From Associated Press:
Brazil Indigenous Groups Slam Pope for Saying They Were ‘Silently Longing’ to Be Christians
By VIVIAN SEQUERA
Associated Press WriterSAO PAULO, Brazil — Indian rights groups are criticizing Pope Benedict XVI for insisting that Latin American Indians wanted to become Christian before European conquerors arrived centuries ago.
The pope said Sunday that pre-Columbian people of Latin America and the Caribbean were seeking Christ without realizing it.
“Christ is the savior for whom they were silently longing,” Benedict told a regional conference of bishops in Brazil.
But Paulo Suess, an adviser to Brazil’s Indian Missionary Council, said Monday that the comments fail to account for the fact that Indians were enslaved and killed by the Portuguese and Spanish settlers who forced them to become Catholic.
Benedict “is a good theologian, but it seems he missed some history classes,” said Suess, whose council is supported by the Roman Catholic Church.
See also here.
POPE Francis visited inmates at Bolivia’s Palmasola prison yesterday after apologising for his church’s “crimes” against indigenous people on Thursday. Speaking at the second Social World Meeting of Social and People’s Movements, he said: “I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offences of the church herself but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America”: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
Latin America at the Crossroads
Domination, Crisis, Popular Movements & Political Alternatives
By Roberto Regalado
Latin America at the Crossroads – Domination, Crisis, Popular Movements & Political Alternatives, By Roberto Regalado
As the U.S. intensifies aggression against Latin America, Roberto Regalado provides an incisive analysis of the issues underlying the conflict.
With remarkable clarity and breadth, Regalado describes a resurgent Latin America struggling anew to break free from its history of domination and exploitation, explaining how the recent strengthening of popular movements—from the water struggles in Bolivia to the landless movement in Brazil—has led to the strategic and tactical redefinition of left political parties and social movements and a revisiting of the perennial question: reform or revolution?
This up-to-the-moment book considers the significance of recent events in Latin America including coca farmer Evo Morales’s electoral victory in Bolivia and escalating conflict between Venezuela’s President Chávez and Washington.
Roberto Regalado has worked in the Americas Department of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party since 1971, and served as a diplomat in the United States and Nicaragua. Regalado was a founding member of the São Paolo Forum. `He has been one of Cuba’s most prominent researchers and commentators on Latin American politics for more than three decades.
Soft cover, 263pp, Notes, Bibliography
See here.
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