Liberation Theology In Honduras And Padre Lupe

In reading Jim Carney, I discovered a maverick and cantankerous streak in him. He was also stubborn. These are tendencies I have seen also in myself, so perhaps these are some reasons I am a Carney admirer. Weber and Stochl have been consummate socializers, especially Weber, who was in a class by himself, smooth like silk. Carney was not a socializer. He loved the poor people of Honduras, and eventually this was all that mattered to him.

I suppose Carney became a fanatic. He gave up his United States citizenship to become a naturalized Honduran. (There are very, very few people who ever give up American citizenship.) Carney’s interpretation of Christianity convinced him that a true follower of Jesus Christ had to be a revolutionary in the Honduran and Central American context in which he found himself as a Jesuit missionary.

Earlier this week, I was looking over a couple chapters of Carney’s book. I saw mention of John Waters and John Willmering as working in Honduras during Carney’s sojourn in the 1970s. Waters and Willmering were Jesuit scholastics at SJC during my time (1959-1965), but these two could never have carried Carney’s cross. They were nice guys. To put it bluntly, they were not man enough to do what Jim Carney did. Few of us are. If you can’t get a copy of Jim Carney’s book, you can “Google” him and get a sense of the man. Carney took the first name “Guadalupe” as part of his Honduran metamorphosis, so you can find him as James Carney, Jim Carney, or Guadalupe Carney.

Link (here) to the full article from Belize News

Blogger Note: Fr. James Carney died in Honduras September 20, 1983 while participating in a 99 man guerrilla military operation in Honduras.