Liberation Theology

How are we to be Christians in a world of destitution and injustice? There can be only
one answer: we can be followers of Jesus and true Christians only by making common
cause with the poor and working out the gospel of liberation...

One day, in the arid region of northeastern Brazil, one of the most famine-stricken parts
of the world, I (Clodovis) met a bishop going into his house; he was shaking. "Bishop,
what's the matter?" I asked. He replied that he had just seen a terrible sight: in front of
the cathedral was a woman with three small children and a baby clinging to her neck. He
saw that they were fainting from hunger. The baby seemed to be dead. He said: "Give the
baby some milk woman!" "I can't, my lord," she answered. The bishop went on insisting
that she should, and she that she could not. Finally, because of his insistence, she opened
her blouse. Her breast was bleeding; the baby sucked violently at it. And sucked blood.
The mother who had given it life was feeding it, like a pelican, with her own blood, her
own life. The bishop knelt down in front of the woman, placed his hand on the baby's
head, and there and then vowed that as long as such hunger existed, he would feed at
least one hungry child each day...

There is a failure to see that the poor are oppressed and made poor by others; and what
they do possess - strength to resist, capacity to understand their rights, to organize
themselves and transform a subhuman situation - tends to be left out of account. Aid
increases the dependence of the poor, tying them to help from others, to decisions made
by others: again not enabling them to become their own liberators.

"Reformism" seeks to improve the situation of the poor but always within existing social
relationships and the basic structuring of society, which rules out greater participation
by all and diminution in the privileges enjoyed by the ruling classes... For example, in
1964 the Brazilian economy ranked 46th in the world; in 1984 it ranked 8th. The last
twenty years have seen undeniable technological and industrial progress, but at the same
time there has been a considerable worsening of social conditions for the poor, with
exploitation, destitution, and hunger on a scale previously unknown in Brazilian history...

The poor can break out of their situation of oppression only by working out a strategy
better able to change social conditions: the strategy of liberation...

Liberation is emerging as the strategy of the poor themselves, confident in themselves

and in their instruments of struggle: free trade unions, peasant organizations, local
associations, action groups and study groups, popular political parties, base Christian
communities. They are being joined by groups and individuals from other social classes
who have opted to change society and join the poor in their struggle to bring about
change.

The growth of regimes of "national security" (for which read "capital security"), of
military dictatorships, with their repression of popular movements in many countries of
Latin America, is a reaction against the transforming and liberating power of the
organized poor.

...Inspired by their faith - which must include commitment to one's neighbor, particularly
to the poor, if it is to be true (Matt. 25:31-46) - and motivated by the proclamation of the
kingdom of God - which begins in this world and culminates only in eternity - and by the
life, deeds, and death of Christ, who made a historic option for the poor, and by the
supremely liberating significance of his resurrection, many Christians - bishops, priests,
religious, nuns, lay men and women - are throwing themselves into action alongside the
poor, or joining the struggles already taking place...

Christianity can no longer be dismissed as the opium of the people, nor can it be seen as
merely fostering an attitude of critique: it has now become an active commitment to
liberation...

The gospel is not aimed chiefly at "modern" men and women with their critical spirit, but
first and foremost at "nonpersons," those whose basic dignity and rights are denied them.
This leads to reflection in a spirit of prophecy and solidarity aimed at making nonpersons
full human beings, and then new men and women, according to the design of the "new
Adam," Jesus Christ.

...Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador, who had been conservative in his views,
became a great advocate and defender of the poor when he stood over the dead body of
Fr. Rutilio Grande, assassinated for his liberating commitment to the poor. The spilt
blood of the martyr acted like a salve on his eyes, opening them to the urgency of the task
of liberation. And he himself was to follow to a martyr's death in the same cause.

Commitment to the liberation of the millions of the oppressed of our world restores to the
gospel the credibility it had at the beginning and at the great periods of holiness and
prophetic witness in history. The God who pitied the downtrodden and the Christ who
came to set prisoners free proclaim themselves with a new face and in a new image
today.

...as the prophet Jeremiah says: "He used to examine the cases of poor and needy, then
all went well. Is not that what it means to know me? - it is Yahweh who speaks" (Jer.
22:16). So the criticisms made of liberation theology by those who judge it on a purely
conceptual level, devoid of any real commitment to the oppressed, must be seen as
radically irrelevant. Liberation theology responds to such criticism with just one
question: What part have you played in the effective and integral liberation of the
oppressed?

Leonardo Boff and Clodovis Boff, translated from Portuguese by Paul Burns, Introducing
Liberation Theology, 1986, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York.

