Title: On Christian Dogma-an Interview with Josefina Chacin Ducharne
Description: I conducted the interview as a Theologian (with a Licentiate
in Theology from Rome) and as a searching University
Professor, with the intention of clearing up for myself, and for
the interested public, the extent to which the Message
coincides with or differs from the tradition of the Roman
Catholic teaching.
The questions are bold and straightforward.
The opinions of Josefina Chacín emerge slowly but surely.
She speaks like a person who “sees,” who intuits, whose
answers spring from the life she leads. Without institutional
ties and with a remarkable freedom of spirit, she underlines
her answers with indirect citations from Scripture and with an
incredible quality of authenticity. She sets to thinking even
the oldest veterans in Theology. She ventures to speak out
where others dare not. At times she’s within the scope of
orthodoxy, but at times she strolls outside of it.
From question twenty-three on, an attempt was made to
probe into the more personal, daring and ticklish questions:
the Scriptures, the Devil, the Kingdom of God, reincarnation,
the Jews, faith, and the use of reason. These are the thorniest
questions of all. It was necessary to ask Josefina what her
thinking was on all this. The defining of her stance with
respect to what the Catholic Church traditionally accepts is of
importance to the reading public.
The answers of Señorita Josefina Chacín Ducharne seem
explicit and clear to me. Some I find novel, others bold, still
others revolutionary.
At any rate, I find that they are answers of one who expertly
handles the theological categories and places them under the
fire of a personal experience, which is of an individual
“enlightenment” or “manifestation” type.
My impression is that we’re dealing here with a matter of
a “personal revelation” that could enhance what is accepted
in Christianity. Thus a discussion forum opens up for theologians
and guardians of the Deposit of Faith.
It could be that this is the time for revising, enriching, and
revitalizing a part of Christian Dogma in order to make it
more universal, more ecumenical and more dynamic.
CELSO RIVAS BALBOA
February, 1987