Liberation Theology One of the most important descriptions of
Christ, possibly even the most fundamental to Christianity, is that of liberator. We
were captive, unable to save ourselves, and Jesus set us free. Yeah… That’s kind of the whole deal. It’s because of this that many Catholics
might be confused as to why Liberation Theology, a 20th century Latin American movement, is
among the most controversial in the Church. What is liberation theology, and why are some
so upset about it? This is Catholicism in Focus. — In order to understand Liberation Theology,
we have to understand the context in which it arose, namely, Latin American in the 1950s
and 60s. This… was not a great situation. While the United States was experiencing tremendous
post-war growth in this time, Latin America was not. Extreme political unrest and economic
downturns led to the creation of military regimes and the consolidation of wealth into
the hands of a few, leaving the majority poor, oppressed, and with little power to change
their situation. At the same time, the Catholic Church was
undergoing its own revolution, of sorts, with a greater emphasis placed on lay involvement—both
in leadership and liturgy—as a result of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
Small groups were formed and the needs of the lay person were brought to the fore. Before long, the institutional Church began
to take notice, shifting its focus as well. In response to the Second Vatican Council’s
insistence on collegiality, the bishops of Latin America met in Medellín, Colombia in
1968, taking as its central theme, “The Church in the Present Transformation of Latin
America in the Light of the Council.” The Council sought to read the Gospel in light
of the the signs of the times. What it concluded was that signs of time times were the poverty
and oppression of the people, “institutionalized violence” set forth by colonial and neocolonial
rule. In their document on peace, the Conference wrote: “As the Christian believes in the productiveness
of peace in order to achieve justice, he also believes that justice is a prerequisite for
peace. He recognizes that in many instances Latin America finds itself faced with a situation
of injustice that can be called institutionalized violence, when, because of a structural deficiency
of industry and agriculture, of national and international economy, of cultural and political
life, “whole towns lack necessities, live in such dependence as hinders all initiative
and responsibility as well as every possibility for cultural promotion and participation in
social and political life,” thus violating fundamental rights. This situation demands
all-embracing, courageous, urgent and profoundly renovating transformations.” (16) What begins to develop in this conference
is a recognition that sin and evil are not simply the result of discreet, individual
actions, nor are their effects contained to a particular person—entire political and
economic structures of society can be sinful. Thus this idea, adopted four years later by
Paul VI, that if you want peace, work for justice. It is not enough to ask people to
be good; the Church must work to identify and dismantle forces within the world that
cause evil. To do this, the conference insisted on two
things: the continued use of small Christian base communities to teach the Bible in local
areas, instilling a sense of biblical justice in the people and empowering their voices;
and that Church and society be oriented towards the “preferential option for the poor.” Basically, everything that we do as a people
has to ask the question: does this benefit the poor? If not, then maybe we don’t need
to be doing it. So far, nothing about this is particularly
controversial. Scripture reveals countless times that God favors the poor; we know that
things like slavery and war, in all of their forms, are blights on society; and the Church
had already spoken for nearly 100 years in its social encyclicals of the need for the
Church to be involved in the political and economic structures of the world. Where things gets a little more complicated,
and where this movement finds its name, is in the theological and philosophical treatises
that followed, most notably the 1971 work by Dominican priest Gustavo Gutiérrez, A
Theology of Liberation. Along with writers like Jon Sobrino, José
Míguez Bonino, Leonardo Boff, and Juan Luis Segundo, Gutiérrez employed a new model of
theology. Rather than beginning with the Word and applying it to the world around them,
as had been done traditionally, these theologians began with the lived experience of the poor
and oppressed, and read scripture through that lens. On the one hand, this method helped to identify
Jesus as the great liberator and empower the people towards the justice of the Kingdom.
