On Christian Dogma-an Interview with Josefina Chacin Ducharne

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