¹ For a concise, well-done overview of the debates over the significance of Vatican II, see Faggioli, Massimo, Vatican II: The Battle for Meaning (New York: Paulist Press, 2012)Google Scholar. In addition to Faggioli, O'Malley, John's What Happened at Vatican II (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008)Google Scholar represents an engaging and illuminating account of the event of Vatican II that argues for the need to attend to the “style” (or spirit) of the council documents in order to interpret the council properly; another side of the debate is represented by a volume edited by Lamb, Matthew and Levering, Matthew: Vatican II: Renewal within Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008)Google Scholar. The latter, taking Pope Benedict's 2005 Christmas address to the Curia as its inspiration, offers commentaries on the documents of Vatican II that seek to show a strong continuity between Vatican II and the pre-Vatican II tradition.

² Many scholarly journals (e.g., Theological Studies) and popular magazines (e.g., National Catholic Reporter, America, Commonweal, First Things) have had at least one issue devoted to the anniversary of the council's opening, and many of these articles focus on how Vatican II should be received today. Many religious and theological conferences (e.g., the American Academy of Religion, the Catholic Theological Society of America) have also had substantial sessions devoted to Vatican II over the past few years.

³ In addition to these two references, one finds this basic idea in Lumen Gentium §9 and in other documents, including Sacrosanctum Concilium §§5 and 26, Gaudium et Spes §§42 and 45, and Ad Gentes §§1 and 5 (see Avery Dulles, “Nature, Mission, and Structure of the Church,” in Lamb and Levering, Vatican II: Renewal within Tradition, 26–27). All citations of the documents of Vatican II in this article are from Flannery, Austin, OP, ed., Vatican Council II: Constitutions, Decrees, Declarations (New York: Costello Publishing, 1996).Google Scholar

⁴ In this article I engage primarily the work of liberation theologians working in Latin America, and particularly that of Gustavo Gutiérrez and Jon Sobrino. However, this is neither the only tradition within liberation theology that engages our theme nor the tradition that should necessarily be given priority. See, e.g., Phelps, Jamie, “Communion Ecclesiology and Black Liberation Theology,” Theological Studies 61, no. 4 (2000): 672–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Phelps' essay is insightful in many respects, but one particular point on the need to reflect upon the church as sacrament is helpful as we begin. Whatever one thinks about the 1985 Synod of Bishops' elevation of the church as communio as the fundamental ecclesiology of Vatican II, this elevation provides greater ecclesiastical weight to the need to understand the full dimensions of the church as sacrament of salvation and unity: union with God, union among Christian communities, and union within the human community at large (Phelps, 672).

⁵ Dulles, Avery, Models of the Church, 2nd ed. (New York: Doubleday, 2002)Google Scholar, 67.

⁶ The genealogical relationship between liberation theology and Vatican II is a complex one. On the one hand, the seeds of liberation theology are already present in ecclesial and theological movements in Latin America prior to the conclusion of the council; see Gutiérrez, Gustavo, A Theology of Liberation: 15th Anniversary Edition with a New Introduction by the Author, trans. Inda, Caridad and Eagleson, John (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988)Google Scholar, xxix; Hennelly, Alfred T., Liberation Theologies: The Global Pursuit of Justice (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1995)Google Scholar, 27; part 1 of Liberation Theology: A Documentary History, ed. Hennelly, Alfred (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990), 1–37Google Scholar. Thus, it would be erroneous to see liberation theology as merely the application or inculturation of an insight from abroad. On the other hand, it is accurate to say that liberation theology and Medellín must be placed directly in the context of Vatican II. See, e.g., Archbishop Juan Landazuri Ricketts' welcoming address at Medellín, which sets forth the following as the conference's task: “to define the presence of the Church in the actual transformation of Latin America in the light of Vatican Council II . . . , to fathom the signs of the times for that which the Holy Spirit desires for the Church” (Latin American Episcopal Conference [CELAM], The Church in the Present-Day Transformation of Latin America in the Light of the Council, vol. 1, Position Papers [Bogotá, Colombia: General Secretariat of CELAM, 1970], 23–24). Many other speeches given at Medellín confirm this basic impulse. On the relationship between Vatican II and Medellín, see Archbishop Avelar Brandão Vilela's speech at Medellín, ibid., 69–76, as well as Gutiérrez, Gustavo, Density of the Present: Selected Writings, trans. Wilde, Margaret (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999), 59–101Google Scholar; and Martinez, Gaspar, Confronting the Mystery of God: Political, Liberation, and Public Theologies (New York: Continuum, 2001)Google Scholar, 108, 121.

