well said Henri...

"For the last few days, the course has dealt primarily with the new agricultural law. A lawyer from Lima came to explain the law, and triggered a lively debate about the way the poor campesinos would be affected by it. Most pastoral workers felt that this law was simply one more way in which the poor would be made poorer. The law opened the way for rich people who had lost their land during the agrarian reform to reclaim it. One of the French pastoral workers presented an alternative law that would serve the poor farmers. This law had been formulated by the campesinos themselves, with the help of leftist lawyers and economists.

When I reflect on these legal debates and discussions, I become strongly aware of the new style of this liberation-oriented Church. It would have taken an outsider a long time to find out that this was a group of priests, nuns, and Catholic laymen and laywomen dedicated to the preaching of the Gospel. The style of the dialogue, the fervor of the discussions, and the ideological language suggested a meeting of a political party rather than a church group. I feel that this was true not only for the formal sessions, but also for the informal relationships between the participants - during meals, and coffee breaks. Yet these men and women from France, Spain, Italy, and the United States have left their countries to serve the poor of Peru in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Their religious dedication has led them into the lives of the poor. Therefore the sophisticated and highly critical analysis of the new agrarian law was for them not purely political but a necessary step in the struggle for freedom for the people of God.

Yet the two churches are gradually developing in Peru, and they are at the point where they are no longer able to talk to each other. On the one side is the Church that speaks primarily about God, with little reference to the daily reality in which the people live; on the other side is the Church that speaks primarily about the struggle of the people for freedom, with little reference to the divine mysteries to which this struggle points. The distance between these Churches is growing. This morning I went to the Cathedral of Cuzco, and when I walked from altar to altar and statue to statue and listened to the monotone voice of a priest saying Mass, I suddenly felt a deep pain. I would never feel at home any more in this traditional church, but will I ever in the Church of la lucha?"

-- Henri Nouwen