Gutiérrez on liberation and poverty

The lower classes of the populace, forced to live on the margins of society and oppressed
since time immemorial, are beginning to speak for themselves more and more rather than
relying on intermediaries... They are less and less willing to be the passive objects of
demagogic manipulation and social or charitable welfare in varied disguises. They want
to be the active subjects of their own history and to forge a radically different society.

This discovery is made, however, only within the context of a revolutionary struggle. That
struggle is calling the existing social order into question from the roots up ...private
ownership of the means of production will be eliminated because it enables a few to
expropriate the fruits of labor performed by the many, generates class divisions in a
society, and permits one class to be exploited by another. In such a reordered society the
social takeover of the means of production will be accompanied by a social takeover of
the reins of political power that will ensure people's liberty...

For a long time, and still today in the case of many people, Latin American Christians
displayed an almost total lack of concern for temporal tasks. They were subjected to a
type of religious upbringing that viewed the "hereafter" as the locale of authentic life...
On the surface it seemed to bear the hallmark of spiritual and religious traits, but in
reality it stemmed from a seriously reductionist view of the gospel message... The gospel
message was thus rendered as innocuous as a lap dog. From such a gospel the great and
powerful of this world had little to fear and much to gain. Their support and backing of it
was quickly forthcoming.

...Social injustice began to surface as the fundamental cause of the general situation.
How could one claim to be a Christian if one did not commit oneself to remedying that
situation?

...More and more we see a converging trend, initiated by young people in particular. In
ever widening circles people began to abandon positions that did not go beyond some
form of developmentalism rooted in reformist principles. The socialist revolution in Cuba
opened up new political horizons... The figures of Camilo Torres and Che Guevara
sealed the process irrevocably and had a decisive influence on various Christian sectors
in Latin America... To the "institutionalized violence" condemned by the Medellín
episcopal conference was added the indiscriminate use of force (imprisonment, torture,
and assassination). That is how "order" was to be maintained in the face of popular
movements and uprisings.

Love of neighbor is an essential component of Christian life. But as long as I apply that
term only to the people who cross my path and come asking me for help, my world will
remain pretty much the same. Individual almsgiving and social reformism is a type of
love that never leaves its own front porch... On the other hand my world will change
greatly if I go out to meet other people on their path and consider them as my neighbor,
as the good Samaritan did... the gospel tells us that the poor are the supreme embodiment
of our neighbor. It is this option that serves as the focus for a new way of being human
and Christian in today's Latin America.

But the existence of the poor... is not neutral on the political level or innocent of ethical
implications. Poor people are by-products of the system under which we live and for
which we are responisble... That is why the poverty of the poor is not a summons to
alleviate their plight with acts of generosity but rather a compelling obligation to fashion
an entirely different social order.

The realm of politics today entails confrontations between different human groups,
between social classes with opposing interests, and these confrontations are marked by
varying levels of violence. The desire to be an "artisan of peace" not only does not excuse
one from taking part in these conflicts; it actually compels one to take part in them if one
wants to tackle them at their roots and get beyond them. It forces one to realize that there
can be no peace without justice. This is a harsh insight, and it disturbs people who... with
the best of good will, confuse or identify universal love with some fictitious harmony.

But what does the gospel message command us to do? It tells us to love our enemies...
The gospel does not say that we are not to have enemies; it says that we are not to
exclude our enemies from our love.
...Viewed as the result of social injustice which is ultimately rooted in sin, poverty is now
taken on insofar as it is a way of bearing witness against the evil it embodies... In this
respect it is assumed for much the same reasons that Christ took on the sinful human
condition and all its consequences... When it is lived in authentic imitation of Christ, the
witness of poverty does not alienate us from the world at all.

...Only through concrete acts of love and solidarity can we effectively realize our
encounter with the poor and the exploited and, through them, with Jesus Christ. To give
to them is to say yes to Christ; to refuse them is to reject Christ (Matt. 25:31-46).

--------------

Gustavo Gutiérrez, "Liberation Praxis and Christian Faith" from Frontiers of

Theology in Latin America, edited by Rosino Gibellini, translated by John Drury,
Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York, 1979.

Cleary on history and theology

Although Latin American bishops differed notably from bishops in the developed world in
their isolation and lack of national organizational structures, nonetheless the Latin
American modus operandi gave the bishops an advantage over their North American or
European counterparts. Latin American bishops spent much of their day "receiving"
persons, most of them ordinary citizens with a variety of problems. This contact has given
many Latin American bishops a sense of the people that is lacking in many bishops of the
developed world.

