Tag: liberating spirituality

JobeLab | San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas | 2026

JobeLab An initiative of critical thinking and diverse spiritualities from San Cristóbal de Las Casas

By Carlos Mendoza Álvarez

From the second half of the 20th century, Chiapas became a laboratory of new ways of inhabiting and thinking about the world, with the creative confluence of important social, political, cultural and spiritual processes.

Among them, dynamism stands out synodal (or shared path by all the believing people with their diversity of ministries) of six decades, implemented by the Diocese of San Cristóbal de Las Casas with jTatik Samuel Ruiz as pastor walker And hundreds of local, regional, and international communities and groups, convened for justice and peace for the Indigenous peoples and other communities of this region of Chiapas. In an astonishing confluence of paths, the Indigenous Congress of 1974 marked the beginning of the public presence of Indigenous peoples with their own voice. Indigenous, mestizo, and international social and cultural movements also emerged, with research projects on the rich Mayan heritage, both ancient and modern, developed by teams of social anthropologists, archaeologists, and linguisticists. Waves of researchers arrived from Latin America, the United States, and Europe, and, with an academic model still largely based on extractive practices, made significant discoveries in the social sciences and humanities. The translation of the Bible into Mayan languages, initially promoted by the Summer School of Bible as part of a U.S. interventionist plan, evolved into intercultural dialogue, continued to this day by various Christian churches, including the Roman Catholic Church. Finally, the Zapatista movement, with its armed and media-driven uprising of 1994, became the watershed moment of a social, political, and cultural insurrection that continues to this day as one of the most radical critiques of the hegemonic system of the multi-headed capitalist hydra, including patriarchy and colonialism.

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The “San Cristóbal School” is a name proposed decades ago by Pablo Romo and others in academia and the arts to evoke the legacy of critical thought, resistance, and spirituality that emerged in Chiapas, as a counterpart to the Cuernavaca School, analyzed by Humberto Beck. In their connections and differences, both represent significant contributions to critical thought that arose in Mexico during the last century.

In this way, recognizing the individuals, groups, organizations, and initiatives of civil society that have been an active part of these processes, as a collective inspired by them, with JobeLab -apocope of Jobel which is the Tsotsil name of San Cristóbal de Las Casas and laboratory To designate this city as a laboratory, we seek to give continuity to such a legacy in a new context, focusing on critical thinking and the spiritualities that have sustained them, such as those of the native peoples, Catholic Christianity, and more recently Buddhism and Islam.

Through the initiative JobeLab. Ongoing dialogues and mutual support for re-existences We will continue to cultivate this heritage in the new scenario of the civilizational crisis that humanity faces in the second quarter of the 21st century, where peaceful coexistence between nations and the balance of planet Earth are at risk and call us to promote processes of resistance and re-existence.

We will nurture this initiative based on two inspiring attitudes that are, at the same time, transversal axes of the talks, meetings and festivals that we will organize in various spaces of the city: hospitality and commensality.

The hospitality It is one of the human gestures that most powerfully expresses our shared human condition, that is, our way of becoming individuals and communities as beings in relation to one another. This radical attitude of openness to otherness is a fundamental ethical and political act, where the religions and spiritualities of humanity celebrate a glimpse of divinity.

The commensality, Like the other side of the moon, it is the nourishing soil where we receive the otherness of Mother Earth, of other humans who become our neighbors, and of Divinity, through food and drink created by the unique genius of each people. We celebrate this gift as an inclusive banquet where Divine Sophia prepares a table for all nations and creatures of the cosmos.

Together with Carmen Reyes and Ricardo Hernández, Angélica Evangelista and Abraham Mena, I am enthusiastically participating in this project, drawing on the Dominican tradition of life and thought. In these exchanges, we seek to discover new expressions of the divine and human Word as a creative fire that redeems, animates, and shelters us in our present circumstances. times of hardship as a human species that puts itself and the Common Home at risk, leading us to the precipice of annihilation.

