Liberation theology

Liberation theology is a Christian school of theology that developed in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, focusing on liberation of the oppressed. It was initially expressed in the Medellín documents issued at the second conference of the CELAM (Conselho Episcopal Latino Americano—Latin American Episcopal Council) in 1968. Expressed there was grass-roots activity of Catholic priests working with the poor in "base communities," using the pedagogical methods of the Brazilian educationist Paulo Freire. Liberation theology was initially developed in the works of Gustavo Gutiérrez, Juan Luis Segundo, Leonardo Boff, Jon Sobrino, Rubem Alves, and others. Liberation theology stressed "orthopraxis" over "orthodoxy," or action over belief. It was particularly controversial in the Vatican because it viewed the Catholic Church's alignment with the ruling class in Latin America as part of the problem of structural injustice. As the guardian of orthodoxy, former Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), who headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1981 to 2005, was a fierce opponent of liberation theology.

Liberation theology has been recognized within liberal Protestant circles as an important school of thought, enjoying equal standing with other contemporary schools of theology such as black theology and feminist theology. It was also well connected with the Marxist-led Sandinista government of Nicaragua in the 1980s. It also inspired many of the impoverished to create their own economically self-reliant "parallell societies." But, it has not been able to kill the religious nature of the Latin Americans in base communities

many elements of liberation theology were rejected by the Vatican, and liberation theologians quite harshly admonished by (leading to the curtailing of its growth), Pope John Paul II

Development of Liberation Theology

Roots of liberation theology

Liberation theology in Latin America is rooted in both the far and the recent past. Many liberation theologians (especially Gustavo Gutiérrez) have referred back to Bartolomé de Las Casas, a sixteenth-century Spanish priest in Central and South America, who defended the Native Americans from the cruel Spanish Conquistadors. Liberation theology is also rooted in at least three more things that were more recent: 1) the development of "political theology" by German theologians such as Jürgen Moltmann, Johann Metz, and Dorothee Sölle in the 1960s with political praxis as the starting point of theologicalcreflexioncion; 2) the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), which opened the doors to Catholic involvement in social issues; and 3) the continuous poverty in Latin America, which was perceived by many to have been caused by two elements: economic dependence imposed by European and North American capitalism; and suppression by oligarchies and harsh military regimes that cooperated with that capitalism. To address the situation of poverty in Latin America, Paulo Freire (1921-1997), a Brazilian educationist, suggested the program of "conscientization" (conscientização in Portuguese) or "consciousness raising" in his 1968 work Pedagogy of the Oppressed, teaching that the oppressed and the oppressor must liberate themselves from their "dominated-conditioned" and "dominating-conditioned" mentalities, respectively.

CELAM II

Liberation theology is usually considered to have begun with CELAM II or the MedellínConferencee in 1968. The CELAM (Conselho Episcopal Latino Americano—Latin American Episcopal Council), a council of the Roman Catholic bishops of Latin America, was originally created in 1955 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In 1968, the CELAM had its second conference in Medellín, Columbia for the purpose of applying Vatican II's program of pastoral reform and renewal specifically to the Latin American situation. The program was based on Vatican II's "Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the World." CELAM II condemned extreme inequality among the social classes, unjust use of power, what it called "institutionalized violencexploitativetive trade policies, and the Church's alliance with the ruling class. It aso decided that the call to "liberation" is integral to the mission of the Church. Gustavo Gutiérrez (1928- ), a Peruvian Dominican priest and theology professor, served as a member of the theological advisory team at CELAM II to play a key role in drafting its most radical documents, one entitled "Peace," another "Justice."

