It has been interesting to note that we here in the United States talk a lot about fixing the ills of our society and yet do little to change the way we treat poverty, immigrants, work, women and children.  We send children to schools where the emphasis is upon keeping things as they are, give lip service to the call for equality of women and build high rise luxury towers built by foreign labor and keep them and the unlucky poor.

We do not have liberation theology here in the United States.  We have had a fight to establish better conditions by labor unions but they have been battered down while the National Association of Manufacturers has created a theology with their leaders as the new bishops and cardinals of the religion of wealth.  Things took a different turn in South America where “Liberation Theology” found adherents and ominous changes towards Marxism that scared much of the establishment especially in Cuba and Venezuela.  Rumblings of change also made the Catholic Church and its hierarchy take notice and you will notice that Pope Benedict has indicated the importance of Latin America to the Catholic Church.  Once a stronghold of Catholicism, inroads have been made by Pentecostal Protestantism or religion-free “Liberation Theology”.

The chief symbol of this Liberation Theology is the pyramid.  Much is made of the social and economic facts that only a few at the top are rewarded in this life while they sit on the mass of the poor at the bottom.  Many now seem to look at this pyramid and wonder about the middle.  The Middle Class is even in the vocabulary of the cadres of American politicians who, seeking support and votes, are stressing the things needed to be done to help the beleaguered Middle Class.  The top of the pyramid seems to be owned permanently by an anointed class while milling about at the bottom are the billions who look for surcease of their miserable existence in a form of Protestantism that speaks to them about Liberation.

Mr. Castro has created a nation devoted to Marxism and imposed rules that everyone is equally denied the benefits of capitalism and religion.  There is one rule for all and that is: following the “Lider”.  In Venezuela, sitting on a pool of oil unlike Cuba with few natural resources, Mr. Chavez is actually creating a dictatorial state where spreading the wealth appears to be the guiding principle.

What is most interesting is that Pope Benedict is in South America doing damage control while Liberation Theology is testing the strength of religion to continue domination of the power structure.  This is interesting.  Watch it.