Madrid, 7th-9th September 2018
Towards a mysticism of open eyes, a caring heart and a politically effective love
Juan José Tamayo
General Secretary of the John XXIII Association of Female and Male Theologians and director of the “Ignacio Ellacuría” Chair of Theology and Sciences of Religions of the Carlos III University of Madrid
We inaugurate today a new (annual) Theology Congress, the 38th!, with a subject we had never treated previously : “Mysticism and Liberation”. Its celebration coincides – and this is not casual – with the centenary of the birth of Raimon Panikkar, an itinerant mystic, who knew how to combine in his life and line of thought both dimensions with an extraordinary and reconciling coherence in his personality, mystical experiences of different religions: jewish, christian, hinduist, buddhist and secular mysticism. It coincides with the 90th anniversary of female and male theologians who shone by their own merits, lived and thought mysticism not as an evasion and flight from history, but in the heart of reality with all its contradictions.
I refer to Gustavo Gutiérrez, for whom the method of Liberation Theology is spirituality, to Johan Baptist Metz, who proposes a “mysticism of open eyes”, that leads to suffering with others, to suffering with the pain of others; to Pedro Casaldàliga, who lives mysticism in the aesthetic expression of his poetry, in his engagement with the poor of the land and the defence of the rights of the indigenous and Afro-descendent communities; to Hans Küng, an example of interreligious mysticism that leads to the symmetrical dialogue of religions, spiritualities and knowledge; to Dorothee Sölle (1929-2003), who knew how to harmoniously combine in her life and her theology mysticism and feminism from a resistance standpoint.
This year is also the eightieth anniversary of the birth of Leonardo Boff, who defined male and female christians as