It is difficult for anyone to say with certainty what Jesus was. The portrait painted of him in the gospels was written forty to seventy years after his earthly life had come to an end. By that time Jesus had been wrapped inside both the Jewish Scriptures and the liturgy of the synagogue which meant they interpreted him in terms of Jewish images and Jewish expectations.
The clear impression conveyed by the gospel writers, however, is that Jesus, following in the prophetic tradition in which his life was rooted, took his stand alongside the poor, the marginalized and the dispossessed. He is portrayed as touching the leper, protecting the woman taken in adultery, talking to a woman by the well publicly, welcoming children, extolling the virtues of the Samaritans and as saying “Go into all the world,” thus sending his disciples beyond their tribal limits into a place inhabited by those who spoke differently, worshipped differently and were defined as unclean Gentiles. Jesus was remembered by the gospel writers as a barrier breaker.
It is worth noting also that Jesus clearly drew his disciples from the ranks of the peasant class, not from people of means or status. The gospel writers interpreted his message as one connected to the words of the prophet we call Isaiah II which called him to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the broken hearted, to give deliverance to captives, sight to the blind and to set at liberty them that are bound.
Pope Benedict XVI and his predecessor John Paul II have consistently put themselves on the side of the aristocracy, the landowners and the well-to-do in Latin America. Local Roman Catholics like Leonardo Boff and Bishop Romero, in contradistinction, put themselves on the side of the poor and dispossessed. Bishop Romero was murdered. Leonardo Boff was laicized.
The issue is not so much whether Jesus was a social revolutionary or not, the real issue is why Benedict XVI is not.
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