In an interview aboard his chartered jet to Brazil on May 9, Pope Benedict XVI spoke to reporters in his longest in-flight conference to date.Saying that martyred Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero deserves beatification, the pontiff also denounced the wave of Latin American drug trafficking while also averring that liberation theology has changed with the times.
He also denounced the legalization of abortion in Mexico City, which has also been denounced by Mexico's Catholic bishops and other Christian leaders.
With regard to the possibility of excommunication of politicians who supported the abortion measure, the pope said "Yes, these excommunications were not something arbitrary, but are foreseen by the Code (of Canon Law). It is simply part of church law that the killing of an innocent baby is incompatible with being in communion with the body of Christ."
With regard to the possibility of the beatification of slain archbishop Romero, Pope Benedict said "That the person himself merits beatification, I do not doubt," while adding that Romero was "certainly a great witness of the faith, a man of great Christian virtue who worked for peace and against the dictatorship." Archbishop Romero was gunned down while celebrating Mass in 1980 on orders from El Salvador's military.
As for liberation theology, the pope said that those who saw it as part of a revolutionary political ideology were mistaken.
As head of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the 1980s, the then Cardinal Ratzinger prepared documents that criticized then-reigning concepts of liberation theolgy.
The pope said the Church was then concerned with the undue combining of the religious mission of the Church with political goals. These documents, said the pope, "were not aimed at destroying the commitment to justice but at guiding it along the right path".
What Latin America faces now is the widespread problem of drugs and violence, as well as markets that exploit small farmers.
Basically, said the pope, Latin America faces a loss of hope in the future.
The Church's role is to bring hope in the person of Jesus Christ.
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