti-Communist
views, these are the results of his very rich and nuanced personalist
philosophy whereby any proper response to the person can only be that of
love, i.e., seeking the well-being of the Other.  His contention with
liberation theology was not that there was no validity, but that Marxist
ideological concerns were substituting for the theological virtues and the
fuller demands of justice.

> > For example, anyone who disagrees that abortion, the destruction of
> > the traditional family, euthenasia, and the like are fundamentally
> > good for any society is termed "rigid," whereas anyone who agrees with
> > this nexus of agendas is, what, "progressive," "forward
> > looking," "intelligent," "visionary"?
>
> That is your perception, and a bad one, I would add.

But of course, Richard.  I would have been disappointed had you said
otherwise.

> It certainly does
> not fit the case of how I have used words. I would call a person rigid
> if and only if he or she were, well, rigid. Rigidity to me implies an
> unyielding and uncompromising stance, especially an unhelpful one. The
> contrastive term to "rigid" to my ear is "flexible" rather than
> "progressive" or "intelligent". I think there is no doubt at all that
> the Pope was intelligent and even visionary. In many respects he was
> also quite progressive, for example in his long-overdue apology to the
> Jews and his rapprochement with the Muslims. In other areas, however,
> especially those involving resistant to right-wing totalitarians in
> Central America, his stance was, I think, tragically rigid and short-
> sighted.

I won't quibble over contrastive terms to "rigid", but I do wonder what
you mean by claiming that John Paul was tragically rigid and shortsighted
in his dealing with issues of injustice in Central America.  Have you read
his speeches and sermons given in the countries he visited where the
"resistance" was operative, for instance, in El Salvador?  Ideology is
trumping reality in your claims here, Ricardo.

Super-rigidly yours,

Stashek