Fernando Castillo

Fernando Castillo (born 1943 in Santiago de Chile , † October 22, 1997 in Paine ) was a Chilean Roman Catholic theologian and sociologist . He is considered a liberation theologian and primarily dealt with the misery of the poor and human rights violations in Chile .

Live and act

Castillo was the oldest of nine siblings who lived in a colonial house in Santiago with their father, a lawyer, and his mother, a cook. In 1962 he began studying engineering at the University of Chile . He broke this off shortly afterwards because he did not want to lead a life in a suit and an office. He turned to Catholic theology. At the same time as the opening of the Second Vatican Council , he entered the seminary in order to “lead a truly free life”. After completing his studies, he resigned from the seminary for the same reason - his mind was constrained. He practiced as a professional theologian, as a lecturer at the Catholic University of Chile. Waymarks Fernando Castillos was an orientation towards the " signs of the times " and the opening of the Church through the Second Vatican Council.

In 1971 a conference was held in Chile to discuss the position of the Chilean Catholic Church on Chilean politics. Most of the priests were in favor of socialism . The church now became aware of the abuses that prevailed in the country - the workers were oppressed and exploited by the ruling classes, which was expressed in dependence and underdevelopment. Castillo played an important role by organizing base communities , starting from Santiago. He was a thorn in the side of the higher circles of the Chilean Church, who were indifferent to the situation of the workers. His commitment, which was characterized by serving the people and the poor, was a first public form of resistance against the dictatorship and against the system. He concretized the “people's way of the cross”, which materialized through terrible poverty and prevailing human rights violations by the dictatorship and even the church. He took the mandate of Vatican II very seriously and researched the meaning of the signs of the times, as well as the new interpretation of them in the light of the Gospel. “Precisely because the truth of the gospel is inextricably interwoven with the demands of the times, the church must change - in order to remain true to herself. The new grows out of a return to the real ”. He viewed the history of the poor and grassroots communities as the result of historical processes and class conflicts . The system denied the poor and workers a place by their side, as well as a say. Castillo opened the eyes of many Christians who previously only lived as a silent Christian mass in Chile. This radicalization made Christians understand that solidarity with the poor had to take appropriate political forms. Soon he had gathered a crowd of believers behind him and helped the poor and the persecuted. They took sides and took part in their struggle.

In 1973 the Chilean military put General Augusto Pinochet to power. The organization Christians for Socialism from then on had to act underground and partly dissolved. The dictatorship and the official church did not tolerate Fernando Castillo's modern ideas in their system and forced him to emigrate. He went to Germany and completed his doctorate under Johann Baptist Metz , whom he assisted as an assistant and friend. He also completed postgraduate studies in sociology in England. He worked in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and gave guest lectures, lectures and seminars in Münster, Freiburg and Vienna.

In 1980 Castillo returned to Chile, although the official church had informed him that he was not welcome. He again organized the resistance with the base communities and highlighted the “crossroads of the people” through demonstrations and protests against Pinochet's dictatorship.

After the democratization of Chile (from around 1988) he was pushed to the margins of society and was no longer very active. He spent his final years in Paine and died there on October 22, 1997 of a heart condition.

Teaching and practice

Theology of the Workers

Fernando Castillo represented a liberation theology he called theology of work. In his work the dignity of the human being is shown for him , because in doing so he is doing justice to the image of God. The history of God with man is revealed in work. In the activity of work, human beings do justice to their very own being, in that through them they participate in the work of the Creator and thus attain their dignity. Likewise, man's self-realization results from work and in this man comes to his calling to be the image of God.

This type of theology is not an abstract quantity, but always relates to concrete people - people are the subject of work. Thus there can be no theology of work "in itself", but it is always about the theology of the working person. Hence one could speak of a theology of the worker.

The historical dimension and the experience of the lack of work pervade the Bible and can be found in the same way today. The term work mostly does not have the positive connotation of self-actualization, which corresponds to today's experience, so Castillo, but is characterized by hardship. On the other hand, the lack of work or the oppression with work is a painful experience, which is already presented in the book of Exodus . Likewise, the prophets Isaiah , Amos and Micah speak out against oppression and a privileged upper class, because this would contradict the meaning of the work through which man as originator and subject of his own history should participate in the work of the Creator. Along with the loss of the meaning of work is the loss of identity, which represents one of the greatest threats, since it results in the loss of value and dignity. This representation would correspond entirely to the reality today, in which the proclamation of the kingdom becomes "selective" in view of a humanity divided between the powerful and the weak .

