Guadalupe as Christmas story - Mexico - Christmas

National Catholic Reporter, Dec 24, 1993 by Bill Coleman, Patty Coleman

No longer, however, are the poor content to accept these humilations, to be a passive, inert people, suffering in silence in hope of some heavenly reward. The rituals and their reflection on them have convinced them that they are God's people, called to fight for a very earthly goal, justice for the poor. Their enemies are the rich investors, bankers and industrialists and the corrupt government and church officials who serve them Their weapons are their numbers, their Bible and their steely determination to struggle against their oppression at any cost.

Throughout Latin America powerful governments and church leaders are attempting to crush the base communities. Activists have been murdered, progressive bishops silenced, wealth concentrated in the hands of a favored few and nations ruled by violence and fear. Whether it is Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Salvador, Mexico or any other latin American country, the patterns are the same --clandestine death squads, corruption of the judiciary, depriving the poor of bishops and priests who side with them.

These are, according to base community leaders, the last gasps of a dying order in which the rich controlled every aspect of the lives of the poor. Powerful political leaders are terrified because impoverished people have realized that they, not the rich, are God's chosen people.

"Jesus and Mary," said a priest during the Christmas celebrations, "are ours, not theirs. We, not they, are the shepherds and kings. If the rich and powerful are anyone in the Christmas story, they are those who closed their doors to Mary and Joseph or perhaps the Herods of today."

It may indeed be the winter of the church and what seems like the triumph of greed over justice in the world. Yet, the flowers of a new order are beginning to bloom in the base communities everywhere and already this spirit of discontent is reflected in new political parties in Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela. Hope for change is everywhere in Latin America this Christmas season as people chant, "Jesus is at the side of the poor."