⁷ Among other things, we see Pope John calling for the church to “ever look to the present, to the new conditions and new forms of life introduced into the modern world which have opened new avenues to the Catholic apostolate,” to guard the deposit of faith while pursuing “that work which our era demands of us,” to “make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity,” and to “correspond to the modern expectations and needs of the various peoples of the world” (John, Pope XXIII, “Gaudet Mater Ecclesia,” in Council Daybook, Vatican II: Sessions 1 & 2, ed. Anderson, Floyd [Washington, DC: National Catholic Welfare Conference, 1965], 27–29Google Scholar). The famous opening passage of Gaudium et Spes runs: “The joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the men of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted in any way, are the joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well. Nothing that is genuinely human fails to find an echo in their hearts. For theirs is a community composed of men, of men who, united in Christ and guided by the Holy Spirit, press onwards towards the kingdom of the Father and are bearers of a message of salvation intended for all men. That is why Christians cherish a feeling of deep solidarity with the human race and its history.”

⁸ Quoted in Gutiérrez, Density of the Present, 64.

⁹ Another passage of importance is the particularly strong affirmation that faith demands the fulfillment of “earthly responsibilities”: “Let there, then, be no such pernicious opposition between professional and social activity on the one hand and religious life on the other. The Christian who shirks his temporal duties shirks his duties towards his neighbor, neglects God himself, and endangers his eternal salvation” (GS §43).

¹⁰ On the latter point, see Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation, chap. 9; and Ignacio Ellacuría, “The Historicity of Christian Salvation,” trans. Wilde, Margaret D., in Mysterium Liberationis: Fundamental Concepts of Liberation Theology, ed. Ellacuría, Ignacio and Sobrino, Jon (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993), 251–89Google Scholar. The former idea of integral liberation is affirmed throughout the decades of liberation theology, though with various emphases depending upon the context. For example, in an early work such as A Theology of Liberation, Gutiérrez stresses the need to include socio-political transformation as part of salvation against otherworldly accounts of redemption and the view of this transformation as simply pre-evangelical (83, 91, 104). In later works (including his 1988 introduction to the fifteenth anniversary edition of A Theology of Liberation), he emphasizes that the notion of integral liberation does not reduce salvation to socio-political liberation. Indeed, he says that the ultimate roots of injustice are sin and selfishness and that “social and political liberation should not in any way hide the final and radical significance of liberation from sin which can only be a work of forgiveness and of God's grace” (Density of the Present, 180; A Theology of Liberation, xxxviii).

¹¹ Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation, xxi.

¹² Gutiérrez, Density of the Present, 67.

¹³ See Cabestrero, Teófilo, “En Medellín la semilla del Vaticano II dio ciento por uno,” Revista Latinoamericano de Teología 46 (1999): 59–73Google Scholar, for an analysis of speeches at Vatican II on this topic and its fruition at Medellín.

¹⁴ Sobrino, Jon, No Salvation outside the Poor: Prophetic-Utopian Essays (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2008)Google Scholar, 70, trans. Joseph Owens; Gutiérrez, Gustavo, “The Church and the Poor: A Latin American Perspective,” in Reception of Vatican II, ed. Alberigo, Giuseppe, Jossua, Jean-Pierre, and Komonchak, Joseph A., trans. O'Connell, Matthew J. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1987), 192–93.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Boff, Leonardo, Church, Charism, and Power: Liberation Theology and the Institutional Church, trans. Diercksmeier, John W. (New York: Crossroad, 1985).Google Scholar

¹⁶ See, e.g., Sullivan, Francis A. SJ, “Quaestio Disputata: Further Thoughts on the Meaning of Subsistit In,” Theological Studies 71, no. 1 (2010): 133–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 138.

