Category: Liberating spirituality

Anonymous | Watercolor of the Montesinos monument | Dominican Republic, 2020

The cry of the (post)human

By Carlos Mendoza-Álvarez

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In 1511, Friar Antón de Montesinos, along with a handful of Dominican friars who had recently landed in Quisqueya, the Taíno word for the mother of all lands, uttered a cry that still resonates in the Western conscience: “Are these not men?” He was referring to the original inhabitants of that Caribbean island—later known as Hispaniola, where the modern states of Haiti and the Dominican Republic were established—who had been subjected by Spanish soldiers in the name of the Crowns of Castile and Aragon to harsh servitude and slavery. In the sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent on December 21 of that year, with the central figure of John the Baptist announcing the urgency of preparing the way for the coming Messiah, Friar Antón became a prophetic voice to counterbalance the nascent coloniality of power. According to this concept of the Peruvian Aníbal Quijano (Coloniality of power, Eurocentrism and Latin AmericaIt is possible to explain from our time the logic of power that led Europe to dominate the modern world, from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, with its later avatars of American and Russian imperialism that we know today.

More than five centuries have passed. Now, this enterprise of coloniality is acquiring global dimensions in our time with the extractive capitalist model that is expanding across the world, like a many-headed hydra, according to the Zapatista narrative that emerged in 1994 in southeastern Mexico. Three decades later, new ways of naming the diverse resistances to this lethal force that dominates the world will be heard in the seedbed « Of pyramids, of stories, of love and, of course, heartbreak » which will take place at CIDECI-Unitierra at the end of December.

The question surrounding humanity may seem rhetorical, but it becomes more urgent when we consider the landscape of exclusion based on class, gender, ethnicity, and cultural identity that entire nations suffer today. The collapse of the international order we knew in modern times leaves us exposed. The foundations of that shared world were laid by the School of Salamanca with the Ius Gentium or the law of nations in the 16th century, with Friar Francisco de Vitoria at the forefront in dialogue with Friar Bartolomé de Las Casas from Chiapas and Guatemala, as analyzed by Enrique Dussel. It was one of the cornerstones of the model of Christendom created to justify the expansion of the earthly city in the image of the City of God under the tutelage of the Spanish Crown. Subsequently, this interpretation was transformed into an internationalist model, beginning with the Enlightenment, with a rationalist foundation of a contractual nature, making international law a pact between sovereign states, without an ultimate foundation in a metaphysical order that had its sustenance in God (Ancient and contemporary law of nations).

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Beyond the theoretical discussions about the transition from the Salamanca model to the Germanic model of international law, what is important to highlight here are the internal contradictions of the modern social contract that is collapsing before our eyes. Today we are witnessing the return of authoritarian regimes based on religious fundamentalisms with messianic pretensions (The United States is a messianic state), as is the case with US imperialism and Israeli Zionism. In the name of what ethical-political principle or source do today's powers justify their mechanisms of domination, neocolonialism, and the elimination of entire peoples? What limits are there to the power deployed by this unbridled new geopolitical “order”?

But it is necessary to go beyond the catastrophic scenario described so far to recognize the role of peoples and the spiritual traditions of humanity in strengthening communal life among nations. How can we understand and promote the autonomy of individuals, peoples, and territories today in order to preserve what is human How can we cope with the threats of the system that already dominates us, encompassing both traditional and digital territories?

In this context, Montesinos' sermon acquires remarkable relevance since it expands the question of mutual recognition of the human and the creature to all the victims of systemic violence that is leading humanity and the entire planet to the precipice (International treaties on biodiversity (SCJN)Are the nations and species that inhabit the face of the Earth not creatures with rights? In the post-human world, as it is called today, it is essential to develop a critical way of thinking that affirms the dignity of every creature in the cosmos in its profound dignity linked to the loving mystery of reality.