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This week two events will be the formal presentation of JobeLab, after the first event where the initiative germinated, on January 28, with a presentation on Gaza and Chiapas at the Charity temple in the city of San Cristóbal de Las Casas.

On Wednesday, March 25th at 5:30 pm, we will hold the discussion “The School of San Cristóbal,” with the participation of Pablo Romo, who was one of the key figures in the diocesan process of promoting human rights, paving the way for the creation of the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center. Martha Elena Welsh, choreographer who animates in Xitla House In Mexico City, workshops were held to support people in situations of extreme vulnerability, facing various forms of violence. And Juan Carlos La Puente, a Peruvian with extensive international experience in providing spiritual support to human rights defenders, has been developing a methodology for this purpose from his base in Oregon, USA. permanent discernment as a path of body for people and communities in re-existence.

And then, on Friday, March 27th at 5 p.m., we will explore another facet of re-existence: forgiveness as a path to reconciliation in contexts of violence. With the Muslim community of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, represented by Shaykh Yahya Rhodus and Shaykh Mudar Abudlghani, we will discuss forgiveness in Christian and Muslim traditions as a common path to peace, at a critical moment of violence in the Middle East. And we will do so accompanied by the extraordinary music and song of Nader Khan, a Canadian Sufi artist.

We invite you to be a part of JobeLab From wherever we may be, whether attending talks and meetings, or imagining and creating similar spaces where we can come together and flourish as individuals and communities in resistance and re-existence, going beyond the spiral of violence that surrounds us, towards a world another world of hospitality and commensality.

Jobel, March 23, 2026

March 23, 2026
Lolo Góngora | Women on the Front Lines | Santiago, Chile, 2020

Feminist theology as resistance to clericalism and reinvention of the Church On the voices and knowledge of women survivors of abuse

By Carlos Mendoza Álvarez

Yesterday I participated in the brilliant doctoral thesis defense of María Soledad Del Villar Tagle, a Chilean feminist thinker and activist, for the award of her PhD in the Department of Theology of Boston College,, after six years of mentoring as a thesis director, along with three outstanding colleagues of international renown: Lisa Cahil, Margaret Guider and Nancy Pineda-Madrid.

With this act I concluded my academic commitments with that American university, where I was fortunate to weave networks of critical thinking with some colleagues, especially doctoral students who are now professors at various universities around the world such as Laurel Potter, Valentina Nilo, Amirah Orozco and Maddie Jarrett, who represent the new voices of feminist theologies, queer, Latinx and disability, with a seal decolonial in their research.

Sole's thesis topic, as her colleagues affectionately call her, was inherently complex because it touches on an open wound in the Roman Catholic Church: justice for women survivors of sexual abuse committed by clergy in recent decades, particularly in Chile. Unfortunately, sexual abuse by clergy—against adult women and mostly male minors—is a phenomenon spreading like a silent cancer in other local churches around the world, where civil and ecclesiastical commissions have been established, especially in France, Australia, Canada, and the United States. In Mexico, unfortunately, the strength of the patriarchal pact It persists. The systemic practice of sexual and moral abuse is frequently associated with male leadership as an instrument of power in other religions as well, forming a patriarchal system with clerical religious justification, as analyzed by Kochurani Abraham in India.

And to make matters worse, sexual and moral abuse against women and vulnerable people has persisted for millennia in various institutions such as schools and the military, not to mention families, where men with toxic masculinity practices impose perverse forms of control over the bodies, minds, and desires of women and vulnerable people.

Below, I share some of my reflections that I proposed yesterday to open the dialogue with Sole in her thesis defense, which, virtually bringing together people from the North and South, created a community of listening, excited to receive the harvest of a living feminist theological thought.

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It is a pleasure to welcome you to the thesis defense of María Soledad del Villar Tagle, which crowns a research of profound significance and long academic work that contributes to Latin American feminist theology and its connections in other cultural contexts.

It is also an honor to preside as Advisor This academic act together with the admired colleagues Lisa Cahil, Margaret Guider and Nancy Pineda-Madrid, who make up the Academic Committee that has accompanied with a critical reading the thesis of María Soledad Del Villar Tagle, providing her with important elements to refine the argument, methodology and the theological implications of the thesis.

