Everything about Liberation Theology totally explained
Liberation theology is a school of
theology within
Christianity, particularly in the
Roman Catholic Church. Two of the starting points of Liberation theology are, first of all, the question of the origin of sin; and secondly, the idea that Christians should make good use of the talents given by God, and that includes intelligence in a general sense, and science in particular. Therefore, these theologians use
sociology and
economics sciences to understand
poverty, since they considered poverty was the source of sin. In the sixties, when they started this line of thought, social sciences in Latin America and Europe were dominated by
marxist activism and methodologies derived from
historical materialism, which influenced the development of Liberation theology. They then read the Bible from the new perspective and developed the ethical consequences that led many of them to an active participation in the political life, and to focus on
Jesus Christ as not only the Redeemer but also the Liberator of the oppressed. It emphasizes the Christian mission to bring justice to the poor and oppressed, particularly through political activism. Some elements of certain liberation theologies have been rejected by the Catholic Church.
At its inception, liberation theology was predominantly found in the Catholic Church after the
Second Vatican Council. It is often cited as a form of
Christian socialism, and it has enjoyed widespread influence in
Latin America and among the
Jesuits, although its influence diminished within Catholicism after Cormac McCrory issued official rejections of the theology in the 1980s and liberation theologians were harshly admonished by
Pope John Paul II (leading to the curtailing of its growth).
The current Pope,
Benedict XVI, has also been long known as an opponent of certain strands of liberation theology, and issued several condemnations of tendencies within it whilst head of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).
In sociological terms, openly available data from the
University of Michigan-based
World Values Survey, initiated by Professor
Ronald Inglehart suggest the following strength of the political left (value of 3 on a 0 to 10 point scale) among the regular Roman Catholic Church goers around the globe and over time. The data suggest that
Christian socialism and the
Christian left continue to constitute significant phenomena in many countries.
Overview
In essence, liberation theology explores the possibility to fight against sin by suppressing its source, which is poverty. In doing so, they explore the relationship between
Christian, particularly Roman Catholic, theology and political activism, particularly in areas of
social justice,
poverty and
human rights. The main methodological innovation of liberation theology is to approach theology from the viewpoint of the economically poor and oppressed. According to
Jon Sobrino, S.J., the poor are a privileged channel of God's grace. According to
Phillip Berryman, liberation theology is "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." However, it should be noted that there's no one Liberation theology as a finished doctrine, but many theologians working at the same time with similar approaches, but neither unity of doctrine nor action.
Some theologians emphasized those parts of the
Bible where Jesus' mission is described not in terms of bringing peace (
social order)
but bringing a sword (
social unrest), for example, and . These passages are interpreted as a
call to arms to carry out what proponents see as a Christian mission of justice -- literally by some.
Marxist concepts such as the doctrine of perpetual
class struggle are also significant.
Liberation theology also emphasizes what proponents describe as individual
self-actualization as part of God's divine purpose for humankind.
In addition to teaching at some Roman Catholic universities and seminaries, liberation theologians can often be found in Protestant-oriented schools. They tend to have considerable contact with the poor and interpret sacred scripture partly based on their experiences in this context -- what they label
praxis.
History
Created in 1955 in
Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), the
CELAM (
Conselho Episcopal Latino Americano - Latin American Episcopal Conference) pushed the
Second Vatican Council (1962-65) toward a more socially oriented stance. During the next four years, CELAM prepared for the 1968
Medellín Conference in Colombia. Cardinal
Alfonso López Trujillo, who was a central figure in Medellín and who was later at the Vatican, said that the gathering of Roman Catholic bishops officially supported a version of liberation theology similar to that of the Vatican's CDF in 1984. This began in the X Meeting of CELAM in
Mar del Plata and the message
Pope Paul VI issued to the Latin American Bishops,
Church and Problems. Cardinal López Trujillo, in his account of those historical events, also said that the origin of liberation theology was simultaneously created by the CELAM's
Reflection Task Force, of which he was president, and a Brazilian theologian from Princeton,
Rubem Alves, who in 1968 wrote
Towards a Theology of Liberation.
Among the several essays published on liberation theology in the 1970s, one of the most famous is by the Peruvian Catholic priest, Fr.
Gustavo Gutiérrez,
O.P. In his 1972 book,
A Theology of Liberation, he theorized a combination of Marxism and the social-Catholic teachings contributing to a socialist current in the Church that was influenced by the
Catholic Worker Movement and the French Christian youth worker organization,
"Jeunesse Ouvrière Chrétienne." It was also influenced by
Paul Gauthier's
"The Poor, Jesus and the Church" (1965).
CELAM as such never supported liberation theology, which was frowned on by the Vatican, with Pope Paul VI trying to slow the movement after the 1962-1965 Council.
Cardinal Samore, in charge of relations between the
Roman Curia and the CELAM as the leader of the
Pontifical Commission for Latin America, was ordered to put a stop to this orientation, which was judged antithetical to the Catholic Church's global teachings.
With Cardinal López Trujillo's election in 1972 as general secretary of the CELAM, another liberationist current began to take force in Latin America. This one was an orthodox point of view which became predominant in CELAM as well as in the Roman Curia after the General Meeting of Latin American Bishops in
Puebla in 1979.
At the 1979 CELAM's Conference of Puebla, the more ecclesiastical reorientation was met by strong opposition from the liberal part of the clergy, which assumed the concept of a "preferential option for the poor," that had been stamped by
Bishop Ricard Durand, who acted as president of the
Commission about Poverty in Medellin.