It is the task of the church to take a stand in solidarity with the workers within this historical process. Castillo formulates: The church "stands up [...] vigorously" for the cause of the workers and must act as the voice and defense of the workers. One aspect of this is that the church supports the workers in their right to unite in autonomous organizations that fight for social justice. Castillo writes that the evil "of unemployment and the disregard of the right to a fair wage [...] especially the solidarity of the church with the labor movement" requires. Because the right to work and the right of workers have the status of a human right . Solidarity support also means that the church must live up to its prophetic mission and should work for a unity of work organizations. Part of this prophetic commission is also to keep alive the thought that being a worker is both a value and a dignity.

Relationship between theology and social science

Castillo referred in his theological and political reflections and in his practice to the co-founder of the theology of liberation Gustavo Gutierrez . According to Castillo, the social movements characterize and differ from one another on various points: On the one hand, this is their own goal, which can be based on power relations and everyday structures. In addition, it continues to develop in combat and is always redefined. On the other hand, every social movement is shaped by its own temporality. And as a third point, it has its own character, which results from the conflict and the region. However, according to Castillo, "the transformative potential of the new social movement [...] must not be understood politically, but socio-culturally" because the focus is on social changes. The movement's connection to liberation theology should be seen on the part of the movement in such a way that Christians initiated it, or at least participated. On the part of theology, the relationship resulted in a change and redefinition of the concept of liberation. On closer inspection, however, the connection is only possible through the subjects, because the base communities create the background on which the encounter between the social movement and Christian initiatives can take place, so the movement cannot be adequately understood without the Christian background. On the other hand, the development towards popular Christianity in the base church is difficult to understand without the social movement. The grassroots community also supports the social movement because it not only makes demands, but also creates facts such as freedom, human dignity, participation and democratic conditions in its own structure.

The concept of modernization , which is used by the social sciences in Latin America and which is often negative, also offers opportunities for Latin America, in which Christianity has the opportunity to help shape. Castillo shows that modernization in the economy affects many areas such as production, economic relations, financial apparatus and management style, but that it also goes hand in hand with globalization and modernization of the communication media. In the course of this modernization, the question of the or a Latin American identity is in the room and who has shaped it, or is allowed to shape it. Is this identity an indigenous one and what role does the Catholic religion play, which established itself with the arrival of Europeans in Latin America? Liberation theology subjects history and evangelization to a critical view. It should be noted that the identity is reformulated again and again and thus Christianity does not take on a fixed (negative) role towards it. The modernization has a liberating character insofar as a revolution can take place, in that all groups can actively and creatively contribute to the "new" identity. A reactivation of a Christian (or even an indigenous) culture is not possible here, but the Christian religion simply has to offer a space in which the subject of culture and modernization can be addressed so that a reorganization can take place there.

Fonts

• Christianity and Inculturation in Latin America . In: Concilium 30 (1994), pp. 51-60.
• The gospel does not allow resignation. Experiences and impulses from the basic church in Chile , Freiburg / Switzerland 1988.
• as Ed .: The Church of the Poor in Latin America. A theological introduction , Freiburg / Switzerland 1987.
• Evangelism in Latin America . In: Concilium 14 (1978), pp. 257-261.
• Gospel, Culture and Identity. Stations and topics of a liberation theological discourse . Published by Kuno Füssel , Michael Ramminger, Luzern 2000. ISBN 978-3-905577-31-0
• with Heinrich Fries , Elmar Klinger a. a. (Ed.): Challenge. The Third World and the Christians of Europe , Regensburg 1980.
• Theology from the Practice of the People. Recent studies on the Latin American theology of liberation , Munich - Mainz 1978.
• Theses on the relationship between church and people . In: Karl Rahner u. a. (Ed.): Volksreligion - Religion des Volkes , Stuttgart 1979, pp. 83-87.

Web links

• Literature by and about Fernando Castillo in the bibliographic database WorldCat
• Literature by and about Fernando Castillo in the catalog of the German National Library