The title of the dissertation is in itself eloquent and challenging: “The Sexual Abuse Crisis in the Chilean Catholic Church: Feminist Theological Reflections for Survivors and for a Wounded Church.” The candidate confronts us with a debt of epistemic justice This research focuses on adult women survivors of sexual abuse perpetrated by clergy in the Roman Catholic Church in Chile in recent decades. It is an interdisciplinary study that combines qualitative research methodology within the theoretical framework of contemporary feminism and trauma studies. Through both lenses, it is possible to analyze the reality of these women survivors in its multifaceted complexity, as well as to consider the implications for the process of personal and communal healing. A crucial part of the thesis argument is the implications for an ecclesiology that addresses the causes of gender-based violence in the Church and its relationship to clericalism as an ideology of patriarchal power that persists in this ancient institution.

For my part, I want to begin this dialogue with you, Sole, by recalling three moments from your shared seven-year research process. Inspiring moments that, in my opinion, lie “behind the scenes” of your theological work.

The first instance was our meeting in Leuven, during the 2019 Congress on Systematic Theology, where you first told me about your nascent research project. Even then, your Latin American and feminist approach was opening up to questions that extended to other contexts and subjectivities experiencing diverse forms of violence, beginning with women, but also connecting with other subjectivities such as migrants, LGBTQ+ communities, and people with disabilities. We explored this together in the undergraduate course "God, the Person, and Society," where you collaborated as a teaching assistant upon my arrival in BC during the harsh winter of 2021, in the midst of the pandemic. That thread of violence against vulnerable people remains present in the fabric of your dissertation.

The second moment was the meeting with the Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs) of El Salvador, to which Laurel Potter invited us. This meeting served as a moment to verify the results of her dissertation research on the ecclesiology of the BECs as a narrative theology of liberation, with its altars, memorials, and Sunday celebrations. In that colloquium, enriched by the visit to the site of Archbishop Romero's martyrdom, you emphasized your experience with the women's communities in Chile that embraced the see-think-act as part of their journey of following Jesus. Processes that connect you with your Chilean ancestors in the construction of a another world, Beyond patriarchy, like Gabriela Mistral and Violeta Parra in times of liberation, or Elizabeth Lira and the social workers of the Vicariate of Solidarity during the Chilean dictatorship. Another precious thread in your theological tapestry is this communal fabric of women's experience and their way of embodiment redemption through care practices through which they creatively confront the pedagogy of cruelty produced by the mandate of masculinity analyzed by Rita Segato.

The third moment I want to evoke today was the festival encounter It re-exists. The Spirit crossing peripheries, held in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2023. In particular, I want to recall here the clay workshop led by the ITESO student LGBTQ+ collective. We went guests to mold the reproductive organs with plasticine to then talk about our own relationship with our bodies. Then you were pregnant with Manuel and you molded your belly with the embryo inside using plasticine. The most surprising thing that afternoon was your dialogue with the Searching Mothers who mourn the absence of their children in Mexico. children. They connected with you powerfully, and you with them, through the presence—or absence—of their own motherhood experiences. Mutual care as sisterhood This translated into a memorable moment as an experience of bodies in resistance and re-existence. There I discover another precious thread in the loom of your thesis.

With these reflections in mind, I would like to ask you to explain more clearly two elements of your thesis that are already mentioned in the last chapter, but which will undoubtedly be part of future research: What is the spirituality of resistance among abused women and survivors that not only empowers them but also allows them to connect with other subjectivities in resistance? What rituals of sisterhood Can they connect with other collectives in resistance as an expression of the Church as the wounded body of Christ in the process of resurrection?

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And then a rich dialogue ensued about the practices through which women survivors imagine and create another possible world: rituals of sisterhood, the reinterpretation of Christian sacramental celebrations by returning to their symbolic and ethical source, as well as the connection with ancestral spiritualities that keep alive the sacramentality of Mother Earth as a gift from Divinity, and many more practices.