It is no longer just about reaffirming the historical strength of indigenous peoples confronting the Eurocentric colonialism of five hundred years ago, but about the subaltern peoples who are disposable in the planetary war economy of the Trump Era, as he comments Leonardo Boff. Latin America and the Caribbean, as evidenced by the US invasion of international waters in the Caribbean Sea, are now a battleground for the war waged by the Southern Command of that neighboring country. Unfortunately, we will soon witness the full extent of this new model of imperial interventionism through the selective occupation of territories, the control of local governments aligned with the interests of the necrostate, and surgical strikes against the “enemies” of US national security.

Nor is the cry for the dignity of humanity enough if it is dissociated from the cry of the Earth, “the poorest of the poor,” as Leonardo Boff also called it. That “escalation to extremes” conceived by Girard in 2007 based on the phenomenon of terrorism seems like child’s play today in the face of current wars whose objective is the blatant domination of entire populations in order to control their territories as objects of predatory enrichment of ecosystems.

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For this reason, it is more urgent than ever to recognize the new Montesinos who, with their outcry, appeal to the common humanity that unites us as individuals and peoples, with its mystical source that gives strength and opens horizons of life for all, in order to reverse those processes of necropower that claim more and more victims every day.

But today it is urgent to move beyond the anthropocentric paradigm, transitioning towards an "ecocentric" one (Anthropocentrism and ecocentrism in the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights) that promotes the dignity of Mother Earth, who is also subjugated by the dominant model of extractive society and economy. «Rethinking as a human species,» according to the proposal of political ecology promoted by Víctor Toledo and a significant network of scientists worldwide (Political ecology is here to stay) is a key step to regain our course as humanity inhabiting the Common Home that has been given to us by the Giver of Life.

The green martyrs, the searching mothers, and the indigenous peoples in rebellion are some of the voices that have sounded the alarm about the devastating situation that has already reached us. Listening to their denunciations is a beginning of ethical and mystical conversion, but it is not enough. We must join those processes of subjective, territorial, and spiritual autonomy carried out by those who have said enough to necropower.

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Perhaps the most inspiring way for believing communities to celebrate the approaching Christmas is by honoring the memory of Montesinos and all the prophetic voices of yesterday and today.

Preparing the way for the arrival of the messiah is not, after all, an act of Christmas folklore, but a change of course in our ways of life with ethical-political, practical and mystical decisions, such as recycling garbage, reforesting forests, and including the vulnerable at our tables as gestures of celebrating life amidst the ruins of the present world.

As I mentioned some years ago (Messianic time and narrative for a theological interpretation of the narrative practices of victims) it is urgent and a priority that we pave the way to messianic times through our acts of resistance to necropower, promoting communities where we learn to spell anew, with imagination and vigor, the humanity and creatureliness that unites us, all drinking from the inexhaustible source of Life.

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Jobel, December 20, 2025

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Note: I would like to read your comments in the final section of this page.

December 20, 2025
Searching Mothers | NTR | Zacatecas, 2025

On hope in uncertain times

By Carlos Mendoza-Álvarez

At dusk this Saturday, the first Advent vigil begins, when Christian communities throughout the world embark on a journey, in the midst of the darkness of time, to receive the human and divine light of dignity and hope that the Messiah brings. The ancient hymn will resonate during the nighttime celebrations, Rorate caeli , whose lyrics and melody are like a lament that rises to heaven from the desolate city, crying out that “the clouds rain down on the Righteous One,” as the prophet Isaiah (45:8) implored during the exile in Babylon.

Each year, this four-week calendar leading up to Christmas is accompanied by symbols of light, greenery, carols, sweets, tenderness, and community. According to each culture, the waiting period for the Messiah's arrival evokes the awareness that "something is lacking" for the fulfillment of those desires for new times of justice, truth, compassion and peace, not only for a people who arrogantly claim to be the only chosen ones, but for all of humanity and even for the entire cosmos.