Gustavo Gutiérrez' Teología de la liberacíon

In 1971, Gutiérrez published Teología de la liberacíon (A Theology of Liberation), which is regarded by many as the Magna Carta of Latin American liberation theology. In this book, he observed that the "development" approach failed to solve the root causes of exploitation because it left the structures of exploitation intact. So, he demanded "liberation," calling for radical structural and social change. This undoubtedly reflected a use of Marxism not only as tool of social analysis but also as a program for changing socieAccordingding to Gutiérrez, sin as social injustice is "a social, historical fact, the absence of fellowship and love in relationships among persons, the breach of friendship with God and with other persons, and, therefore, an interior, personal fracture." Salvation, therefore, means social change based on the communion of human beings with God and among themselves in the earthly kingdom of God where the exploitation that prevents the poor from being fully human is eliminated. The ministry of Jesus as the liberator of the oppressed was not only religious but also political, therefore. The mission of the Church is to libehumanitymaity and history in this sense. Christian praxis as commitment to this liberation should precede any theoretical reflection in theology. Also, if the oppressed use violence at all for the purpose of liberation, it should not be equated with the unjust violence of the oppressor. Here, we see Gutiérrez' reluctant admission of the use of violence. But, it is important to note that his liberation theology is not entirely socio-political, given his statement that it entails a profound sense of spirituality where you experience such a "conversion" to the oppressed that you are willing to give unconditional love to them. He refers to it as the source of Christian joy.

CELAM III

With Alfonso López Trujillo's 1972 election as general secretary of the CELAM, official opposition to liberation theology started to increase. In 1979, under his leadership, the CELAM had its third conference in Puebla, Mexico for the purpose of repudiating the position of CELAM II. So, Pope John Paul II opened the conference, and Gutiérrez was excluded from the conference. The pope actually tried to steer a conciliatory middle course during his opening speech, expressing his concern not only about the radicalism of liberation theology but also about the unjust condition of the poor. For while saying, "this conception of Christ as a political figure, a revolutionary, as the subversive of Nazareth, does not tally with the Church's catechisms," he also referred to "the ever increasing wealth of the rich at the expense of the ever increasing poverty of the poor," stating that the principle of private property "must lead to a more just and equitable distribution of goods." But, a group of liberation theologians operated out of a nearby seminary with the help of liberal bishops and managed to influence the outcome. Within four hours after the pope's speech, Gutiérrez and his colleagues produced a twenty-page refutation which was circulated on the floor of the conference. According to critics, 25 percent of the final Puebla documents were written by those theologians that had not even been invited to the conference. It must be true, because in the end the conference endorsed the idea of God's "preferential option for the poor" as part of the quest for justice and criticized the military dictatorships of Latin America as "institutionalized violence."

Other notable liberation theologians

Other than Gustavo Gutiérrez, there are several notable liberation theologians. Juan Luis Segundo (1925-1997), a Jesuit from Uruguay, is famous for his hermeneutical treatment of the Bible from the perspective of liberation and yet with an emphasis on the primacy of the Bible. His main work was The Liberation of Theology.

Leonardo Boff (1938- ), a Franciscan from Brazil, has challenged the Church by asserting that the Church should be open for change because of the possibility for the further action of the Holy Spirit in the "base communities," the reason being that the Church originally emerged from the post-Easter Pentecostal experience of the early Christians anyway and not from Jesus as an unchanging institution. This, expressed in his Ecclesiogenesis, reflects a result of the historical-critical biblical scholarship. A prolific writer, he has written more than 100 books. When he wrote Church: Charism and Power, a book on ecclesiology, it was perceived to be defiant and militant. For this, therefore, he was silenced by the Vatican in 1985. Boff has criticized the American government under George W. Bush and the government of Israel under Ariel Sharon of being fundamentalist terrorist states.

Jon Sobrino (1938- ), a Salvadorian Jesuit originally from Spain, has argued in his Jesus in Latin America that just as Jesus was crucified and rose again in glory, the oppressed masses of Latin America would arise. Such images did not always directly endorse violent revolution, but neither did they reject it. Sobrino received worldwide attention in 2007, when the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a notification to state that his humanistic view of Jesus is erroneous and dangerous.

There are also some liberation theologians with Protestant background. José Míguez Bonino (1924- ), a Methodist from Argentina, has strongly defended the Christian use of Marxist social analysis in his Christians and Marxists. Rubem Alves (1933- ), a Brazilian Presbyterian, wrote a Ph.D. dissertation ("A Theology of Liberation") at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1968, and published it with a different title (A Theology of Human Hope) in the following year, and it influenced later theologians.

