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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
More than in the case of any other school of theology, it is important to assess liberation theology in its social context. Liberation theology not only asserts a necessary correlation between belief and action; its adherents are also normally active in work with poor communities or one of the many church-linked sectoral support organisations. Liberation theology has also acquired wide influence within the magisterium of the Latin American church: the meeting of the General Conference of Latin American bishops (CEL AM) in Medellin (1968) and Puebla (1979) adopted key concepts, and for the past twenty years a liberationist outlook has shaped the thinking of the Brazilian bishops’ conference, the largest on the continent.
The impact of liberation theology in the Latin American church has been profound, though not universal. Where its ideas have been adopted, the church, from being in alliance with the elites and out of touch with the and a new following among the poor, and is treated with a new seriousness by non-Christian radicals. Bishops, who formerly entered the political arena mainly to defend their privileges, now commonly champion the rights of workers, the landless, indigenous peoples and other oppressed groups There has been an explosion of creativity, not only in theology, but in church structure, pastoral practice and liturgy. Liberation theology’s influence has spread beyond Latin America, stimulating similar contextual theologies in other parts of the Third World, and securing recognition of one of its key concepts, the ‘preferential option for the poor’, as an essential element of papal social teaching and a permanent question for Christians in the affluent world.
1 To lake a few examples: A Choice for Panama (1981, on the Ceno Colorado copper mine project), The Option for the Poor, (1982, the bishops of Santiago de Chile), Peasants and Land (1983. the bishops of Paraguay), all in the CIIR series Church in the World. The Brazilian bishops’ conference Fraternity campaign has dealt with abandoned children, landlessness, racism, the rights of workers.
2 See, for example, Nolan, Albert OP, God in South Africa, Philip, David, Claremont, Mambo Press, Zimbabwe, CIIR, (London, Wm. B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Mich., 1988)Google Scholar; Ed de la Tone, Touching Ground, Taking Root, Socio‐Pastoral Institute, Quezon City, CIIR and the British Council of Churches, London 1986; Marc. H. Ellis and Ouo Maduro (ed.). The Future of Liberation Theology, Essays in Honour of Gustavo Gutiérrez, Orbis Books, Maryknoll NY, 1989, Part V; John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 42; Centesimus Annus, 57; New Blackfriars, February 1988, special issue on ‘The Church's Option for the Poor in Britain’.
3 There is a convenient summary in Scott Mainwaring and Wilde, Alexander (ed.), The Progressive Church in Latin America, Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana, 1989, pp. 1–37Google Scholar.
4 McGovem, Arthur F., Liberation Theology and its Critics, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY 1989, 158–59Google Scholar.
5 See Brockman, James R. (ed.). The Word Remains: A Life of Oscar Romero, Orbis Books, Maryknoll NY. 1982, pp. 8–18Google Scholar; Galdámez, Pablo, The Faith of a People, Orbis Books, Maryknoll NY, and CUR, London 1986Google Scholar.
6 Quoted in Brockman, James R. (ed.). The Word Remains: A Life of Oscar Romero, Orbis Books, Maryknoll NY, 1982, pp. 65–67Google Scholar.
7 Defenseless Flower. A New Reading of the Bible, Orbis Books, Maryknoll NY, and CIIR, London, 1989, pp. 3–4Google Scholar. Mesters compares the attitude of the Latin American poor to that of the church Fathers; see pp. 22–32. See also Pitt, James, Good News to All, CAFOD, London, 1989Google Scholar.
8 See, for example, Anderson, Ana Flora and Gorgulho, Gilberto da Silva OP, ‘Miriam and Her Companions’, EUis, Marc H. and Maduro, Otto (ed.). The Future of Liberation Theology, Orbis Books, Maryknoll NY 1989, pp. 205–19Google Scholar. See also Maria Clara Bingemer, ibid., pp. 483–85.
9 Translation by Livingstone, Dinah, Nicaraguan Mass, CIIR London 1986Google Scholar.
10 Translated from the song sheet of the Seventh Inter‐Ecclesial Meeting of Base Communities, Duque de Caxias, Rio de Janeiro, 1989.
11 Gutiérrez, Gustavo, A Theology of Liberation, Orbis Books, Maryknoll NY and SCM Press, London, 1988, p. xxiGoogle Scholar.
12 Liberation Theology and its Critics, p. 60.
13 See Brockman, The Word Remains, pp. 101–03. 151–56
14 Boff, Leonardo, ‘Teología de la liberación, opción por los pobres y socialismo hoy’, Vigil, José María (ed.), Sobre la Opción por los Pobres, Editorial Nicarao, Managua 1991, pp. 115–22Google Scholar.
15 Ploeg, Roberto van der, ‘A Igreja dos Pobres no Nordeste, Caaernos do CEAS 132 (Mar/Apr 1991), pp. 61–70Google Scholar, quotation from p. 64.
16 Van der Ploeg, p. 66.
17 A Theology of Liberation, op. cit., p. xxxvi.
18 ibid., p, xxxv.
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