¹⁷ See, e.g., Gaillardetz, Richard, The Church in the Making: Lumen Gentium, Christus Dominus, Orientalium Ecclesiarum (New York: Paulist Press, 2006).Google Scholar

¹⁸ De Mey, Peter, “Recent Views of Lumen Gentium, Fifty Years after Vatican II,” Horizons 39, no. 2 (2012): 252–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁹ The Gift of the Church: A Textbook on Ecclesiology in Honor of Patrick Granfield, OSB, ed. Phan, Peter C. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000).Google Scholar

²⁰ Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil, 5 vols., ed. Hünermann, Peter and Hilberath, Bernd Jochen (Freiburg: Herder, 2004–6)Google Scholar. A useful appendix to these five volumes is Das Zweite Vatikanische Konzil und die Zeichen der Zeit heute: Anstoße zur weitere Rezeption, ed. Hünermann, Peter (Freiburg: Herder, 2006).Google Scholar

²¹ See Peter Hünermann, Herders Theologischer Kommentar, 2:337–44, at 340 for a discussion of the church as sacrament. Engaging the Chilean bishops obviously does not equate to drawing upon liberation theology; nevertheless, it is still noteworthy that Hünermann's reflections demonstrate a careful attention to resources from the Global South for his reading of Lumen Gentium and that the particular points of the bishops do share much with the later reflections of Gutiérrez, Sobrino, and others.

²² Guido Bausenhart, Herders Theologischer Kommentar, 5:258.

²³ Hans-Joachim Sander, Herders Theologischer Kommentar, 4:856–59.

²⁴ For two older but representative examples, see Richard, Lucien OMI, Harrington, Daniel SJ, and O'Malley, John W. SJ, eds., Vatican II: The Unfinished Agenda; A Look into the Future (New York: Paulist Press, 1987)Google Scholar; and Fagin, Gerald M. SJ, ed., Vatican II: Open Questions and New Horizons (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1984)Google Scholar. These two volumes are generally of good quality and yet reinforce the impression given by De Mey and The Gift of the Church. For a stronger treatment of Lumen Gentium that is closer to that of the Herder series, see Gaillardetz, The Church in the Making.

²⁵ See Dulles, Models of the Church, 56; and Sullivan, Francis A., The Church We Believe In: One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic (New York: Paulist Press, 1988), 109–31Google Scholar. For the introduction of the idea of sacrament into Lumen Gentium, see Peter Hünermann's commentary in Herders Theologischer Kommentar, 2:324–26.

²⁶ Dulles, Models of the Church, 62–63. For a more extensive analysis of the Christological (and pneumatological) foundations of the church as sacrament, see Rahner, Karl, “The Theology of the Symbol” and “The Word and Eucharist,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 4: More Recent Writings, trans. Smyth, Kevin (Baltimore: Helicon, 1966), 240–42Google Scholar, 273–76; and Rahner, “On the Presence of Christ in the Diaspora Community according to the Teaching of the Second Vatican Council,” Theological Investigations, vol. 10: Writings of 1965–1967, 2, trans. Bourke, David (New York: Seabury Press, 1977), 91–95.Google Scholar

²⁷ Grillmeier, Aloys, “The Mystery of the Church,” in Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, ed. Vorgrimler, Herbert (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967–69)Google Scholar, 1:140.

²⁸ Contrasting this view with the dominant pre-Vatican II ecclesiologies, Joseph Ratzinger sees Lumen Gentium's view of the church as “dynamic” and historical rather than as a “rounded-off and finished reality” (Ratzinger, Joseph, Theological Highlights of Vatican II, trans. The Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle [New York: Paulist Press, 2009], 75).Google Scholar

²⁹ See Otto Semmelroth, “The Eschatological Nature of the Pilgrim Church and Her Union with the Heavenly Church,” in Vorgrimler, Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, 1:280–82, for an excellent discussion of the eschatological nature of the church and the shift from an individualistic to an ecclesial approach in the drafts of Lumen Gentium.

³⁰ Dulles, Models of the Church, 106; see also Ratzinger, Theological Highlights, 78; and a discussion of this point in relation to the traditional marks of the church in Rausch, Thomas P., Towards a Truly Catholic Church: An Ecclesiology for the Third Millennium (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2005), 132–38Google Scholar. This same dynamic of taking up the task to become a clearer sign shapes much of the reform of the liturgy in Sacrosanctum Concilium. In addition to the central principle of facilitating active participation by the laity (Sacrosanctum Concilium §§11, 14, 30, 48), intelligibility and simplicity were established as norms to guide the reform of the liturgy (§§34, 50). As John O'Malley sums it up, “Whatever obscured or distracted from the essential meaning of the liturgical celebrations was to be eliminated” (O'Malley, What Happened at Vatican II, 132).

