Right from the start, in three ways, the French documentary filmmaker François-Xavier Drouet presents himself in “The Gospel of Revolution” as a child of a particular spirit of the times. Like many who were baptized, he stopped believing in God in adulthood, he explains at the outset. Like not a few others, he has exchanged him for the hope of radical political change and the dream of a more just society. And his enthusiasm for the countries of Latin America and their history of failed revolutions is not unique.
Drouet was born in 1979, the year when in Nicaragua, for the first time after Cuba in 1959, another revolution “succeeded,” as one must cautiously put in quotation marks from today’s vantage. Back then, the enthusiasm even reached the editorial offices of the newly founded , where in solidarity coffee from Nicaragua was exclusively drunk, the so‑called Sandino intoxication. It took several years for the realization to prevail that the revolutionary enthusiasm had blinded people to the fact that this wasn’t really “Fair Trade” coffee.
But in “The Gospel of Revolution” Drouet is not concerned with such disappointments. His view of the countries of South and Central America he compares to that of an archaeologist, only that instead of old stones what interests him are the remnants of former fighters. And among them he again makes a tight selection: his primary focus is on the so-called liberation theologians.
“The Gospel of Revolution“. Director: François-Xavier Drouet. France/Belgium 2024, 115 min.
Ernesto Cardenal from Nicaragua was one of the most famous among them. He was appointed Minister of Culture of the Sandinista government after the Somoza regime was ousted. Drouet shows in his film impressive footage of the pope’s visit to Managua in 1983. One sees John Paul II stride along the welcoming line; when he reaches Cardenal, who kneels to receive the anticipated blessing, the pope speaks to him angrily. No blessing is seen. The pope was angry with the liberation theologians and their closeness to Marxism.
On the Side of the Poor
According to Cardenal, liberation theology is not a theory but a way of being in the world. Its central idea: God is not neutral; he is on the side of the poor. This idea also inspires the Belgian priest Roger Ponseele, whom Drouet lets speak first in his film. He tells the anecdote of how, in the 1980s in El Salvador, he joined armed guerrillas and had to listen as two comrades behind him speculated about how soon he would have to carry his bulky body.
The archival material from the time, grainy but very colorful, shows him as a slender, tall man who clearly enjoys his authority among the fighters. As the main motivation for his move into the guerrilla camp, Ponseele cites the shock of poverty in the country. Was there perhaps a bit of revolutionary romance involved as well? Drouet does not ask.
Overall, it is a pity that he never really challenges his interlocutors. El Salvador, Brazil, Nicaragua and Mexico are the four countries in which Drouet visits clergy with revolutionary pasts and uncovers great archival material. But the indulgence in the past stands in stark contrast to the present in all four countries. Wouldn’t it be appropriate to also talk about doubts about the commitment of the past? Or about the long-term consequences?
His struggle is that of a defeated man, admits the Brazilian priest Júlio Lancellotti at the end, who still tirelessly works for the poor in São Paulo. It is, of course, a nice, heroic closing word. Especially in the case of Brazil, however, it would be more interesting to question another trend: Liberation theology has supposedly chosen the poor; today the poor are choosing the evangelicals. Why this is so, one would have liked to hear more about here.
