Liberation Theology

Cultural authority of colonial Church

Bartolome de Las Casas
(1474-1566)
“To these quiet Lambs, endued with such blessed qualities, came the
Spaniards like most cruel Tygres, Wolves, and Lions, enrag'd with a
sharp and tedious hunger, for these forty years past, minding nothing
else but the slaughter of these unfortunate wretches,whom with divers
kinds of torments neither seen nor heard of before, they have so
cruelly and inhumanely butchered, that of three millions of people
which Hispaniola it self did contain, there are left remaining alive
scarce three hundred persons.
And we dare confidently aver, that for those forty years, wherein the
Spaniards exercised their abominable cruelties, and detestable tyrannies
in those parts, that there have innocently perish'd above Twelve
millions of souls, women and children being numbered in this sad and
fatal list; moreover I do verily believe that I should speak within
compass, should I say that above Fifty millions were consumed in this
massacre. And as for the Women and Children that were left alive,
they laid so heavy and grievous a yoke of servitude upon them that
the condition of beasts was much more tolerable.”
“Tell me by what right and under what law do you hold these
Indians in such cruel and horrible servitude?….By what
authority do you make such detestable war against these
people who are dwelling gently and peacefully in their
lands…..You kill them everyday to gain wealth!!!
--Antonio Montesinos

The beginnings of Liberation Theology?

Church as a socially conservative institution that opposed
any challenge to the status quo as contrary to the interests
of Catholicism

Early 20th Century:

Threats to Church’s social and religious influenc
+
Context of emerging populism

Building a "New Christendom”

 Catholic Action Models

Organizing lay people for “religiously informed

participation in the areas of education, politics, the
economy and culture.”
 1960s: Given uncertainty, political instability,
extreme poverty, repression and revolution, the
Church found itself increasingly competing with
Marx
 A Message to the People of the Third World:

“The peoples of the third world are the proletariat of

today’s humanity….The gospel demands that wealth
must be shared by all…True socialism is Christianity
lived.”
Colombia: Camilo Torres:

United Front brought together peasants,

workers, slum dwellers and progressive
professionals

“I took off my cassock to be more truly a

priest…..The duty of every Catholic is to be
a revolutionary…and the Catholic who is
not a revolutionary is living in mortal sin.”
 Vatican II
1962-1965

Shift in relationship between Church and people

Medellin Conference
1968

Bishops from Latin America

 “The Latin American bishops cannot
remain indifferent in the face of the
tremendous social injustices existent in
Latin America, which keep the majority of
our peoples in dismal poverty, which in
many cases becomes inhuman
wretchedness. A deafening cry pours
from the throats of millions of men,
asking their pastors for a liberation that
reaches them from nowhere else.”

= Liberation Theology

Gustavo Gutierrez
 Solidarity with and preference for the poor

Base Ecclesial Communities or Christian Base

Communities

By 1978: approximately 150,000- 200,000

Base communities throughout Latin America
 Liberation theologians supported Sandinista
Revolution in Nicaragua and preached against
political and economic oppression elsewhere in
region.

Archbishop Oscar Romero of El

Salvador
 Puebla Conference, 1977

Toned Liberation Theology down and

mainstreamed parts (service to poor)
Leonardo Boff

Silenced by Cardinal
Ratzinger, who maintained
Doctrine of the Faith for the
 Liberation Theology
as a movement and theology

Movement: mobilization of marginalized for

social change

Theology: religious ideas about and for liberation

Movement first, theology as a reflection

 Diversity but 8 central themes:

•Methodology: Theory and Praxis

•Sociology, Marxism, and the Reality of Class

Struggle

•God of the Poor

•Sin, Domination and Oppression

• Jesus Christ Liberator

• The Unity of History

• The Church, a preferential Option for the

Poor

• The New Man, the New Society