Every generation has seen terrible signs that the world is ending, whether through epidemics that make us feel how vulnerable our bodies and knowledge are; whether through wars waged by empires against emerging powers that threaten their arrogance; whether through the uncertainty of life itself, diminished by age, illness, failure, loneliness, or hopelessness.

The biblical texts that we, the believing communities, meditate on these days speak of the expectation of the messiah, first with a strong apocalyptic tone that announces the destruction of the corrupt world, reaching the entire cosmos with a catastrophe that will destroy everything because of the human pride that has taken over creation.

Then, as the date of the celebration of the Nativity of the Messiah Child, a Nazarene, approaches, the tone of the texts becomes more hopeful with the announcement of a God who is near, humanized, small, and fragile. It is the incarnate promise of a divine and human life that begins in complete vulnerability in the story of a migrant family with a newborn baby, trying to survive on the periphery of the empire and fleeing the fury of the local ruler, eventually finding refuge in Egypt, from where a definitive chapter in the history of human redemption will begin to be written.

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However, the collective depression we are experiencing today as humanity due to the escalation of hatred to extremes – which is spreading across the planet in an apocalyptic way “like a lie of Satan,” as René Girard said in an interview he gave me in 2007 in Paris (Hope as apocalypse)– this seems to render any narrative of hope for our uncertain times illusory. The genocide in Gaza continues as the climax of the Nakba or Catastrophe that began in 1947 with the expulsion of nearly a million Palestinians from their lands, paving the way for the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, this systemic violence continues today before our digital screens, met with indifference by social media and the international community. The wars in Ukraine, Congo, and South Sudan have become so “normalized” that they no longer make the front page of newspapers, much less a trending topic in the digital world. In Mexico, public indifference to urgent issues such as the crisis facing corn, lemon, and avocado farmers—caused by the violence in Michoacán—along with the persistent femicides and forced disappearances, speaks to a growing discontent among the population, expressed through strikes, road blockades, and street protests. But the masses seem numb, retreating into bubbles of entertainment and unrestrained holiday shopping, which, among other ills, leaves household finances in ruins for months and years to come.

Religious consumerism is also part of the overwhelming Christmas marketing, amidst kitschy decorations and echoes of folk crafts used to make piñatas featuring popular characters. It will certainly be present at Mexican posadas, Trump's piñata , which is sold in various markets in Mexico and the United States, will receive blows as a ritual of revenge amid laughter and boos until the cardboard breaks and the blond wicks of the tyrant fly out like shooting stars in some tenement courtyard in Mexico City, Chicago or Los Angeles for the delight of all.

A few families may perhaps rediscover the “mystical” meaning of the Advent wreath, following the Avatar of Carlo Acutis explaining Advent 2025. This video, which is circulating online, aptly explains the spiritual significance of the ritual of lighting each of the four candles during this season that prepares for Christmas. The light lit each Sunday of Advent symbolizes the "people who walked in darkness and have seen a great light" (Isaiah 9:2), which the prophet foretold to the Hebrew people devastated by the division between the small kingdoms of Israel and Judah, with their leaders corrupted by the idolatry of power, seeking alliances with neighboring Syria to defeat the rival tribe.

And like a non-place amidst so much noise, creating a void in the midst of the urban clamor, in Mexico the collectives of Searching Mothers (Searching mothers light Christmas tree) will set up Christmas trees covered with ornaments bearing the faces of those we have lost. They are today “the voice crying in the wilderness” (John 1:23) because they speak on behalf of the victims of the narco-state war and the idolatry of the necropower of our time.

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Perhaps this is where the theological core of this season lies: the absence of the Messiah is something that has inspired Hebrew and Christian generations for centuries to mobilize in order to make the messianic times present through acts of remembrance, justice and an (im)possible reconciliation.