³¹ Sadly, examples of such failure are frequent within the history of the church. The contemporary sexual abuse scandal, both in prevalence of sexual abuse and the widespread failure of church leaders to protect children, is perhaps the most obvious example of such a countersign. At Vatican II, we see the recognition of another countersign in the acknowledgment that the state of ecclesial divisions “openly contradicts the will of Christ, scandalizes the world, and damages that most holy cause, the preaching of the Gospel to every creature” (Unitatis Redintegratio §1). Likewise, John Paul II recognized that the way in which the papal office has sometimes been exercised functioned as a countersign to unity: “What should have been a service [to unity], sometimes manifested itself in a very different light” (Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Ut Unum Sint, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25051995_ut-unum-sint_en.html, §95). Perhaps more than anything else, the history of Christian treatment of Jews and Judaism represents a countersign to the salvation and unity that the church is to represent and serve. In condemning those who would view the Jews as “rejected or accursed,” and in rejecting “every form of persecution . . . and displays of anti-Semitism” (Nostra Aetate §4), Vatican II is condemning much of mainstream Christian thought through the centuries (the history of Christian anti-Judaism is well known; for the complex relationship between anti-Semitism and the Catholic Church in the decades leading up to and during World War II, see Connolly, John, From Enemy to Brother: The Revolution in Catholic Teaching on the Jews: 1933–1965 [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012]).Google Scholar

³² This point has clear implications for the ecumenical movement as both a call for greater unity and the allowance for the recognition that non-Catholic churches act as effective signs of God's grace in the reading and preaching of the Word, in baptism and in gathering for the Lord's Supper, and in the holy lives of their members. Furthermore, it is a foundation for the affirmation of the universal call to holiness in Lumen Gentium §39–42: “If the Church is, in fact, the corporate presence of the triune God, who is holiness itself, then it must look and act like a community transformed by the divine presence” (McBrien, Richard P., The Church: The Evolution of Catholicism [New York: HarperOne, 2008], 165–66Google Scholar).

³³ CELAM, The Church in the Present-Day Transformation of Latin America in the Light of the Council, 55, 82, 109, 118–28, 247–48. Pironio's speech is found on 107–28.

³⁴ John Eagleson and Philip Scharper, eds., Puebla and Beyond (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1979), 284; see 151–61 for the core discussion and 242 and 490 for a couple of later references.

³⁵ Romero, Archbishop Oscar, “The Easter Church,” Voice of the Voiceless: The Four Pastoral Letters and Other Statements (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1985), 52–62Google Scholar; for references in subsequent pastoral letters, see 66, 95, 125.

³⁶ See Boff, Church, Charism, and Power; Ellacuría, “Church of the Poor, Sacrament of Liberation,” 543–64; Ellacuría, Freedom Made Flesh: The Mission of Christ and His Church, trans. Drury, John (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1976)Google Scholar, 95, 140; Burke, Kevin and Lassalle-Klein, Robert, eds., Love That Produces Hope: The Thought of Ignacio Ellacuría (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2006), 177–80Google Scholar, 193–94, 206–7; Alvaro Quiroz Magaña, “Ecclesiology in the Theology of Liberation,” trans. Robert R. Barr, in Ellacuría and Sobrino, Mysterium Liberationis, 194–209, at 201–3. Boff sees the identity of the church as a sacrament relativizing the role and importance of the present institutional structure of the Catholic Church; Ellacuría emphasizes the sign character of the church as a witness to salvation and the historical and social character of salvation; Magaña reinforces the latter point from Ellacuría.

³⁷ See Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation, chap. 12; and Brown, Robert McAfee, Gustavo Gutiérrez (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990)Google Scholar, 121. This section of A Theology of Liberation is reprinted in Nickoloff, James B., ed., Gustavo Gutiérrez: Essential Writings (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1996), 242–54Google Scholar. More generally, Gutiérrez's theology has been rightly described as “intrinsically ecclesiological” in the sense that it centers on defining how the church can be a universal sacrament of salvation in the concrete case of Latin America (see Martinez, Confronting the Mystery of God, 114); see also Gutiérrez, Density of the Present, 65.