These questions remain open for future research. I have no doubt that feminist theology is still relevant today with a new generation of thinkers, proposing critical thought such as that of María Soledad Del Villar Tagle, thus contributing to building new expressions of a post-patriarchal Christianity as a fulfilled promise of life for everyone.

At the conclusion of the defense, the Committee unanimously approved the brilliant thesis, recommending its publication in Spanish to return to the survivors and their collectives the knowledge gained, as well as some articles or monographs in English on the topics that intersect in this interdisciplinary fabric, such as feminism, trauma and the spiritualities of the survivors.

Those who wish to see Sole's publications can find them here: https://psiucv.academia.edu/Mar%C3%ADaSoledadDelVillarTagle

Boston – San Cristóbal de Las Casas – Valparaíso, March 13, 2026

March 14, 2026
Gabriela Soriano | Underground Memories | San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas | 2026

Peace as a path to messianic insurrection About the Frayba Agenda 2026 Underground Memories

By Carlos Mendoza Álvarez

Last Wednesday, the presentation of the fifteenth edition of the Frayba Agenda Titled “Underground Memories,” it was prepared by the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center in Chiapas. This annual publication, since 2011, preserves the living memory of the actions carried out in the promotion and defense of the human rights of the indigenous peoples of Chiapas, as well as of people in forced migration and refugees, who have been supported by this civil society organization over several decades. Frayba -as this organization is affectionately called- was born inspired by the winds of conciliar renewal of the diocese of San Cristóbal de Las Casas and the social processes that emerged as an expression of the indigenous movement of the second half of the twentieth century.

Three articles reflecting on the local, regional, and national context—by Jorge Santiago, founder of several ecclesial and civil organizations, Susana Montes de la Commission for Support of Community Reconciliation (Coreco) and an interview with Carlos González, a member of the Coordination of National Indigenous Congress of Government Created by Pedro Faro, these are accompanied by a valuable graphic record of the key moments of three decades of peacebuilding in Chiapas. The editorial design and illustrations by Gabriela Soriano Segoviano reflect, with beautiful strokes of contemporary folk art, the connections of the underground memories of resistance that inspire the indigenous peoples of today, as well as civil society and the churches that walk with them.

Below, I transcribe my participation in the round table discussion, on that rainy afternoon in San Cristóbal de Las Casas.

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“There is no path to peace, peace is the path”

Mahatma Gandhi

This year we are commemorating three decades of peacebuilding in Chiapas: Frayba, Coreco, Sipaz, the National Indigenous Congress, the Zapatista Movement, the San Andrés Accords, and many other initiatives of civil society, churches, and social movements. These networks emerged from the fertile soil of Chiapas, prepared more than six decades ago by the pastoral plan of the Diocese of San Cristóbal with the arrival of Bishop [name missing]. jTatik Samuel Ruiz, who, after an arduous and patient conversation and journey with the native peoples, led to the birth of an indigenous Church.

A decade later, the Indigenous Congress of 1974 fostered the emergence of a collective consciousness among Indigenous peoples as historical subjects. And finally, the rise of the Zapatista movement, with its support bases and militias, proposed a different way of living and creating the political sphere as a shared endeavor. All these processes were accompanied by a vibrant and creative current of critical thought, which arose in the Highlands of Chiapas and the canyons of the Lacandon Jungle throughout the second half of the 20th century.

The San Cristóbal School, so named by Pablo Romo, along with the Cuernavaca School, analyzed by Humberto Bech, have been, in my opinion, the two main Mexican contributions to critical thought in the second half of the 20th century. Both provide us today with a precise direction for confronting with clarity the growing spiral of systemic violence that, with the Puerto Rican decolonial thinker Nelson Maldonado-Torres, we call here the Great Catastropheand.

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Jorge Santiago's reflection on the Frayba Agenda 2026. Underground Memories The work we present today rightly underscores the centrality of the San Andrés Accords as a crucible of decades of struggle for peace with justice and dignity. The thinker from San Cristóbal points out that the historical demands of Indigenous peoples remain relevant, and that the Mexican state still owes a debt for honoring these historic accords.