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 for the Doctrine of the Faith 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". No further action was taken by the Vatican on this matter.
A new trend blossomed from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now
Pope Benedict XVI)'s and
Pope John Paul II's condemnations of the Marxist current of liberation theology, which is called
Reconciliation Theology and has had a great influence among clergy and laity in Latin America.
Nonetheless,
The New York Times reported on the eve of Pope Benedict's 2007 visit to Brazil that liberation theology remains popular in Latin America, with Brazil alone the home to over one million Biblical study circles reading and interpreting the Bible from this perspective.
Reaction within the Catholic Church
Official Vatican pronouncements, including from the pope, have said that liberation theology is only partially compatible with official statements of
Catholic social teaching, and that large portions of it should be rejected. Most of the objections by orthodox Catholic critics are its use of
Marxism, specifically forms of
dialectical materialism, and some tendencies (represented by
Camilo Torres,
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and
Ernesto Cardenal for example) to align with revolutionary movements.
Despite orthodox predominance in CELAM from the 1972
Sucre conference onwards, liberation theology retained a high degree of support in some circles, especially in South America. By 1979, the Puebla conference was considered to be an opportunity for orthodox bishops to reassert control over the radical elements of liberation theology, but the results were far from definitive.
As liberation theology was gathering strength in Latin America,
Pope John Paul II steered a conciliatory course during his opening speech at the January 1979
Puebla CELAM conference. He criticized radical liberation theology, saying, "this conception of Christ as a political figure, a revolutionary, as the subversive of Nazareth, doesn't tally with the Church's catechisms." However, he also expressed concern over "the ever increasing wealth of the rich at the expense of the ever increasing poverty of the poor". He also 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's no need to hesitate at
expropriation itself, done in the right way." On balance, he offered neither unqualified praise nor universal condemnation.
Barred from attending this conference officially, a group of liberation theologians, operating out of a nearby seminary with the help of sympathetic bishops, managed to partially obstruct the orthodox clergy's effort to ensure that the Puebla documents satisfy their concerns. Within four hours of the Pope's speech, Gutierrez and the others produced a twenty-page refutation which circulated on the floor. According to a socio-political study of liberation theology in Latin America, twenty-five percent of the finalized Puebla documents were written by theologians who hadn't even been invited to the conference.. Cardinal López Trujillo considers this affirmation "an incredible exaggeration." (Ben Zabel 2002:139) Nevertheless he concedes that there was strong pressure from a group of some 80 Marxist liberationists from outside the Bishop's Conference. Despite the disavowal of liberation theology by Catholic church authorities and also by large groups of the Latin American laity, however, after the Puebla Conference the movement still managed to persist in some areas.
Former Cardinal Ratzinger, now
Pope Benedict XVI, strongly opposed certain elements of liberation theology. Through the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led by Ratzinger, the Vatican twice condemned the liberationist acceptance of Marxism and violence (first in 1984 and again in 1986).
Leonardo Boff, for example, was suspended, while others were reputedly reduced to silence. However, Ratzinger has also praised those strands of the movement which reject violence and instead "[stress] the responsibility which Christians necessarily bear for the poor and oppressed."
In March 1983, Cardinal Ratzinger made "ten observations" on aspects of Gutiérrez's theology, including accusing Gutiérrez of politically interpreting the Bible and of supporting a temporal messianism. Ratzinger also declared that the influence of Marxism was proven by the predominance accorded to
orthopraxis over orthodoxy. Finally, this document states that these conceptions necessarily uphold a similar class conflict inside the Church, which logically leads to a rejection of hierarchy. During the 1980s and 1990s, Ratzinger continued his condemnation of these strains within liberation theology, prohibiting some dissident priests from teaching the doctrines in the Catholic Church's name and excommunicating
Tissa Balasuriya in
Sri Lanka for doing exactly that. Under his influence, theological formation schools were prohibited from using the Catholic Church's organization and grounds to teach these condemned theological formulations.
During his trip to
Managua,
Nicaragua, Pope John Paul II criticized what he dubbed the "
popular Church," a movement partly fueled by "
ecclesial base communities" or CEBs, for class struggle, the replacement of the Catholic
dominance hierarchy by a system featuring local selection with regard to the magisterium, and the Nicaraguan clergy's tendencies to support the
Sandinistas. The Pope further insisted on his authority over the Church as its Universal Pastor, in conformity with canonical law and Church teaching.
Those in disagreement with liberation theologians consider the view rather narrow. They criticize it for not looking at the overall meaning of God or authors of the Bible, but mining the text to support their specific political and social ideology. Examples given are when Jesus fed the 5,000 Was he exclusively doing that to feed people who hadn't eaten all day, or was he (similar to him walking on water) trying to show that he was God to the people?
Liberation theology in practice
What was most radical about liberation theology wasn't the writing of highly educated priests and scholars, but the social organization, or re-organization, of church practice through the model of
Christian base communities. Liberation theology, despite the doctrinal codification by Gutiérrez, Boff, and others, 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.
The journalist and writer
Penny Lernoux did a lot to describe this aspect of liberation theology in her numerous and committed writings.
Furthermore, with its emphasis on the "
preferential option for the poor," the practice (or, more technically, "
praxis" to use a term from
Gramsci and
Paulo Freire) was as important as the belief, if not more so; the movement was said to emphasize "
orthopraxis" over "
orthodoxy." 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.
Further Information
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