³⁸ Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation, 146.

³⁹ Ibid., 147.

⁴⁰ Eagleson and Scharper, Puebla and Beyond, 159.

⁴¹ In what follows I unpack this basic claim. For a more general account of the preferential option within Gutiérrez's corpus of writings, see A Theology of Liberation, xxv–xxviii; “Option for the Poor,” trans. Robert R. Barr, in Ellacuría and Sobrino, Mysterium Liberationis, 235–50; and “Memory and Prophecy,” in The Option for the Poor in Christian Theology, ed. Groody, Daniel G. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 17–38Google Scholar. It is significant that, for Gutiérrez, the preferential option “is the most substantial part of the contribution to the universal church made by the life of the Latin American church and by liberation theology” (Gutiérrez, Gustavo, “The Situation and Tasks of Liberation Theology Today,” in Opting for the Margins: Postmodernity and Liberation in Christian Theology, ed. Rieger, Joerg [New York: Oxford University Press, 2003], 89–104CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 96).

⁴² This connection is made explicit by Sobrino, who sees Lumen Gentium §§1 and 8 as mutually explanatory (Sobrino, The True Church and the Poor, trans. Matthew J. O'Connell [Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1984], 240). Going beyond §8, Gutiérrez could point to the call for bishops to lead the faithful, “in a special way” to a deeper love “of the poor, the suffering, and those who are undergoing persecution for the sake of justice” (LG §23) and to the call for the poor to see themselves as united to Christ (LG §41).

⁴³ Gutiérrez, Gustavo, The Truth Shall Make You Free: Confrontations, trans. O'Connell, Matthew J. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991)Google Scholar, 169—drawing upon the document on poverty from Medellín. Later on the same page, Gutiérrez points to the passage from the next conference of CELAM quoted above: “Puebla therefore says that in Latin America we have opted for ‘a church that is a sacrament of communion, a church that, in a history marked by conflicts, contributes irreplaceable energies to promote the reconciliation and solidarity of our peoples’ (no. 1302).”

⁴⁴ Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation, 148.

⁴⁵ Ibid., 153.

⁴⁶ Ibid., 151. The impossibility of political neutrality (and thus the inescapably political nature of every position, religious or otherwise) is one of the most unifying themes among various liberation theologians. For one of the most influential and concise explorations of this, see Oscar Romero's Louvain address the month before his assassination (Romero, “The Political Dimension of the Faith from the Perspective of the Option for the Poor,” in Voice of the Voiceless, 177–87).

⁴⁷ Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation, 161.

⁴⁸ Gutiérrez, Gustavo, The God of Life, trans. O'Connell, Matthew J. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991)Google Scholar, 108; cf. Gutiérrez, Gustavo, We Drink from Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People, trans. O'Connell, Matthew J. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1984)Google Scholar, 28, 135.

⁴⁹ Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation, 159.

⁵⁰ Ratzinger, Theological Highlights, 78. Agreeing with this point, Gutiérrez argues that in the church's critique of an oppressive structuring of society, “the Church must also criticize itself as an integral part of this order” (A Theology of Liberation, 152).

⁵¹ Gutiérrez, Density of the Present, 92–95.

⁵² Gutiérrez, The God of Life, 23.

⁵³ Whether or not to call the option for the poor a “preferential” option is of some debate among liberation theologians. The phrase “preferential option” has been used in documents of the magisterium (see, e.g., Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis §42) and is endorsed by Gutiérrez in order to preserve a strong sense of the universality of God's love (Gutiérrez, “Option for the Poor,” 239). Juan Luis Segundo argues against the use of preferential, arguing that its inclusion at Puebla was a move that weakens the critical edge of the option for the poor; in his view, the addition of preferential is tautological and can only function practically to eviscerate the conflictive nature of the option (Segundo, Juan Luis, “Option for the Poor,” in Signs of the Times: Theological Reflections, ed. Hennelly, Alfred T., trans. Barr, Robert R. [Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993], 121Google Scholar). Sobrino generally sides with Segundo on this question (see Sobrino, No Salvation outside the Poor, 20). This fits well with the discussion of his apocalyptic framing of the church's mission and praxis below.

