The Poor

 Why do the poor, the ignored, the economically abandoned in Central America cling to their Catholic faith, their church?  After all, the rich oligarchs who control the economy, are Catholic too and would prefer to not sit alongside smelly farmers, street venders and domestic workers with their dark Indian complexion.  Howard Thurman has a good take on why the poor cling to their religion. Christianity in the mind of Jesus was a technique of survival for the oppressed.  But over the years it became a religion of the powerful and the dominant.  Many slave owners of the South were Catholic.  Read “Gone With The Wind.”  Jesus preached that hypocrisy and hatred and fear need have no dominion over them, the poor, the outcast, the abandoned.  Pope Francis preaches this theme and many of these oligarchs think he is a Communist.  Convenient for them.