Autor: mendocinomx

Amira Rahim | Cholula | 2017

Seedbed on decolonial spiritualities and theologies in Cholula Subjectivities, bodies and territories as theological sites of resistance

By Carlos Mendoza Álvarez

During a lunch with Kochurani in Cotonou, the capital of Benin, a few weeks ago on the occasion of the World Forum on Theology and Liberation, we shared a common desire to create “cosmic homes” where we can meet, rooted in our land, to cultivate seeds of diverse theologies, with a shared yearning to flourish as individuals and collectives in resistance. Between Kerala and Cholula, a nascent connection was thus established to illuminate these homes, learning from our life stories, where it is possible to listen to the poignant questions arising from the survivors we accompany, while also allowing ourselves to be surprised by their unwavering hope. Places where it is also possible to share the poetic inspirations and intuitions of thought through which the Divine spells out for us in languages as diverse as the colors of the earth.

For at least a decade, in my case, the dream of that home had been taking shape, thanks to "womb experiences," as Kochurani says, where I realized that something new was happening, often in seemingly insignificant times and places, but where the strength of the Ruah was clear and powerful.

Juan Carlos told me with emotion years ago, during a hike in Mount Hood—the ancient Wyeast of the Chinook people in Wuaregan land, now Oregon—how deeply moved he was by visiting Raimon Panikkar's little house in Catalonia, where the Christian-Hindu-Buddhist mystic and theologian liked to receive his close friends. Located on the outskirts of a small mountain village, his home was a space of hospitality that fostered dialogue among people of diverse faiths who drew from the same source of "cosmotheandric mystery," as the great mystic of our time liked to describe the reality of the interwoven world of life.

The Jesuits' cabin in Mapuche territory, with its wooden chapel adorned with woolen textiles and a small oil lamp, was another of those microcosms where infinity seemed to converge beneath a starry sky. I cherish that moment in my memory like a flame of sincere and generous hospitality from three fellow travelers who had chosen to allow themselves to be inhabited by the people of Wallmapu, thus opening themselves to the God of life who never ceases to call to us and surprise us as a source of fulfillment for all peoples.

A similar “place” – with all the Illichian echo of this noun – we seek to create a group of friends in a territory of Chollollan – or “falling water” in Nahuatl – the oldest inhabited city in America that blooms every year with its fruit trees in August and its cempasúchitl flowers in November, at the foot of the Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl volcanoes, near Puebla, my hometown of New Spain origin.

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Pending the opportunity to be received by that fertile land at a propitious time to plant the trees that will shelter the cabin-home in the years to come, we will hold a workshop on decolonial theologies in March of next year, with dear colleagues who were my university students years ago and are now companions on the path of theological work animated by spiritualities of life that resists and re-exists in the cracks of power that kills.

With Juan Jesús and Juan Carlos, I have explored for decades what theology with the Dominican stamp means in times of late modernity. Juan Jesús's questions about the conditioning of subjectivity, whether in its psychological dimension or in its powers of knowledge and action, helped me understand the emotional and practical foundation of the thought that we urgently need to weave in a society wounded by the libido dominandi. With Juan Carlos, I learned, from the time we shared the studium As part of our community work at the Pedro de Córdoba Institute in Santiago, Chile, we began to explore the mystique that sustains human rights defenders, inspired by liberation theology in their commitment to the poor and victims, while honestly examining the depths and power of our own shared histories of vulnerability. The path of mutual spiritual and theological accompaniment was born there, at the foot of the Andes, like a river with its own course that has irrigated other valleys in various parts of the world.

Cleusa and Pedro Igor, with the power of Afro-Brazilian knowledge in dialogue with liberation theologies, have taught me to value the memory of the African diaspora on our continent, undoubtedly marked by the tragedy of centuries of slavery, but above all by the strength and beauty of its peoples in resistance throughout five centuries. The new epistemologies of Blackness, the wisdom of living ancestral religions, and the power of Afro-diasporic feminisms are all ways of exploring the subjectivities denied by colonial modernity, which I began to explore in my doctoral dissertation and which I now discover with new nuances and depths thanks to these friends of the Afro-Brazilian diaspora.