⁵⁴ Sobrino, The True Church and the Poor, 114 (emphasis in the original). Sobrino's interpretation of the church as a sacrament affirms a number of the other points made by Gutiérrez and other interpreters of Lumen Gentium as well. For the eschatological, provisional, and sign character of the church, see Sobrino, Witnesses to the Kingdom: The Martyrs of El Salvador and the Crucified Peoples (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2003), 86–88Google Scholar; for an emphasis on becoming a sacrament as a task given to the church, see Sobrino, The True Church and the Poor, 119, 124, 137–38; for the option for the poor as fundamental to the church's mission, see Sobrino, No Salvation outside the Poor, 21; for the need to overcome fundamental divisions among humanity, see Sobrino, The Principle of Mercy: Taking the Crucified People from the Cross (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994)Google Scholar, 164. As was already mentioned above (note 42), Sobrino interprets Lumen Gentium §1 in part through the lens of Lumen Gentium §8.

⁵⁵ It must be noted that although it is clearly present—see the previous note—the image of the church as a sacrament is not as systematically engaged by Sobrino as it is by Gutiérrez. In the key points of development that I suggest from Sobrino's thought, some occur in his texts with explicit mention of the sacramental nature of the church; others do not. In both cases, however, the developments build upon Gutiérrez's fundamental claim: the preferential option is essential to the church's very existence if it is to be a sacrament of salvation; and thus, in both cases, Sobrino's insights move forward our understanding of Lumen Gentium and the church.

⁵⁶ The two most important volumes are Jesuchristo liberator and La fe en Jesuchristo; in English translation: Sobrino, Jon, Jesus the Liberator: A Historical-Theological Reading of Jesus of Nazareth, trans. Burns, Paul and McDonagh, Francis (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994)Google Scholar and Christ the Liberator: A View from the Victims, trans. Burns, Paul (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001)Google Scholar. Excellent secondary essays can be found in part 2 of Pope, Stephen, ed., Hope and Solidarity: Jon Sobrino's Challenge to Christian Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2008), 79–152.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ This attentiveness to the concrete particularity of Jesus, the need to give “the history of the flesh-and-blood Jesus its full weight as revelation” (Sobrino, Jesus the Liberator, 47), is developed well by Roberto Goizueta as an aesthetic impulse in Sobrino's thought (Goizueta, Roberto, Christ Our Companion: Toward a Theological Aesthetics of Liberation [Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2009]Google Scholar; and Goizueta, “The Christology of Jon Sobrino,” in Pope, Hope and Solidarity, 90–104).

⁵⁸ Sobrino, Jesus the Liberator, 3.

⁵⁹ Ibid., 189; cf. Christ the Liberator, 267.

⁶⁰ Sobrino, The Principle of Mercy, 109.

⁶¹ See, e.g., “General Introduction,” in The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism, vol. 1, The Origins of Apocalypticism in Judaism and Christianity, ed. Collins, John J. (New York: Continuum, 2000), vii–xiGoogle Scholar; John J. Collins, “From Prophecy to Apocalypticism: The Expectation of the End,” in The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism, 129–61; McGinn, Bernard, “Introduction: Apocalyptic Spirituality,” in Apocalyptic Spirituality, ed. McGinn, Bernard, The Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 1–16Google Scholar. For an excellent treatment of Sobrino in the light of apocalyptic thought, see Ashley, J. Matthew, “Apocalypticism in Political and Liberation Theology: Toward an Historical Docta Ignorantia,” Horizons 27, no. 1 (2000): 22–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a helpful schematic treatment of various forms of apocalypticism in contemporary theology, see O'Regan, Cyril, Theology and the Spaces of Apocalyptic, The Père Marquette Lecture in Theology 2009 (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2009).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶² It is significant that one of the clearest places where Sobrino invokes and affirms apocalyptic thought is in the context of his discussion of the Resurrection. Here he insists that as important as it is to emphasize the corporeal, social, and cosmic dimensions of resurrection against overly spiritualized and individualistic views of salvation, it is necessary to connect the Resurrection—as it is in apocalyptic thought—with a “hope in the power of God over the injustice that produces victims” (Sobrino, Christ the Liberator, 42). A hope for the interruption of injustice is at the core of many other appeals to apocalyptic thought over the last decades; see, e.g., Metz, Johann Baptist, Faith in History and Society: Toward a Practical Fundamental Theology, trans. Ashley, J. Matthew (New York: Herder & Herder, 2007), 81–85Google Scholar, 156–65.