The Vatican's Reaction

Pope Paul VI, who reigned the Vatican from 1963 to 1978, tried to slow the progressivism initiated by the Second Vatican Council. The Vatican, of course, admitted of Latin American liberation theology's partial compatibility with the social teachings of the Catholic Church, but this radical theology was unacceptable. So, Cardinal Samore, in charge of the relations between the Roman Curia and the CELAM as the leader of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America from 1967 to 1983, was ordered to put a stop to the orientation of liberation theology judged antithetical to the Catholic Church's teachings.

The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (or the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1983) also dealt liberation theologians. Sebastian Kappen, an Indian theologian, published Jesus and Freedom in 1977, with an introduction by the French activist François Houtart. In 1980, the Sacred Congregation asked the General of the Society of Jesus (of which Kappen was a member) to disavow this book. Kappen responded with a pamphlet entitled "Censorship and the Future of Asian Theology." There was no further action taken by the Vatican in this matter.

Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI was a key opponent of liberation theology.

Former Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), who headed the (Sacred) Congregation for the Doctrine of the Earth from 1981 to 2005, strongly opposed liberation theology. In March 1983, he published an article entitled "Ten Observations on the Theology of Gustavo Gutiérrez," accusing Gutiérrez of politically interpreting the Bible and of supporting a temporal messianism. Ratzinger declared that the influence of Marxism was proven by the predominance accorded to orthopraxis over orthodoxy. Finally, he stated that these ideas would support similar class conflict inside the Church, and the rejection of its hierarchy.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Earth under Ratzinger officially condemned liberation theology twice (in 1984 and 1986), issuing "Instruction on Certain Aspects of the 'Theology of Liberation'" (1984) and "Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation" (1986). The 1984 instruction criticized especially the social analysis which liberation theology adopted from Marx's notions of "labor value," "surplus value," and "exploitation," as in Bonino’s explicit use of Marx in his Christians and Marxists and Gutiérrez’s specific reference to the appropriation by capitalists of "the value of the work of others," for example. The 1986 instruction showed a bit more sympathy to liberation theologians.

In 1985, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Earth silenced Leonard Boff for a year for his book Church: Charism and Power. He was almost silenced again in 1992, in an attempt to prevent him from attending the Eco-92 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, but this led him to leave the Franciscan order and the priesthood. Also, some other dissident priests were prohibited from teaching their doctrines in the name of the Catholic Church.

The rise of liberation theology in Latin America also created some moments of direct tension between liberationist clergy and Pope John Paul II. In 1980, San Salvador's prelate, Archbishop Óscar Romero, clashed with John Paul II during his visit to Europe. Romero was later assassinated during Mass in San Salvador by unknown members of death squads that some critics associate with anti-communists in El Salvador. Sympathetic to the plight of the poor and opposed to the death squads, Óscar Romero had argued that El Salvador's government should not be supported because of its alleged support of terror and human rights violations.

During his travel to Managua, Nicaragua in 1983, Pope John Paul II harshly condemned what he dubbed the "popular church" vis-à-vis the institutional hierarchical Church. This condemnation was partly fueled by the involvement of base communities in class struggle, and the Nicaraguan clergy support of the Sandinistas. The pope further insisted on his authority over the Church as Universal Pastor, in conformity with canonical law and global Church teachings.

The Impact of Liberation Theology

Liberation theology has had an impact much wider than an ecclesiastical dispute within the Catholic Church itself. It reflected the struggles of the poor and impoverished everywhere outside of the Church. It promoted awareness that they do not have to continue to live in poverty. That awareness led to three general types of action or praxis, aimed at changing the situation. These were: 1) social revolution, 2) peaceful social transformation, and 3) parallel societies. Liberationists stood for social revolution, and the Catholic Church and dominant political powers feared revolution and preached peaceful transformation. By contrast, many Latin Americans in base communities simply created parallel societies, their own communities. They learned self-reliance, hygiene, and various skills from priests and social workers, and then from one another. In The Other Path (as opposed to the Maoist guerrilla movement Sendero Luminoso, "Shining Path," in Peru), Hernando de Soto documented the growth of the informal economy around Lima, in which entire communities were built, roads were paved, and people prospered outside the formal economy. Officially squatters, some of Peru's impoverished had created middle-class and upper middle-class lives by "pulling up their own bootstraps." The idea was to overcome impoverishment through education and hard work apart from the structural oppression which existed.

