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| Francis of Assisi Wilhelm E.F. von Ketteler Pope Leo XIII · Adolph Kolping Edward Bellamy Margaret Wedgwood Benn Phillip Berryman · James Hal Cone Dorothy Day · Toni Negri Leo Tolstoy · Oscar Romero Gustavo Gutiérrez · Abraham Kuyper Daniel Berrigan · Philip Berrigan Martin Luther King, Jr. Walter Rauschenbusch Desmond Tutu · Tommy Douglas |
| Organizations |
| Confederation of Christian Trade Unions Catholic Worker Movement Christian Socialist Movement |
| Key concepts |
| Subsidiarity · Christian anarchism Marxism · Liberation theology Praxis School · Precarity Human dignity · Social market economy Communitarianism · Distributism Catholic social teaching Neo-Calvinism · Neo-Thomism |
| Key documents |
| Rerum Novarum (1891) Princeton Stone Lectures (1898) Populorum Progressio (1967) Centesimus Annus (1991) Caritas in Veritate (2009) |
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Liberation theology is a movement in Christian theology which understands the teachings of Jesus Christ in terms of a liberation from unjust political, economic, or social conditions. It has been described as "an interpretation of Christian faith through the poor's suffering, their struggle and hope, and a critique of society and the Catholic faith and Christianity through the eyes of the poor".[1]
In the mass media, 'Liberation Theology' can sometimes be used loosely, to refer to a wide variety of activist Christian thought. In this article the term will be used in its technical theological sense.
The term was coined by the Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez, who wrote one of the movement's most famous books, A Theology of Liberation (1971). Other noted exponents are Leonardo Boff of Brazil, Jon Sobrino of El Salvador, and Juan Luis Segundo of Uruguay.[2][3][4]
Although liberation theology has grown into an international and inter-denominational movement, it began as a movement within the Roman Catholic church in Latin America in the 1950s - 1960s. It arose principally as a moral reaction to the poverty caused by social injustice in that region. It achieved prominence in the 1970s and 1980s.
The influence of liberation theology diminished after liberation theologians using Marxist concepts were admonished by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in 1984 and 1986. The Vatican documents criticize certain strains of Liberation Theology for focusing on institutional dimensions of sin to the exclusion of the individual; and for undermining church authority by identifying the church hierarchy as members of the privileged class.[5]
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Liberation theology proposes to fight poverty by addressing its source: sin. In so doing, it explores the relationship between Christian theology — especially Roman Catholic theology — and political activism, especially about social justice, poverty, and human rights. The principal methodological innovation is seeing theology from the perspective of the poor and the oppressed (socially, politically, etc.). For example Jon Sobrino, S.J., argues that the poor are a privileged channel of God's grace.
Liberation theologians base their social action upon the Bible scriptures describing the mission of Jesus Christ, as bringing a sword (social unrest), e.g. Isaiah 61:1, Matthew 10:34, Luke 22:35-38 Matthew 26:51-52 — and not as bringing peace (social order). This Biblical interpretation is a call to action against poverty, and the sin engendering it, and as a call to arms, to effect Jesus Christ's mission of justice in this world. In practice, the theology includes the Marxist concept of class struggle, thus emphasizing the person's individual self-actualization as part of God's divine purpose for mankind.
Gustavo Gutierrez gave the movement its paradigmatic expression with his book A Theology of Liberation (1972). In this book, Gutierrez combined Marxist ideas with the social teachings of the Catholic church. He was influenced by an existing socialist current in the Church which included organizations such as the Catholic Worker Movement and the French Christian youth worker organization, "Jeunesse Ouvrière Chrétienne." He was also influenced by Paul Gauthier's "The Poor, Jesus and the Church" (1965). Gutierrez's book is based on an understanding of history in which the human being is seen as assuming conscious responsibility for human destiny, and yet Christ the Saviour liberates the human race from sin, which is the root of all disruption of friendship and of all injustice and oppression.[6]
Gutierrez also popularized the phrase "preferential option for the poor," which became a slogan of liberation theology and eventually an official doctrine of the Catholic church.