⁶³ For a concise elaboration of this dialectic, see Sobrino, No Salvation outside the Poor, 82–88; and Sobrino, Christ the Liberator, 84–86, 166–69.

⁶⁴ Two principal dangers of such an apocalyptic imagination are demonization and what Ivan Petrella calls “gigantism” (Petrella, Ivan, Beyond Liberation Theology: A Polemic [London: SCM Press, 2008]Google Scholar, 100). It is not incidental that Sobrino's thought came to maturity in a situation of violent oppression and civil war in which tens of thousands of men, women, and children were attacked and killed—the vast majority by the US-backed Salvadoran government. Though figures such as Archbishop Romero and Ignacio Ellacuría continually sought peaceful solutions to the simmering and eventual civil war, the forces of the anti-kingdom were clear—though the decision to opt for the poor at the risk of one's person and community obviously remained a difficult one. From this situation of crisis an apocalyptic rhetoric rises, is intelligible, and yet also has the danger of demonization. Generally speaking, the battle lines cannot be drawn so cleanly, and an apocalyptic framing necessarily simplifies complex issues in order to get at what one sees as the core of the situation. Furthermore, if some sort of reconciliation is eventually desired (rather than simply the destruction of one's enemies), apocalyptic rhetoric may cut against such a possibility. The second danger, “gigantism,” has to do with the paralyzing effect that apocalyptic can have despite its own intention. In creating an enemy so powerful, overwhelming, and systemic, one may fall into defeatism rather than being spurred on to seek effective changes that bring greater life to the poor. These dangers do not condemn apocalyptic or prophetic rhetoric, to be sure. Despite the danger of paralysis, an apocalyptic imagination helps us to see the genuinely oppressive forces in this world (resisting naïve optimism) and rouses us to confront that which opposes the life of the poor and vulnerable. And indeed, often the forces that must be overcome are systemic and overwhelming. Being aware of these dangers does, however, require us to complement apocalyptic rhetoric with other forms of analysis and speech, and to recognize where apocalyptic rhetoric obscures more than it reveals.

⁶⁵ Sobrino insists that when living out such a mission, the church should expect to suffer persecution and martyrdom. See Sobrino, Jon, Spirituality of Liberation: Toward Political Holiness, trans. Barr, Robert R. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988)Google Scholar, 145. For Sobrino, it is Romero, his Jesuit brothers, and all the martyrs of El Salvador who best illustrate this fact (see Sobrino, Witnesses to the Kingdom).

⁶⁶ Ashley, “Apocalypticism in Political and Liberation Theology,” 27.

⁶⁷ Sobrino, Christ the Liberator, 331.

⁶⁸ Sobrino, Spirituality of Liberation, 147–49; Sobrino, The Principle of Mercy, 1–11.

⁶⁹ Sobrino, The Principle of Mercy, 17.

⁷⁰ Ibid., 20, 25.

⁷¹ Ibid., 23.

⁷² For example, almost every cited text in the documents on “Justice” and “Peace” at Medellín are from Gaudium et Spes, Paul VI's social encyclical Populorum Progressio, Paul VI's addresses at Medellín, and the Bible (Latin American Episcopal Conference [CELAM], The Church in the Present-Day Transformation of Latin America in the Light of the Council II: Conclusions [Bogotá, Colombia, General Secretariat of CELAM, 1970], 55–82.

⁷³ According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, in 2011 El Salvador was second only to Honduras. See Lisa Evans, “Mapping Murder throughout the World,” http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/oct/10/world-murder-rate-unodc. For a study on worldwide homicide rates, see United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, “Global Study on Homicide, 2011,” http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/Homicide/Globa_study_on_homicide_2011_web.pdf. See pp. 48–52 for data on Central America.