Protestant theologians watching the internecine Catholic disputes tended to champion their brothers who were repeating some of Martin Luther's criticisms four centuries earlier. So, liberation theology has been recognized within liberal Protestant circles as an important school of thought, enjoying equal standing with other contemporary school of theology such as black theology and feminist theology. But, another response to the perceived Catholic complicity with the established order in Latin America was massive conversions to Protestantism in the 1970s and 1980s. The Protestantism being taught in Latin America emphasized an ethic of self-reliance and greater equality between men and women. Many women became Protestants, seeking a life in which the "machismo" mentality common in males was not endorsed. Protestantism was another path to possible social advancement.

Some observe that liberation theology first appeared in Latin America and then spread to other continents and contexts, helping black theology and feminist theology to emerge in the United States, for example. But, that observation is not very accurate. It is more accurate to say that these three particular theologies arose simultaneously in very different contexts at a time of human history when the need for recognition of human dignity and human rights was sorely felt universally. The three have since then been engaged in dialogue with each other. However, the emergence of minjung theology (theology of people) in Korea in the 1970s and of Dalit theology (theology of the untouchable) in India in the 1980s can be said to have taken place under the influence of Latin American liberation theology.

Criticisms toward Liberation Theology

Criticisms have been directed toward liberation theology not only from the Vatican but also from other quarters as well. Ironically, liberationists have quite often been critiqued of not carefully listening to the poor whom they are supposed to love by having a "conversion" to them, in the words of Gustavo Gutiérrez. It has been found out that most of the poor in Latin America are by nature too religious and pious to accept the radical political ideology of liberation theology. So, liberationists have had to "shake" them instead of listening to them: "After having tried to lose themselves within the people, to identify with the people, [liberationists] come to understand that they must shake the people."

This explains the basically secular nature of liberation theology, which seeks better living conditions and better political structures instead of personal spiritual growth that may even involve losing one's life to gain it later in God's will. Liberation theology also defines sin in a social context to the neglect of original sin, according to many theological critics. Liberation theology has also been critiqued of not having a doctrine of God that has enough transcendence. According to critics, this means that liberation theology contextualized God to the particular condition of poverty in Latin America so narrowly that it lost sight of the more universal biblical kerygma (message) of God. Also, its methodological and ideological reliance on Marxism has been criticized.

After the decline of communism at the end of 1980s, liberation theology, too, seems to have been in retreat. In spite of the continuous presence of the movement, it seems to have become more skeptical of Marxism, now redirecting its "central concerns away from politics in the narrow sense to issues of popular religion, spirituality, and long-term social and cultural change." Even Gutiérrez has more recently recognized the importance of knowing and accommodating the spirituality of common Latin American people to the cause of liberation.

However, perhaps the greatest contribution of liberation theology is its exposure of the miserable condition of injustice in Latin America. It is important to be awakened to know that kind of condition and the fact that liberationists graciously have had to take actions to address it. It may have been because he saw the exposure through CELAM I in 1968 that Pope John Paul II steered a conciliatory middle course at CELAM II in 1972, showing his concern not only about liberation theology itself but also about the unjust condition of the poor which it exposed. In fact, the idea of God's "preferential option for the poor" endorsed by liberation theology is not new; rooted in the biblical notion of justice for the voiceless and powerless among us such as widows and orphans, it has a long tradition within Christianity. The question is: How broad and inclusive is the notion of liberation? While liberation theology understands the notion to be social and political, the Bible would include in it not only this external sense but also the spiritual sense in which people are supposed to be liberated from the bondage of sin. Hence, at CELAM II the pope proclaimed "liberation in its deeper, fuller sense," namely, "liberation from everything that oppresses human beings, but especially liberation from sin and the evil one, in the joy of knowing God and being known by him."

