Customer Reviews

Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor (Ecology & Justice Series)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Saint Francis most spoke and lived, based on the Gospel mandates, in intimate connection with Nature and with the poor. Through close and systematic reflection on his Franciscan spirituality, this holy and internationally influential Franciscan Friar, Father Leonardo Boff, here draws these threads together, teaching us how the suffering of the earth is also the suffering of the poor and the suffering of each one of us.

Through hearing the earth cry we are liberated to a new appreciation of our Faith, and of our call to action, in this case on behalf of the poor and the indigeous people who are further dispossessed through the destruction of the Amazonian environment.

In fact, near the end of his exhortation The Sacrament of Charity: Sacramentum Caritatis, Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI cries out for us to follow our Euicharistic compulsion to alter those economic structures which leave the poor dispossessed and the cosmic Creation destroyed.

This excellent ecological, economic and theological treatise first found publication by the great Catholic printing house Orbis Books in its Ecology and Justice Series ten years ago and now achieves its tenth printing. This indicates that the total number of volumes published by now reaches the six digits. Those volumes then fill seminary libraries, parish libraries, personal libraries and are resold through services such as amazon, bringing the total number of readers to a whole new magnitude. How many works of modern theology reach and inspire so many voluntary and eager readers?

The principles and applications developed here by the great Catholic Theologian Leonardo Boff do not age but only grow more urgent. Perhaps this book is best received within a Catholic college with a professor capable of guiding students to comprehension and action; alone the reader armed with only prior paradigms may grow as lost as I would in the former Brazilian rain forest.

Nevertheless this caveat should not discourage anyone from purchasing and studying very carefully this excellent and systematic study presented with Father Boff's consistent academic and compassionate style, speaking fomr both the large heart and keen intellect which God and the finest scholastic theological training gave him.

Please see the vast body of Father Boff's work, including recently his beautiful meditations on our basic prayers: Praying With Jesus And Mary: Our Father, Hail Mary and Lord Is My Shepherd: Divine Consolation in Times of Abandonment.

But please do not forget this profound and systematic work as well, now so readily available here upon the amazon. In fact it is most meaningful to purchase such a work which treats of the devastation of the Amazon basin here upon this very source!

Leonardo Boff, the brazilian priest who tried to change those old catholic dogmas describes how human is finishin animal and vegetal life all over the world in the name of welfare.

A book that will make us undeerstand how blind we all are.

Funny how inveterate marxists are know hiding their hatred for liberal democracy and market oriented societies behind the "defence of Mother Nature" ideology. Well, it would be a bit hard to defend Cuba (as a matter of fact, Boff idolizes Fidel and his hacienda) or North Korea and sell books... but this is not the reason of my sole star for the ultra-leftist bourgeois Leonardo Boff (could I give less than one?). The fact is that the author and his texts are boring as Hell. His books - and this one in particular - are as cliché ridden as a book can be. Even a good translator cannot make it better or at least a bit more interesting to an intelligent reader. On the other hand, there shoundn't be many intelingent readers interested in this kind of book.