Beyond a folkloric celebration of the coming of God-with-us, what we are about today is going to the other side of history to contemplate there, in the silence of the night, some glimmer of light that announces the arrival of the Messiah. And those who feel in every second of their lives, in every breath—like Vero and Fabiola, mothers searching for their missing children who shared their hope with us in a recent meeting in Guadalajara—the absence that hurts and motivates them to search out of love, are the ones who teach us what hope means in times of uncertainty, the heart of Advent.

Next Monday, December 1st, the documentary Re-exists 2025 will be presented online (Presentation of the documentary Re-exists 2025), prepared by Uruguayan filmmaker Juan Meza. There, some of the stories of awakening, healing, and embodiment shared by people from seventeen countries and different religious and spiritual traditions from four continents facing diverse forms of violence where it has been possible to spell out hope.

Advent is a time to continue weaving networks of combative hope , say the social movements on the peripheries of the empire, so that our world does not fall into the abyss. And it is possible to do so by listening to the people who for years and centuries have resisted and now accompany us in re-existing.

Because there will always be hope as long as there are people and communities who live the end times, so insistently emphasized by Javier Sicilia and Elías González, as the opportunity to enter into another way of existing amidst violence but pregnant with the active expectation of messianic times.

Happy Advent season!

Mexico City, November 29, 2025

Note: I would appreciate your feedback at the end of this page.

November 29, 2025
Diedrick Brackens | The Cup is a Cloud | Los Angeles, 2018

Unlearning efficiency to inhabit uncertainty

By Carlos Mendoza-Álvarez

It has been seven months since I left Boston, after five years of academic life in the frenetic gears of American efficiency, with a special challenge in the background that consisted of translating the master ideas of modern Latin American and European theology to multicultural groups of white students from the United States, and others who came mostly from Korea, China and Japan, plus some from Turkey, El Salvador, Colombia and Chile.

The initial courtesy of colleagues, both students and professors, gradually gave way with a few of them to a genuine conversation, always with respect for individual work prevailing and few exchanges about the meaning of our work as an academic community.

I cherish the best moments of those encounters, such as the colloquiums to which we gave the decolonial tone of “conversations” (Beyond Global Violence Initiative ), where we were able to open windows so that colleagues from the north and south could listen to each other, with certain difficulties in moving between both worlds, not only because of the differences in language but also because of the diverse experiences that sustain the body, thought and the word.

What we all enjoyed most were the gatherings in the warmth of Valentina and Domingo's Chilean-Bostonian home, exceptional hosts to both our hearts and our palates. There, we could share, with greater intimacy and freedom, the ideas and intuitions that had lingered in the auditoriums of the Chestnut Hill campus. Sometimes, with Francis's Italian flair, assisted by Martín, and in the warmth of Neto's affability in his home, always ready to welcome us like a true Salvadoran, each of us found our place in the ebb and flow of conversation, wine, and song. In those welcoming homes, we received friends from Brazil, Mexico, El Salvador, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Spain, Ohio, Illinois, New York, Indiana, and California, passing through Massachusetts. And there, new projects for colloquiums, books, and trips were born, projects that continue to surprise and inspire us all to this day.

But everything was interrupted by my sudden departure from US territory in the Trump era, leaving that seed of cordial intelligence sown in living memory.

In the following months, back home and with interwoven journeys between South Africa, Turkey, Brazil, and Chile, I faced the challenge of seeing diverse worlds with new eyes, paying special attention to "those who dwell in the shadows of the shadows of the shadows." Thus, I was led—by the pure gift of my hosts during those travels—to experience moments of devastating and beautiful simplicity, such as accompanying Lance from the University of Pretoria to the Congolese refugee farm on the outskirts of the city. There, the pain of being homeless for more than five years was evident in his eyes, but within them also shone a glimmer of dignity that I still carry in my heart and spirit as a call to closeness.

I vividly remember the walk along the cliffs of Cape Town with Grant and his team, where on a sunny but cold South African winter morning we contemplated how the two great oceans, the Atlantic and the Indian, meet, sometimes with fury and other times with tenderness. A metaphor for intertwined worlds.