The Gospel became a rallying cry for peace and justice, defending the dignity of the
poor and insisting that all work for a just society. On the other hand, it posed a serious problem
to authentic interpretation. Because the lived experience of the poor and oppressed is constantly
changing, the process of reading scripture was not a matter of uncovering the objective,
static truths of God, but rather engaging in a constant, ever-changing reflection of
the meaning of Scripture, potentially reading into it what we want to see. You can probably see why some in the Church
were uncomfortable with this…As a modern form of interpretation, it filters all truth
through humanity and our personal experience. As discomforting as this might seem, modern
thinkers argue that this does not deny the existence of objective realities, only the
possibility of understanding these realities in themselves. Everything, inevitably is filtered
through our lived experience. Initially, the Church was highly suspect.
This method, and the conclusions that it provided, sounded far too similar to another modern
interpretive lens:, Marxism. While the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith supported Liberation
Theology’s emphasis on the poor, it published letters in 1984 and 1986, offering two main
criticisms: First, Liberation Theology seemed to emphasize
the needs of the physical world over and even against the needs of the spiritual. The CDF
warns against the temptation it sees in liberation theology, “to reduce the Gospel to an earthly
gospel.” (INSTRUCTION ON CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE "THEOLOGY OF LIBERATION,” 6.5)
Given the focus on economics and politics, the Church worried that liberation theology
too closely resembled other revolutions of its time, focused solely on building an earthly
kingdom. This would be a shortsighted approach. As Jesus says, “One does not live by bread
alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.” Similarly, he says,
“What profit is there for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” There is more to life, and salvation, than
this world. As awful as poverty is, in the end, wouldn’t we rather be Lazarus than
the Rich Man? To focus on political or economic justice, apart from or at the expense of heavenly
justification, looks more like materialistic atheism than Christianity. Or, we could just say Marxism, the second,
and underlying critique of Liberation Theology. Throughout both letters, the CDF cautions
strongly against the worldview of Marxism, suggesting that a few of its key principles—things
like the centrality of class struggles and the messianic role of the proletariat—are
antithetical to Christianity. [Some theologians] make use of different concepts
without sufficient critical caution. It is difficult, and perhaps impossible, to purify
these borrowed concepts of an ideological inspiration which is compatible with Christian
faith and the ethical requirements which flow from it.” (INSTRUCTION ON CERTAIN ASPECTS
OF THE "THEOLOGY OF LIBERATION,” Introduction) Creating small Christian base communities
to read the Bible sounds nice, but if it’s done as a people’s rebellion, setting up
a dichotomy between the poor and the institutional Church so that the poor can take over and
fix the Church, we have a problem. The key word here being if. While the critiques of LIberation Theology
are important and offer sound theology, there have been many over the years that have argued
that they speak more to a potential problem than an actual problem. These are issues that
could arise, but there is little evidence that they are inherent problems to the theology. Some individuals, out of a sense of desperation
and impatience, have used Christianity to achieve political goals, taking up arms and
inciting Marxist class warfare. That is true. But most, if not nearly all, have remained
entirely faithful to the teaching and authority of the Church. Despite being a controversial figure to some,
Gustavo Gutiérrez has never been censured by the Church and remains a priest in good
standing today. In 2013, Gutiérrez concelebrated a mass with Pope Francis and Gerhard Müller,
then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who later wrote an article praising
Gutiérrez. He may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but
he is a good theologian with something to offer our Church. And I think that’s the beauty of our Church
and what we can learn from a situation like this: it’s good to have different perspectives,
within limits. What Liberation Theology provides is a reminder that God remains alive in our
world. The Word is not just some old book that never changes, it is a person, Jesus
Christ, who continues to speak, heal, and suffer with his people in this world, all
as a part of his work of liberation. Theology can be a transcendent, top-down process where
God leads us to understand the world, but it can also be an immanent, bottom up process
where the world leads us to understand God. A method of theology that grounds us in the
needs of the poor and seeks to do our part in building the Kingdom of God, remembering
that God is ultimately the source of salvation, is something everything Catholic needs.