Gutierrez emphasized practice (or, more technically, "praxis") over doctrine. "Praxis" is a term borrowed from Marxist theory, particularly the work of Antonio Gramsci. According to Gutierrez, praxis is as important as belief, if not more so. Hence liberation theology has been criticized for emphasizing "orthopraxis" over "orthodoxy."[7] Richard McBrien summarizes this concept as follows:
God is disclosed in the historical ‘’praxis’’ of liberation. It is the situation, and our passionate and reflective involvement in it, which mediates the Word of God. Today that Word is mediated through the cries of the poor and the oppressed.[8]
Another important hallmark for Gutierrez's brand of liberation theology is an interpretation of revelation as “history”. For example Gutierrez wrote:
History is the scene of the revelation God makes of the mystery of his person. His word reaches us in the measure of our involvement in the evolution of history.[9]
Some aspects of Liberation Theology were the subject of two critical “Instructions” from the Vatican’s office for doctrinal orthodoxy, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).[10][11] The instructions rejected the idea that a class struggle is fundamental to history, and rejected the interpretation of religious phenomena such as the Exodus and the Eucharist in exclusively political terns. "The mistake here is not in bringing attention to a political dimension of the readings of Scripture, but in making of this one dimension the principal or exclusive component." [10] However, the movement in general was not condemned: the Instructions explicitly endorsed a "preferential option for the poor", stated that no one could be neutral in the face of injustice, and referred to the "crimes" of colonialism and the "scandal" of the arms race. Nonetheless, media reports tended to assume that the condemnation of "liberation theology" meant a rejection of such attitudes and an endorsement of conservative politics.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI), who was prefect of the CDF at the time when the Instructions were issued, published his own personal criticism of the movement in 1985.[7] In this document Ratzinger claims that in certain forms of Liberation Theology, the meaning of basic theological terms is changed - e.g. terms such as "hope", "love", and "salvation" are assigned a Marxist interpretation in terms of "class struggle".
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". Ratzinger saw this as a reaction to the demise or near-demise of the "Marxist myth" in the West.[7]
In March 1983, Cardinal Ratzinger made ten observations of Gutiérrez's theology, accusing Gutiérrez of politically interpreting the Bible in supporting temporal messianism, and stating that the predominance of orthopraxis over orthodoxy in his thought proves a Marxist influence. Ratzinger also stated that Gutierrez's conceptions necessarily uphold class conflict in the Roman Catholic Church, which, logically, leads to rejecting hierarchy. However, Cardinal 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.”[citation needed]
Roman Catholic priest and author Andrew Greeley criticized liberation theology in his 2009 fictional book Irish Tweed. In Greeley's book, a Chicago Catholic school is taken over by a principal and priest practicing liberation theology, and its ideas are applied in the school environment. For instance, basketball team members are chosen based on their family's economic status rather than on their ability.[12]
Such criticisms have provoked counter-criticisms that orthodox catholics are in effect casting the Catholic Church as a friend of authoritarian regimes; and that the Vatican is not so much trying to defend pure doctrine as to maintain an established ecclesiastical and political order. This conflict could be compared to some aspects of the Protestant Reformation. Outside Latin America, some of liberation theology's most ardent advocates are Protestant thinkers (e.g., Jurgen Moltmann and Frederick Herzog).[citation needed]
A major player in the formation of Liberation Theology was CELAM, the Latin American Episcopal Conference.[7] Created in 1955 in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), CELAM pushed the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) toward a more socially oriented stance.[13] However, CELAM never supported liberation theology as such, since liberation theology was frowned upon by the Vatican, with Pope Paul VI trying to slow the movement after the Second Vatican Council.[14]
After the Second Vatican Council, CELAM held two conferences which were important in determining the future of Liberation Theology: the first was held in Medellín, Colombia, in 1968, and the second in Puebla, Mexico, in January 1979.[13] The Medellín conference debated how to apply the teachings of Vatican II to Latin America, and its conclusions were strongly influenced by Liberation Theology.[5]
Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo was a central figure at the Medellín Conference, and was elected in 1972 as general secretary of CELAM. He represented a more orthodox-catholic form of Liberation Theology which became predominant in CELAM after the 1972 Sucre conference, and in the Roman Curia after the CELAM conference in Puebla, Mexico, in January 1979.
