Liberation Theology

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

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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