Latin American liberation theology
[1] Beginning in the 1960s after the Second Vatican Council,[2] liberation theology became the political praxis of Latin American theologians such as Gustavo Gutiérrez, Leonardo Boff, and Jesuits Juan Luis Segundo and Jon Sobrino, who popularized the phrase "preferential option for the poor".
[6][7] The Latin American context also produced Protestant advocates of liberation theology, such as Rubem Alves,[8][9] José Míguez Bonino, and C. René Padilla, who in the 1970s called for integral mission, emphasizing evangelism and social responsibility.
[10] The Medellín conference debated how to apply the teachings of Vatican II to Latin America, and its conclusions were strongly influenced by liberation theology,[11] which grew out of these officially recognized ideas.
He criticized radical liberation theology, saying, "this idea of Christ as a political figure, a revolutionary, as the subversive of Nazareth, does not tally with the Church's catechesis";[18] however, he did acknowledge that "the growing wealth of a few parallels the growing poverty of the masses",[18] and he affirmed both the principle of private property and that the Church "must preach, educate individuals and collectivities, form public opinion, and offer orientations to the leaders of the peoples" towards the goal of a "more just and equitable distribution of goods".
Working from a seminary and with aid from sympathetic, liberal bishops, they partially obstructed other clergy's efforts to ensure that the Puebla Conference documents satisfied conservative concerns.
[24] Drawing from the biblical motif on the poor, Gutiérrez asserts that God is revealed as having a preference for those people who are "insignificant", "marginalized", "unimportant", "needy", "despised", and "defenseless".
In Latin America, liberation theologians specifically target the severe disparities between rich and poor in the existing social and economic orders within the state's political and corporate structures.
[12] Contemporaneously, Fanmi Lavalas in Haiti, the Landless Workers' Movement in Brazil, and Abahlali baseMjondolo in South Africa are three organizations that make use of liberation theology.
[34] The journalist and writer Penny Lernoux described this aspect of liberation theology in her numerous and committed writings intended to explain the movement's ideas in North America.
After decades of repression from the government authorities, the liberationist Catholic Church in Brazil is absent of traditional centralization and encourages an increased lay participation.
[39] Through his fieldwork in working-class neighbourhoods of Rio de Janeiro, Vásquez reveals that CEBs combat disenfranchisement but also serve to overcome the obstacles associated with materialism and globalization.
This alliance brought about the advent of Sandinismo, which combined the radical agrarian nationalism of Augusto Sandino with revolutionary Christianity and Latin American Marxism.
[47] Like the Marxist foundations of the FSLN, liberation theologians viewed history through an eschatological lens, meaning that historical evolution was oriented towards a final destiny.
In following Christian theological principles of forgiveness and peace, as articulated by Tomas Borge, the FSLN became the first modern revolutionary movement to ban the death penalty and not perform executions of political enemies after rising to power.
[53] Throughout the 1970s, the FSLN attracted increasing numbers of radical Christians to its cause through its emphases on revolutionary social action, armed struggle, and the extension of historical agency to the poor.
These messages distinctly appealed to the Nicaraguan Christian masses who, after suffering under periods of martial law and economic exploitation under the Somoza regime, sought to bring about their own liberation through political and religious revolution.
In Gualiqueme, rural villagers engaged in the praxis of liberation theology through weekly gatherings that incorporated scriptural reflection, re-examination of cultural values, and communal work to improve the material outcomes of their community.
[57] Anthropologist and author Max Maranhão Piorsky Aires analyzes the influence of liberation theology on the transformation of the indigenous Tapeba people of Brazil from poor, uneducated inhabitants neglected by the state to rights-bearing and involved citizens.
Early recognition by missionaries and followers of liberation theology stimulated indigenous identification of the Tapeba population as a possibility for attaining rights, especially land, health, and education.
In Gurupá, the Catholic Church employed liberation theology to defend indigenous tribes, farmers, and extractors from land expropriation by federal or corporate forces.
Anthropologist Richard Pace's study of Gurupá revealed that CEBs assured safety in united activism, and, combined with liberation theology, encouraged members to challenge landowners' commercial monopolies and fight for better standards of living.
The community negotiated an agreement with the firm that gained them a higher standard of living that included imported goods, increased food availability, and access to health care.
While severe social dislocations such as government-initiated capitalist penetration, land expropriation, and poor wages persist, small-farmer activism is fortified by liberation theology and receives structural support from unions, political parties, and church organizations.
Golconda intended to: "employ a scientific method for analysis and action; condemn the dominant nature of imperialism; confront the power of the traditional parties; end the relationships with the conservative structures of the state; and start a revolution for modernizing Colombia.
"[29] Ratzinger did praise liberation theology in some respects, including its ideal of justice, its rejection of violence, and its stress on "the responsibility which Christians necessarily bear for the poor and oppressed".
Ratzinger further stated that liberation theology had a major flaw in that it attempted to apply Christ's sermon on the mount teachings about the poor to present social situations.
Ratzinger also argued that liberation theology is not originally a "grass-roots" movement among the poor, but rather, a creation of Western intellectuals: "an attempt to test, in a concrete scenario, ideologies that have been invented in the laboratory by European theologians" and in a certain sense itself a form of "cultural imperialism".
[29] Throughout the 1990s, Ratzinger, as prefect of the CDF, continued to condemn these elements in liberation theology, and prohibited dissident priests from teaching such doctrines in the Catholic Church's name.
[74] At a 2015 press conference in the Vatican hosted by Caritas International, the federation of Catholic relief agencies, Gutiérrez noted that while there had been some difficult moments in the past dialogue with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, liberation theology had never been condemned.
Latin American liberation theology met with approval in the United States, but its use of "Marxist concepts"[80] led in the mid-1980s to an admonition by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).