For the past six years, I've walked alongside Laurel, Sole, Martín, and Francis in Massachusetts—having come to Boston College from Chile and Ohio—to discover the strength of new generations of theologians feeling and thinking from their bodies, subjectivities, and territories, with their wounds and the power of their experiences that subvert systemic violence. Whether through the liberating emphasis of grassroots ecclesial communities in El Salvador and Chile, or through the feminist and queer zeal to incorporate these contested territories of gender, or through thinking about politics from the margins of empire in times of escalating techno-fascism, these new voices of feminist, liberation, and decolonial theology are nourishing my life and thought in astonishing ways.

Next March, we will experience the thrill of meeting again, as we did a year ago in Rio de Janeiro, to reflect on what we have learned together, to continue “conspiring,” as Ivan Illich said and as Javier Sicilia likes to think—that is, sharing the promptings of the divine Ruah that animates, challenges, seduces, and encourages us to “give a reason for the hope that is in us to anyone who asks us,” according to the biblical author's vision in 1 Peter 3:15. For our generation, living in dark times on a global scale, this prompting certainly means glimpsing the glimmers of hope that emerge from the cracks and rubble of Gaza, from the mass graves, from the refugee camps in South Sudan, and from so many other places of death transformed into places of life by survivors and collective resistance movements. During those days, we will also present the collective book that is the fruit of that Rio colloquium, like a seed we wish to plant in that sacred ground. We will tell you more about the details of the seedbed in gestation later.

Chollollan will welcome us as a territory of ancient and new wisdom where we want to "sow seeds and light fires," as the native peoples of Our America say, and prepare the hearth of the cabin-home that awaits us.

Huitepec, Chiapas, August 29, 2026

August 30, 2026
Carlos Mendoza | Carolino Building, Third Cloister Corridor | Puebla, 2026

Between Benin, Porto Alegre and Puebla On the World Social Forum and the public university of half a century ago

By Carlos Mendoza Álvarez

The World Forum Theology and Liberation returns to the territory

A week has passed since the return from the lands of West Africa, still marked by the memory of modern slavery, with its back-and-forth diasporas, its wounds still open as a collective memory of a young, modern nation barely sixty years old. The Beninese people's attempt to proudly reclaim their ancestral Vodou religion, beyond the demonization it suffered at the hands of Western Christian missionaries for centuries, remains uncertain, as they now face political manipulation by their populist leaders. What is certain is that the Beninese people are now torn between a unique Western modernity and a return to their ancestral roots, a yearning that will take decades to explore.

Beninese theologians, for example, centered on their evangelical Christian identity that gives the Bible centrality as a key to interpreting life, are now asking themselves, listening to Silvia Regina de Lima Silva, a fellow member of the Afro-Brazilian diaspora, about the devastating effects of “the coloniality of the soul” that must be recognized and confronted in order to give way to a “dialogue of knowledges” in their own bodies, minds and spiritual and thought practices for the liberation of subjectivities and imaginaries that unfold dignity and hope for the peoples of today.

In contrast, the Dominican friars of the West African province, from what I gathered in brief conversations with them, do not seem to grasp this horizon of decoloniality. In their community life and in their service to the youth of the young nation's capital through the university chaplaincy, they prioritize a model of African Christianity with a Western predominance in liturgy, thought, and moral life. It remains to be seen whether the new generations will be encouraged to explore this "dual belonging" to the faith in Christ and fidelity to the spirituality of their ancestors. In decolonial theology, we call this process the "interculturation" of Christianity with the ancestral knowledge of the peoples.