⁷⁴ For a summary analysis of why rates in El Salvador and other Latin American countries have increased while much of the world has seen a decrease in murder rates, see United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, “UNODC Study Shows That Homicide Rates Are Highest in Parts of the Americas and Africa,” http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2011/October/unodc-study-shows-that-homicide-rates-are-highest-in-parts-of-the-americas-and-africa.html.

⁷⁵ InSight, “El Salvador Implements New Gang Law,” http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/el-salvador-implements-new-gang-law.

⁷⁶ The most basic point here is simply that there are various forms of moral discourse and each has its particular strengths and weaknesses. No one form of discourse will be appropriate to every situation, and, ideally, various discourses will productively complement and challenge one another. Even in a situation in which urgent change is needed and an apocalyptic hope for a reversal of fortunes for the sake of the oppressed remains, apocalyptic rhetoric and condemnation may not be the best practical way forward. For a helpful, short analysis of “prophetic discourse,” “ethical discourse,” “narrative discourse,” and “policy discourse,” see James M. Gustafson, Varieties of Moral Discourse: Prophetic, Narrative, Ethical, and Policy (Grand Rapids, MI: Calvin College and Seminary, 1988). His analysis of prophetic discourse—both its strengths and weaknesses—applies well to apocalyptic discourse. See also note 64 above.

⁷⁷ For an excellent overview of events on this front in El Salvador over the first year of the truce, see Tim, “Building on the Truce,” http://luterano.blogspot.com/2012/12/building-on-truce.html; and other posts at luterano.blogspot.com.

⁷⁸ Hannah Stone, “Next Phase of Salvador Gang Truce: Peace Zones,” http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/next-phase-salvador-gang-truce-peace-zones.

⁷⁹ Tim, “Churches Unite in Peace Initiative,” http://luterano.blogspot.com/2012/11/churches-unite-in-peace-initiative.html.

⁸⁰ Voices from El Salvador, “USAID and SolucionES to Invest $42 Million in Gang Prevention Programs,” https://voiceselsalvador.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/usaid-and-soluciones-to-invest-42-million-in-gang-prevention-programs/; Americas Society, “Security in Central America's Northern Triangle: Violence Reduction and the Role of the Private Sector in El Salvador,” http://www.as-coa.org/sites/default/files/Central%20American%20Security%202012.pdf.

⁸¹ For example, a gang truce in Belize also reduced the homicide rate dramatically, but this has now spiked again as the truce has broken down (“A Meeting of the Maras,” The Economist, May 12, 2012, http://www.economist.com/node/21554521). The experience of Belize makes the further initiatives by Bishop Colindres, other churches, the business community, and the Salvadoran government all the more important. See also Voice from El Salvador, “The Evolution of Gangs as Political and Social Actors in El Salvador,” http://voiceselsalvador.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/the-evolution-of-gangs-as-political-and-social-actors-in-el-salvador/. More recently, May 2014 saw levels of violence that returned to close to pre-truce levels (see Diana Arias, “Alza en homicidios a las puertas del nuevo gobierno,” http://www.lapagina.com.sv/ampliar.php?id=95730; Erika Brenner, “El Salvador: Blood and Roses on Mother's Day,” http://upsidedownworld.org/main/el-salvador-archives-74/4836-el-salvador-blood-and-roses-on-mothers-day). See also Tim, “Murders Surge in the Weeks before Transition of Government,” http://luterano.blogspot.com/2014/05/murders-surge-in-weeks-before.html. In light of these developments, Bishop Colindres has called for a recommitment to the gang truce from all sides (Nelson Renteria, “El Salvador Church Leaders Call for New Gang Truce,” http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/22/us-elsalvador-violence-idUSBREA3L1XV20140422).

⁸² Among many others, see Massingale, Brian N., Racial Justice and the Catholic Church (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010)Google Scholar for a persuasive account of the nature of racism as a part of culture (rather than defined by individual acts of bigotry or hostility), the need to name the causes and attack the sources of racism, and the general failure of the Catholic Church to be a leading actor (to say the least) in overcoming this enduring division in American life. For a more detailed account of key ways a racial hierarchy has been established and sustained in the United States, see Alexander, Michelle, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, rev. ed., with a new foreword by Cornel West (New York: The New Press, 2012).Google Scholar