Bibliography

• Alves, Rubem. A Theology of Human Hope. Washington, D.C.: Corpus Books, 1969.
• Berryman, Phillip. Liberation Theology. Temple University Press, 1987. ISBN 087722479X
• Boff, Leonardo. Church: Charisma and Power — Liberation Theology and the Institutional Church. New York: Crossroad, 1986. ISBN 0824507266
• Boff, Leonardo. Ecclesiogenesis: The Base Communities Reinvent the Church. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1986. ISBN 0883442140
• Boff, Leonardo, and Clodovis Boff. Introducing Liberation Theology. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1987. ISBN 0883445506
• Boff, Leonardo, and Clodovis Boff. Liberation Theology: From Dialogue to Confrontation. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986. ISBN 0866835288
• Bonino, José Míguez. Christians and Marxists: The Mutual Challenge to Revolution. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1976.
• De Soto, Hernando. The Other Path: The Invisible Revolution in the Third World. New York: Harper & Row, 1989. ISBN 0060160209
• Ferm, William Deane. Third World Liberation Theologies: A Reader. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1986. ISBN 0883445174
• Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Seabury Press, 1970. ISBN 0816491321
• Gutiérrez, Gustavo. A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics and Salvation. Revised ed. Orbis Books, 1988. ISBN 0883445425
• Gutiérrez, Gustavo. The Power of the Poor in History. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1984. ISBN 0883443880
• Hillar, Marian. "Liberation Theology: Religious Response to Social Problems. A Survey." In Humanism and Social Issues. Anthology of Essays, edited by M. Hillar and H.R. Leuchtag, 35-52. Houston: American Humanist Association, 1993. (Online Source). Retrieved June 3, 2008.
• John Paul II. "Opening Address at the Puebla Conference."
• Kappen, Sebastian. Jesus and Freedom. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1977. ISBN 0883442337
• Mahan, Brian, and L. Dale Richesin. The Challenge of Liberation Theology: A First World Response. New York: Orbis Books, 1981. ISBN 088344092X
• Miranda, José. Marx and the Bible: A Critique of the Philosophy of Oppression. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1974. ISBN 0883443074
• Novak, Michael. Will it Liberate?: Questions About Liberation Theology. Madison Books Reprint, 2000. ISBN 0819180602
• Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal. "Liberation Theology." Retrieved August 26, 2008.
• Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal. "Ten Observations on the Theology of Gustavo Gutiérrez." In Liberation Theology: A Documentary History, edited by Alfred T. Hennelly, 348-50. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990. ISBN 088344593X
• Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal, with Vittorio Messori. The Ratzinger Report: An Exclusive Interview on the State of he Church. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1985. ISBN 0898700809
• Schall, James V. Liberation Theology in Latin America. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1982. ISBN 089870006X
• Segundo, Juan Luis. The Liberation of Theology. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1976. ISBN 0883442868
• Sigmund, Paul E. Liberation Theology at the Crossroads: Democracy or Revolution?. Oxford University Press, 1992. ISBN 019507274X
• Smith, Christian. The Emergence of Liberation Theology: Radical Religion and the Social Movement Theory. University of Chicago Press, 1991. ISBN 0226764109
• Sobrino, Jon. Christology at the Crossroads. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985. ISBN 0883440768
• Sobrino, Jon. Jesus in Latin America. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1987. ISBN 0883444127

External links

Retrieved June 3, 2008.

• Centre for Liberation Theologies, Faculty of Theology, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
• Excerpts and Chronology of Liberation Theology
• Liberation Theology Resources Online—articles, organizations, biographies, book links
• "Christian Revolution in Latin America: The Changing Face of Liberation Theology" by Ron Rhodes
• "A Concise History of Liberation Theology" by Leonardo and Clodovis Boff
• "Liberation Theology" by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
• "Opening Address at the Puebla Conference" by Pope John Paul II
• "The Retreat of Liberation Theology" by Edward A. Lynch

Vatican

Retrieved August 26, 2008.

• "Instruction on Certain Aspects of the 'Theology of Liberation'" by Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
• "Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation" by Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

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