This sense of people, even though sometimes shaped on the skew toward the pious and
dependent, helps to explain the relatively ready acceptance at Medellín and the
reaffirmation at Puebla of the Latin American bishops' preferential option for the poor in
pastoral planning. The much lower percentage of the poor and the relative structural
isolation from the poor make such an option relatively unthinkable in the U.S.A. or
Europe. The contrast between North America and Latin America emphasizes the impact
of differences in structured interactions of bishops and laity.
...a number of young activists and university students in Bolivia started guerrilla activity
designed to bring down the government, in Teoponte, a village in the Los Yungas region,
near La Paz. Like Torres, a number of the guerrillas joined the movement out of what
they believed to be Christian motivation, convinced that revolution was the last recourse
in working for a just society. Like Torres too, many of the guerrillas died in combat.

...When reflecting on the situation of institutionalized injustice in Latin America, the

bishops at the Medellín conference agreed that the church had to choose sides. They
chose the side of the poor and oppressed. Even though this would lead to the loss of
support of the traditional elites, including the military, the conference participants felt
that the commitment had to be made. It was, in their words, a gospel imperative.
Moreover, a commitment to a horizontal, rather than a vertical, church, had to be made:
during the days of Vatican II it had become clear that a communal ordering of the church
was called for to bring it in line with the original mandate of Christ to his apostles. The
methodology of the conference, of first presenting facts and then proceeding to scriptural
and theological reflection, brought the bishops to a clear understanding of the necessity
for change and commitment in a way that had never taken place before.

...The church did not consider what its proposed changes would mean to other political
entities. And more seriously, it did not delineate a policy of dealing with the changing
political environment, in which the military was becoming increasingly a major political
force. The church and the military set themselves on collision course, and church
navigators, with very few exceptions, did not foresee the shoals and suffering that lay
ahead.

...The reception of John Paul II by the Mexican people exceeded by far the reception
given earlier to Paul VI in Colombia. John Paul's visit also cemented a special
relationship of the pope with Latin America, a relationship that intensified during a
twelve-day visit to Brazil in mid-1980. No longer was Latin America the lost stepchild of
Spain and Portugal. It was beginning to assume intellectual and moral leadership
proportionate to its status as by far the most populous segment of the Catholic Church. In
turn, John Paul understood that he must engage the Latin American church in discussion
rather than continue the relative neglect the Vatican had contented itself with for
centuries. John Paul had witnessed for himself the awakening of a giant.

...the theology of liberation is by far the most influential and representative movement in
Latin American religious thought. That is true for the historical Latin American
Protestant churches as well as the Catholic Church.

...Leo's greatest achievement was probably his concern for distributive justice. He
demanded that workers share in the benefits they helped to create. For the Carnegies,
Mellons, Pullmans, and Krupps of the industrial world, this was revolutionary and
unacceptable thinking. For the working class it became a rallying call that stimulated the
drive to unionization, better working conditions, and a greater share in benefits,
including pensions.

Leo's stand had its greatest effect in the United States and parts of Europe. The church
stood clearly on the side of the working class. As late as the early 1950s there were
twenty-eight U.S. labor institutes with formal ties to Catholic universities. A few labor
movements of Catholic inspiration or participation appeared in Latin America, notably in
Venezuela, Colombia, and Costa Rica. But Catholic social teaching remained virtually
unknown in Latin America until the stirrings of Vatican II.

...Pius strongly criticizes capitalists who make excessive profits and pay bare subsistence
wages to their workers. Again Leo's theme of distributive justice appears, only this time
the teaching is stronger and more concrete... He encourages social legislation. Workers
must be allowed to be free to join unions... Many tend to forget or overlook the strength
of Pius's criticism of capitalism. He finds too much wealth and economic domination in
the hands of a few, giving them excess power.

...With Pius XI, the position of the church on socialism begins to shift. Pius perceives that
socialism has changed in the forty years since Rerum Novarum . The communistic form
must be rejected but there is a "mitigated socialism" that has some affinity with the
principles of Christianity. Third World theologians today carry the argument further and
argue that some forms of socialism have greater affinity to the principles of Christianity
than do any other known forms of political economy. But Pius was not ready for that.
Instead, he says, "No one can be at the same time a sincere Catholic and a true socialist."
Nonetheless, the ecclesiastical perception of socialism is changing.

Pius anticipates liberation theology in another way. Probably for the first time the church
sees sin as collectivized. In modern industrial life, injustice and fraud take place under
"the common name of a corporate firm so that no one need take individual
responsibility." The Latin American bishops at Medellín and Puebla spoke forcefully
about institutionalized injustices and collective sin. This represents a major shift in
traditional Catholic (and Protestant Evangelical) thinking...

The first step is a description of the church in the world. This step involves the use of
sociology and economics... structural analysis, deriving in part from class and
dependency analysis...