I also recall with emotion the ecumenical Taizé-style prayer led by my Dominican brother Claudio, along with Eda, a resident of Istanbul, and a group of African and Ukrainian students living there. Interspersing mantras for peace in various languages, they gathered in the dim light of the Church of the Preachers, located near the Galata Tower. It was a glimpse of what Pentecost means, albeit only as a bastion of spirituality amidst a vibrant, modern Muslim culture that looks with curiosity at what happens within these Christian enclaves.

I treasure in my memory the simple and brief Eucharist in the small wooden chapel of the Jesuits in Tirúa, on a small altar covered with a Mapuche textile and adorned with an oriental-style oil lamp that created a luminous twilight, on a spring morning in Wallmapu, in the far south of Chile. I had the grace to share with them for a few days their joyful dispossession, as travelers accompanying the Mapuche people in defense of their territory, their language, and their ancestral spirituality.

In each of those experiences, the question of how to build bridges to share spiritual intimacy between people and communities of diverse traditions lingered for me. And I remembered the rituals we have explored at Re-existe, precisely seeking new languages to celebrate together our precarious lives, open to hope, according to diverse ancestral traditions, from indigenous peoples to Abrahamic religions and the secular inner lives of those who are individuals or groups without religion.

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Back in the land of my ancestors, now free from the daily pressure of the classroom and the unbearable academic meetings, I'm beginning to understand what it means to unlearn efficiency. To enjoy the free time of otium, beyond the negotium, as I told you here a few weeks ago.

But it's about more than just slowing down. Something compels me today to live in the moment. otherwise as a renewed inner life and the place as my homeland. I seek an external rhythm between morning walks, religious duties, attentive reading of books piled on my desk for years, and more creative writing, loosening my pen and exploring new literary genres. But it's not enough. There's something more I sense on the horizon, the search for a "place" to put down roots, grow slowly, and blossom, following that creative intuition of Ivan Illich and Jean Robert (The place in the space age). The place and time where inspiration flows will gradually become clearer in the coming months.

Now that I have time to “do nothing,” I feel invited to reinvent myself every day. I am certainly working in the present on wonderful intellectual projects, such as the collaborative book on political theology—with the introduction I am writing, inviting fifteen contributors from eight different countries to the table of words to reflect on “the common good” in times of great catastrophe—whose manuscript I am revising with the support of Francis and Nathan, dear colleagues I met at Boston College, and which will be published next year by a prestigious publisher in the United States.

I am delighted to review the scripts for the documentary and the comic book – by Juan and Katsumi respectively – which will commemorate the past meeting Re-exists 2025. The Spirit connecting the peripheries which we will soon share in the digital world to continue strengthening our resistance against the evil that surrounds us today as systemic violence. This initiative has been creating a multifaceted space-time where we learn to re-exist, reinventing ourselves alongside other survivors.

And with excitement, I also imagine—along with some Dominicans who are seeking new expressions of the charism of preaching in our unprecedented context—what will emerge from our meeting on Nicaea last October in Istanbul. Situated in today's cities and villages, which are like laboratories, we seek how to communicate to humanity the joy of being inhabited by the divine and human Word that redeems us, whether rooted in the secularized world or amidst diverse spiritual traditions.

Encouraged by these vivid memories and by the ongoing work that connects with my deepest desire, I now face the challenge of "stopping" the whirlwind of efficiency, unlearning to live and think only in terms of production. It is a journey in reverse, but above all, an implosion of a dizzying desire, to return to the still center of body, desire, thought, and spirit from which it flows another mode of existence.

And then I will learn to let myself be inhabited and moved – as I discussed with my friend Juan Carlos La Puente in the heart of the pandemic (Mutual accompaniment in the divine Ruah)– because of the uncertainty as a gift and surprise of the fluttering of Life that encourages us all.

Mexico City, November 15, 2025

Note: I would appreciate your feedback at the end of this page.

November 15, 2025

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