Despite the orthodox bishops' predominance in CELAM, a more radical form of Liberation Theology remained much supported in South America. Thus, the 1979 Puebla Conference was an opportunity for orthodox bishops to reassert control of the radical elements; but they failed. At the Puebla Conference, the orthodox reorientation was met by strong opposition from the liberal part of the clergy, which supported the concept of a "preferential option for the poor." This concept had been approved at the Medellin conference by Bishop Ricard Durand, president of the Commission about Poverty.
Pope John Paul II gave the opening speech at the Puebla Conference. The general tone of his remarks was conciliatory. He criticized radical liberation theology, saying, "this conception of Christ, as a political figure, a revolutionary, as the subversive of Nazareth, does not tally with the Church's catechisms"; however, he did speak of "the ever increasing wealth of the rich at the expense of the ever increasing poverty of the poor", and affirmed that the principle of private property "must lead to a more just and equitable distribution of goods . . . and, if the common good demands it, there is no need to hesitate at expropriation, itself, done in the right way"; on balance, the Pope offered neither praise nor condemnation.
Some liberation theologians, however, including Gutierrez, had been barred from attending the conference. Working from a seminary and with aid from sympathetic, liberal bishops, they partially obstructed the orthodox clergy's efforts to ensure that the Puebla Conference documents satisfied conservative concerns. Within four hours of the Pope's speech, Gutiérrez and the other priests wrote a twenty-page refutation, which was circulated at the conference, and has been claimed to have influenced the final outcome of the conference. According to a socio-political study of liberation theology in Latin America, twenty-five per cent of the final Puebla documents were written by theologians who were not invited to the conference.[15] Cardinal Trujillo said that this affirmation is "an incredible exaggeration" (Ben Zabel 2002:139), nevertheless, he conceded that there was strong pressure from a group of eighty Marxist liberation theologists external to the Bishop's Conference.[citation needed]
As mentioned above, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), issued official condemnations of certain elements of Liberation Theology in 1984 and 1986. After this, Leonardo Boff was suspended and others were censored.
During the 1980s and the 1990s, as prefect of the CDF, Ratzinger continued to condemn these elements in Liberation Theology, and prohibited dissident priests from teaching such doctrines in the Catholic Church's name. He excommunicated Tissa Balasuriya, in Sri Lanka, for so doing. Sebastian Kappen, an Indian theologian, was also censored for his book Jesus and Freedom.[16] Under Cardinal Ratzinger's influence, theological formation schools were forbidden from using the Catholic Church's organization and grounds to teach Liberation Theology (in the sense of theology using unacceptable Marxist ideas, not in the broader sense).
In Managua, Nicaragua, Pope John Paul II criticized what he labelled the "popular Church" movement by means of "ecclesial base communities" (CEBs) in effecting class struggle, the replacement of the Catholic dominance hierarchy with a locally-selected system in the magisterium, and the Nicaraguan Catholic clergy's supporting the Sandinista National Liberation Front. The Pope re-stated and insisted upon his authority as Universal Pastor of the Roman Catholic Church in conformity with canon law and catechism.[citation needed]
One of the most radical aspects of liberation theology was the social organization, or re-organization, of church practice through the model of Christian base communities (CEBs).
Liberation theology strove to be a bottom-up movement in practice, with Biblical interpretation and liturgical practice designed by lay practitioners themselves, rather than by the orthodox Church hierarchy. This type of church community resembles the Independent type of Protestantism. In fact, liberation theologians often work in Protestant schools, often working directly with the poor. In this context, sacred text interpretation is understood as "praxis".
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. Base communities were small gatherings, usually outside of churches, in which the Bible could be discussed, and mass could be said. They were especially active in rural parts of Latin America where parish priests were not always available, as they placed a high value on lay participation. As of May 2007, it was estimated that 80,000 base communities were operating in Brazil alone.[17] Contemporanously 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.[18]
Introductory works (all by Penny Lernoux)
Principal texts
The more orthodox-catholic tendency in Liberation Theology is exemplified by Rubem Alves, a Brazilian theologian working at Princeton, who wrote Towards a Theology of Liberation (1968).
The more radical tendency in Liberation Theology is exemplified by the Peruvian Catholic priest, Fr. Gustavo Gutiérrez, O.P., who wrote A Theology of Liberation (1972).
Further readings:
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