A telling sign of this country's current predicament is its economy, trapped in the still-persistent ties of French colonization, the strategic presence of the United States to neutralize the Soviet influence of decades past in the region, and the Chinese power that is encroaching upon the country with mining and resource extraction projects. Even after the devastation of French colonialism and the civil war that preceded the transition to democracy, the wealth of natural resources and the vitality of the Beninese people remain. But decolonial resistance in the Trump era is becoming increasingly arduous, as we witnessed in the tortuous organization of the World Social Forum, with pressure from authorities to reduce its impact on the Beninese people, neighboring communities, and, above all, on international public opinion.

In any case, the World Forum on Theology and Liberation, which brought together eighty colleagues from five continents, displayed surprising vitality, giving rise to a new generation of theologians from the Global South to continue walking alongside peoples resisting the systemic violence of extractive capitalism as a form of colonial power on a global scale. Regional gatherings and interdisciplinary, ecumenical, and interreligious reflection groups are on the horizon as commitments to strengthening the bonds of local communities in their territories. Confronting systemic violence requires communities of resistance on all fronts: ecological and spiritual, intellectual, and in the creation of socioeconomic and theological alternatives. In the years to come, we will explore the strength of these initiatives that yearn for a return to the “spirit of Porto Alegre.”.

The utopia of half a century ago in Puebla

In 1976, a generation of young people from Puebla began high school with great enthusiasm and aspirations for social change in Mexico. The Emiliano Zapata Popular Preparatory School of the Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla embodied the vision of the university reform undertaken by engineer Luis Rivera Terrazas to give public universities social relevance for the political and cultural transformation of the country. The motto of that reform, "For a democratic, critical, and popular university," expressed the utopia of that generation. Public universities thus sought a new model of education, finding in Puebla, Sinaloa, and Guerrero the cultural and social context to launch initiatives. Years earlier, far-right groups, such as El Yunque in Puebla and El Muro in Mexico City, had attempted to seize control of university life, without success, with the acquiescence of the Catholic high clergy and business leaders who saw the shadow of atheistic communism looming over the country's public life.

Given the high demand for enrollment, preparatory schools were overwhelmed, and it became necessary to call upon young undergraduate and graduate students to volunteer as high school teachers, without a guaranteed salary, to meet this high demand for upper secondary education. This is how the popular preparatory schools in Puebla, such as Emiliano Zapata, Alfonso Calderón, and others, were born.

Without fully realizing the underlying national project at stake within the public university, I entered Prepa Zapata, assigned by lottery. The school was then located in the Carolino building, the former Jesuit Colegio del Espíritu Santo. I was assigned the morning shift, with classes from 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Every morning I left at dawn to take the bus from my family home in the San Manuel neighborhood, near the University City, to the city center. I never imagined that high school, which at that time was a two-year program, would so radically shape my personal, professional, political, and spiritual life.

Group IV of the 1976-1978 Generation consisted of 70 restless young people, several of them sympathizers of the Communist Party, others militant Catholics, some from Catholic schools and others from families with a religious tradition, as in my case. Perhaps most of us had arrived by chance, but with the encouragement of our young teachers, we began to create an atmosphere of friendship, play, collective learning, and open discussion about the social issues that most concerned our generation. Looking back on those years, I see now that we were living through the times of the Dirty War waged by the PRI governments against guerrilla groups in many regions of the country that opposed a corrupt political system that, through union corporatism and perks for the government elites, was plundering the country. Barely eight years had passed since the 1968 student movement for democratic freedoms in the country, which left more than 300 students dead; and barely five years have passed since the repression of the "Corpus Christi Thursday" against students protesting the lack of autonomy at the University of Nuevo León that left 180 dead.

The more politically engaged members of our group raised these issues in philosophy, economics, and history classes, which we then continued in discussions in the third courtyard of the Carolino building and in gatherings with friends at a café or during marches in the street. The contentious topic of Catholicism as an ally of the system frequently came up, opening up the debate about the role of religion as the opiate of the masses or as a source of freedom. At that time, I couldn't yet grasp the impact of liberation theology, which was developing precisely then in Peru and Brazil, much less did I have any idea of what Ivan Illich was proposing in Cuernavaca—a radical Christianity that would later have an impact throughout the continent.