Two pastoral letters from jTatik Samuel Ruiz and Don Raúl Vera prepared the celebration of the Third Diocesan Synod, which took place from 1995 to 1999. This process allowed the diocese to reap the harvest of half a century of pastoral life and thus give a clear path of synodality to the life and commitments of this diocese. Both letters arose in a context of uncertainty due to the animosity and conflict on the part of Vatican authorities of that time, fueled by the Club of Rome, or a group of Mexican bishops who were declared enemies of liberation theology in Mexico and Latin America.

The first pastoral letter So that justice and peace may meet (1996) is an ecclesial response to the armed uprising of 1994. It reflects the struggle for land by indigenous peoples, as well as the commitment to justice and peace made by this diocese, following the impetus of the Second Vatican Council and the Second General Conference of Latin American Bishops in Medellín. The second pastoral letter From pain to hope, The agreement, signed by both bishops in 1998, after the Acteal massacre, is a commitment to hope amid the pain of the survivors and a pledge to continue seeking peace with justice and dignity.

The Vatican's violence against this pastoral project would later be unleashed against Don Raúl Vera, who was transferred to the Diocese of Saltillo on December 30, 1999, in a failed attempt to dismantle the synodal process. What his detractors never imagined was that this perverse decision would become the opportunity to sow the seeds of a liberating Church, now in lands of mining extraction and gender violence, which Don Raúl would embrace with fidelity to his mission as a pastor in those desert lands of northern Mexico.

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Finally, I would like to make two final comments to continue the conversation.

The challenges of moving forward, after three decades of peacebuilding, are now unprecedented, as we find ourselves in the uncertain moment of civilizational collapse. A commitment to justice for Indigenous peoples is no longer enough; it is essential to integrate other forms of justice, such as gender justice (sexual diversity) and ecological justice, to understand the rebellions. transmodern that build individuals and collectives of survivors in contexts of global violence. The historical strength of the poor, which the first generation of liberation theology envisioned, is giving way to the unsubmissive reason of social and ecclesial movements that are already weaving networks of mutual support, dignity, resistance and diverse re-existences.

It is also time to reformulate the theoretical framework for thinking about systemic violence. Liberation theology requires a radicalization that arises from dialogue with decolonial thought and theory. queer/cuir /queer and intersectionality to continue supporting peace processes, transitional justice, and diverse spiritualities of life that face the ongoing Great Catastrophe.

Let us not forget that it is our task to honor the legacy of the ancestors of the liberating Church, but from the new subjectivities, bodies and territories in resistance, with the fruits of thought, art and spirituality that emerge as messianic insurrections anticipating other worlds, of dignity and life for everyone.

The spirituality of messianic time is an interruption of the linear time of that Chronos that devours its children on altars of bloody sacrifices. Such a messianic force arises as an insurrection. peaceful In the face of systemic violence, that is, as a break from the vicious cycle of rivalry and violence, to establish processes of mutual recognition, beyond the violence that produces poverty, exclusion, and subjugation to hegemonic powers. It is a spirituality of life in the midst of death. Another time that (in)emerges as an anticipation of other possible worlds from the survivors of yesterday and today.

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Next Wednesday, March 25, at 6 p.m., we will continue our discussion on critical thinking emerging from Chiapas, with reflections by Pablo Romo on the San Cristóbal School and experiences of a spirituality of mutual support amidst violence, presented by our friend and Peruvian colleague Juan Carlos La Puente. Both reflections will be followed by a dance performance by Martha Elena Welsh.

See you at the restaurant Belil, in the historic center of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, where with Ricardo and Carmen as hosts, along with Angélica and Abraham, we will continue opening dining spaces, where resistances and spiritualities emerge as a commitment to permanent dialogue and mutual support in the care of life.

San Cristóbal de Las Casas, March 7, 2026

March 7, 2026

English