Then as a second step comes biblical and doctrinal reflection on the situation described.
Thus in the case of Latin America, the teaching of the Bible and of the church led the
bishops at Medellín and Puebla and the theologians of liberation to reflect on a society in
which justice would prevail. This they describe as a society in which human dignity is
respected, the legitimate aspirations of the people are satisfied, personal freedom and
access to truth are guaranteed. This type of society, which would correspond to Christian
principles, conflicts with what the bishops and theologians perceive in Latin America:
they find oppression by power groups, elites. "[These] groups may give the impression of
maintaining peace and order, but in truth it is nothing but the continuous and inevitable
seed of rebellion and war."

As a third stage, pastoral conclusions follow the biblical and doctrinal reflections. Some
conclusions that have consistently appeared in CELAM documents and in the writings of
theologians of liberation include defense of the rights of the oppressed, a healthy critical
sense of the social situation, promotion of grassroots organizations, a halt to the arms
race in Latin America and in the world, just prices for raw materials, and a denunciation
of the machinations of world powers that work against the selfdetermination of weaker
powers.

Gutiérrez and other liberation theologians contrast their theology with traditional
(largely deductive) theology. They emphasize that their theology is a second act or step,
not a first act, as is traditional theology. Liberation theology is elaborated in making
reflections on reality; it develops out of praxis... It means learning by reflecting on
experience. This is exactly how Gutiérrez defines theology: critical reflection on the
activity of the church...

Juan Luis Segundo is even stronger in drawing out the practical inferences for the doing
of this new theology: it cannot be learned, as traditional theology was, behind seminary
walls by teachers and students isolated from the day-by-day struggles of the church in the
world, meaning especially the poor in the world.

...within the social classes the poor are the most favored by God. This option for the poor
is for liberation theologians a biblical imperative...

The first act or moment of the liberation theologian is action on the part of the poor, on
the side of the poor, in the senses of identification, geography, and advocacy... The
understanding of praxis thus is more specific in liberation theology than a John Dewey
philosophy of learning from experience. Liberation theology means learning from the
experience of the poor...

Several characteristics mark Scholasticism as distinct from liberation (and many other
types of modern) theology: Scholasticism is "eternal," ahistorical, essentialist (as
opposed to existentialist), theocentric, hierarchical, and feudal. By contrast liberation
theologians characterize their thought as evolutionary, historical, existentialist,
christocentric, communitarian, participatory, and egalitarian...

The tools that liberation theologians use to examine and understand experience-the
experience of the poor and the efforts of the church in their behalf-do not come primarily
from philosophy but from the social sciences. Here then is another difference between
traditional theology and liberation theology...

Class analysis and dependency theory go hand in hand. As already mentioned, the failure
of development models to benefit the Latin American masses brought dependency theory
to the forefront in Latin American intellectual circles. Dependency theory sees
development and underdevelopment as necessarily connected: they are complementary
parts of the unity of the capitalist system. Underdeveloped countries - countries on the
periphery of the global economic system - are deluded if they think they have the
possibility of development within the existing capitalist system. These countries will
always remain dependent on the developed countries. Besides the iron laws of the
international marketplace, which tip the balance in favor of the developed countries,
especially the U.S.A., other mechanisms of control are the multinational corporations
and the international banking community. The latter includes both public entities, such as
the International Monetary Fund, and private interests, such as Chase Manhattan,
Citibank, and the Bank America...

In contrast to traditional theology, Segundo points out that there is a fact of life that
appears more decisive: "among Christians [in Latin America] we find a real lack of
interest in the problem of God. If Vatican II had said that there were three Gods, who
would care?" He asks, What does God say about himself in the New Testament? God's
"statements for the most part deal with us human beings, our lives, and how to transform
them. A much smaller set of statements deal with God. But even these passages show
[God] operating in our lives and transforming our history."

...Liberation theology, having in mind the questions of the poor and marginalized, asks
about idolatry: do Christians by their lives present false images of God to others? In this
analysis, liberation theologians are developing their thought along the lines of Gaudium
et Spes, which states: "To the extent that they are deficient in their religious, moral, or
social life, Christians must be said to conceal rather than reveal the authentic face of
God and religion."
...Theology of liberation is not the system of a single person, a Rahner or Tillich, a de
Chardin or Barth; it is rather a cooperative effort of many. At least as a symbol,
liberation theology represents Christianity well, for it is the joint effort of men and
women of all skin colors working throughout the world on a common project which is
aimed at building up a society of justice and love. Rather than competition, there is
sharing of ideas. Liberation theologians know one another, respect one another, and
promote their ideas. This is unusual at least in some parts of Latin America, where
misanthropy is known to run high. Theology, thus seen, is a communal effort, confronting
a common catastrophe.

--------------

Edward L. Cleary, Crisis and Change: The Church in Latin America Today, Orbis
Books, Maryknoll, New York, July 1985.