At the heart of our discussions, a deep affection grew, expressed through games, parties, cultural outings, and trips to concerts organized by the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, which brought the finest music, theater, and ballet companies from communist countries to Puebla. As part of this "cultural battle," local business leaders created their own festivals of great artistic quality. This resulted in a cultural education of exceptional aesthetic, political, and spiritual depth for those young generations of students.

The personal and professional calling of many of us was forged in that effervescent atmosphere of social awareness of injustice, of experiences of beauty as a creation of the human spirit, and of a passion for truth that arises from critical thinking. For some of us, there was also a spiritual undercurrent; the source from which all that passion flowed was the thirst for transcendence, where the human and the divine met.

In my life story, that was the fertile ground where the seed of God's Word fell, received in my family, rooted in the faith of post-Vatican II Catholicism and later cultivated in the Dominican style as a constant search for the saving truth. I'll tell you that story another time.

Puebla de los Ángeles y de Zaragoza, August 15, 2026

August 23, 2026
Coast | The Hour of the Peoples | Jobel, 2025

Back to our roots in times of devastation About witnesses from other worlds

By Carlos Mendoza Álvarez

A few months ago, we mourned the passing of Diego Irrazábal, a Chilean theologian who dedicated a significant part of his adult life to accompanying Andean indigenous peoples and grassroots communities in "Our America," as the youth of Bendita Mezcla (Blessed Mix) often refer to our continent. Our dear friend Fran Bosch wrote a memorable farewell to Diego in Ameridia from Mar del Plata, recalling his legacy of smiles and warmth as spiritual and theological spaces where we can celebrate the God of Life. Such was the precious gift of this missionary theologian to so many people and communities throughout his life.

I met Diego on the editorial board of the journal Concilium a decade ago, where we briefly coincided in a passing of the torch between Latin American colleagues of both older and newer generations. In that space, we shared the desire to update the vision and mission of an international journal that had been able to read “the signs of the times” in the spirit of the Good Pope, John XXIII, opening new perspectives for Christian theology during the difficult times of the Cold War and the utopian ideals of social change of the 1960s and 70s that were spreading throughout Latin America and other continents.

But the theoretical framework for Catholic theology of those years could not remain the same sixty years later in order to account for the decolonial turn that all theology—not only Christian but also Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and all religious and spiritual traditions—is called to undertake in order to discern the complicity of coloniality that appropriated our religious practices and theological discourses, where the paths of resistance and liberation take on bold and new forms. We were able to make some progress in this new understanding of theology in times of global devastation and the re-existence of people and communities with combative hope, but the processes and work of critical reflection that can emerge in these new theological spaces in times of systemic violence that is rapidly taking over the world remain pending.

Remembering Diego these days at the World Forum for Theology and Liberation (WFTL) held in Cotonou, Benin, Luiz Carlos Suzin - a Brazilian colleague from the generation that founded this theological process to accompany the social movements of the Global South - recalled with gratitude the vision of the Chilean colleague, from long ago, to admire the soul of the peoples in their ancestral religions and their diverse ways of coexisting with the colonial Christianity that marked the first evangelization of America, exploring new ways of dialogue of spiritual knowledge.

I met Diego again at some colloquiums in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and Santiago, Chile. He was always a curious man, passionate about knowing how to forge connections with new generations, without losing the impetus of a prophetic and liberating Christianity that could not renounce its spiritual and theological DNA in order to always stand with the poor and the dispossessed of the earth.

Participating these days in the World Forum on Theology and Liberation, I see its influence also in this process of accompanying social movements that cultivate, in each territory, the world change we yearn for, and that build diverse collectives from the margins of the hegemonic world. Ultimately, we seek to build the “other possible world” of the World Social Forum, one “where many worlds fit,” as the Zapatista communities propose today.

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In its current edition, uncertainty gripped the participants in the World Social Forum upon receiving the unexpected news that it would be postponed, partly due to the difficult relationship with the Beninese government, as well as the political instability of the West African region in an international context aseptic to social internationalism, and some confusion on the part of the organizing committee in following the process that followed the forum held in 2024 in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Faced with this situation, the international delegation invited to the World Forum on Theology and Liberation was called to a last-minute assembly to decide how to host the two panels that the FMTL had offered to the World Social Forum: one on feminisms as theological voices of change and innovation confronting patriarchy, and the other on the resistance of peoples to the devastation of Mother Earth. An intense day allowed us to hear voices from social movements that are a sign of hope, such as the Ecolojah initiative with its Center for the Valorization of Agroecology, Sciences, and Endogenous Techniques (Cevaste), opened by Père Jah and Mère Jah in the interior of Benin, where it is possible to explore the connections between caring for the land and the spiritualities of the God of life.

In order to keep alive “the spirit of Porto Alegre” that gave birth to the World Social Forum, Silvia Regina de Lima Silva, Nicolas Panotto, and I proposed to the coordination team a day of work as the international delegation of the FMTL to creatively reflect together on the current challenges of liberation theology in a context of escalating global violence. We reformulated the traditional see-think-act steps of liberation theology with a decolonial emphasis, to make visible, problematize, and articulate our political, epistemic, and spiritual options where today we weave theology with social movements. It was a rich and intense day of reflection, accompanied by symbols of resistance and re-existence where we see glimpses of the Kingdom of God emerging in our present time.

We finally decided to spend a day at the World Social Forum to explore its current edition in an African country. The difficult negotiations between the organizing committee and the government, as well as the limited time for many international delegations to reach the event, raised doubts about the future of this space for autonomous social movements that share the vision of another possible world that gave rise to the WSF. The relevance of this model, now twenty-five years old and facing a crisis of internationalism and alter-globalization in times of global technofascism, will have to be evaluated.

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Today, August 8th, is the feast of Dominic of Guzman who—along with Diego de Osma, a bishop troubled by the uncertainty of his time in 13th-century Castile, a group of women from Prouille in southern France seeking to return to the roots of the Gospel in community, poverty, and prayer, and Peter Ceyla, a layman from Languedoc who offered his house to host the initiative of “holy preaching”—shared “the charism of preaching” to return to the roots of the Christian faith through apostolic preaching.

This is an opportunity to celebrate, without triumphalism and with a critical eye, a constantly evolving lifestyle that has borne rich fruit for the Church and for humanity. A charism of seeking truth, wherever it may be found, as lived by Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and Meister Eckhart in the Middle Ages. A drive for justice, beginning with the forgotten of society, as exemplified by the School of Salamanca and Bartolomé de Las Casas in Chiapas in the 16th century, and in our times by Albert Nolan in Apartheid-era South Africa and Gustavo Gutiérrez in Shining Path-era Peru. A passion for beauty, which is the splendor of divinity, from Fra Angelico in Florence to Father Couturier in France, and Julián Pablo in Mexico. A yearning for spirituality from the unfathomable mystery of the living God, like Meister Eckhart on the banks of the Rhine, or the laywoman Catherine of Siena in medieval Tuscany, or the layman Piergiorgio Frassati in the 20th century, a mystical tradition never trapped by any feeling, idea or institution, but seduced by the loving divinity that is always unattainable and yet close.

Today I celebrate this feast with the Dominican friars and the Dominican family of Cotonou, enlivened by a youth choir with powerful voices and African rhythms, even amidst a Roman ritual that shows no sign of inculturation of the faith of the Beninese people. I hope that one day preaching, theology, and spirituality will reach that “decolonial stage” that will allow us, as peoples, to quench our thirst for the divine in the polyphony of spiritual traditions that weave us together as a human and divine creation in the heart of our communities.

Happy Feast of Domingo, the seeker and preacher of the saving truth.

Cotonou, August 8, 2026

August 8, 2026

English