BELIEFS AND PRACTICES
Liberation theology: a challenge to the church

As an influential cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI stifled liberation theology, which called on the church to help the poor and oppressed by challenging political power, particularly in Latin America. While liberation theology has faded as a movement, it is still practiced in some areas and studied widely. Some say it has influenced feminist, Latino, black and Asian theologies throughout the world.

Despite the rising number of Latin immigrants in the United States, scholars say liberation theology exists more in academia than in congregations. As Pope Benedict settles into leading a church in which nearly half its billion members live in Latin America, the evolution of liberation theology raises an enduring question: What is the role of churches in addressing injustice, inequity and oppression that result from political power?

Facts and trends
• Liberation theology emerged in the late 1960s in Latin America, where Catholics began reading the Gospel as a call to free people from oppression and to challenge political systems in countries where poverty was widespread. Scholars embraced this new theology with fervor.
• Pope Benedict XVI (as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) became one of liberation theology's staunchest critics in the 1980s as head of the Catholic Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He silenced theologians associated with such scriptural interpretations and appointed traditional bishops. Some scholars believe it's because he objected to Marxist-inspired political analysis that some theologians embraced. Others say Ratzinger objected to the independence of base communities, small groups formed to study the Bible and relate it to their own experience of oppression.
• Some scholars say Ratzinger and others successfully stifled a movement that was already headed toward extinction because it addressed specific historical and economic situations that have been altered by global capitalism and other factors. Some also say that it was weakened because it relied on a method of scriptural interpretation that has been overtaken by new developments in biblical criticism.
• Liberation theology is still practiced in rural and middle-class villages in Latin America, and it is studied widely in seminaries in the United States and elsewhere. Some scholars say it has taken new life in feminist, Latino, black and Asian theologies throughout the world. The emphasis has shifted from the poor to those marginalized by race, ethnicity or gender. The focus is less on supporting socialist revolution than critiquing mainstream civil society.

Why it matters
Liberation theology provides a useful lens for looking at the challenge of how members and leaders of a global church respond to changing political and social environments.

Questions for reporters
• Is liberation theology a waning movement that will die a natural death - or a vital and evolving theology that calls on believers to relate the Bible to their experience?
• What is the "classic definition" of liberation theology?
• What were Ratzinger's main objections to liberation theology? Do observers say he was justified?
• What actions did he take to suppress it?
• How do observers and experts define liberation theology today - or would you say liberation theologies? Is the emphasis less on poverty than on race and ethnicity? What are the central concerns today?
• How has liberation theology changed mainstream theology?
• How will the election of Pope Benedict affect such theological movements?

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• Fernando Segovia, professor of New Testament and early Christianity at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., has written about the challenge and promise of Latino spirituality. He co-edited A Dream Unfinished: Theological Reflections on America from the Margins (Orbis Books, 2001). Segovia says Ratzinger took measures to disarticulate the liberation theology movement: silencing theologians, closing seminaries and appointing traditional bishops and auxiliary bishops. Segovia believes the Vatican's response to Marxist critical theory was exaggerated given that the appeal to and use of Marxism was very limited. He says liberation theology has spread to Africa and Asia, and the movement has been influenced by feminist, racial and ethnic struggles as well as ecological concerns. He expects supervision and control from the Vatican to continue. Contact 615-343-3992, fernando.f.segovia@vanderbilt.edu.
• Mark Hulsether, professor of religious studies at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, has written about North American liberation theologies and the transformation of the Protestant left since World War II. He says Ratzinger was one of the most important enemies of liberation theologies, especially Marxist-inflected ones in Latin America. But insofar as liberation theologies are independent movements in opposition to church hierarchies and secular elites, the election of Benedict may increase their passion. Contact 865-974-2466, mhulseth@utk.edu.
• Dwight N. Hopkins, University of Chicago theology professor, has written about black theology of liberation. He says the election of the pope shows the Vatican's further move to the right, which indicates that Roman Catholic liberation theology in Africa, Asia and Latin America will come under greater scrutiny if not attack. Black liberation theology, he says, is aligning more closely with black churches and developing partnerships with liberation theologians in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Pacific Islands. Contact 773-834-0006, dhopkins@midway.uchicago.edu.
• Daniel Bell, assistant professor of theological ethics at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Columbia, S.C., has written about Latin American theology in the wake of capitalism's triumph and on Latin American liberationists' defense of revolutionary violence. He says that Latin American liberation theology has moved from advocating a socialist revolution in the 1970s to more emphasis on working through civil society and nongovernmental organizations. There's been a shift to critiquing the "fundamentalism of the free market." Bell doesn't expect much change with the new pope. With the decline of priestly vocations and the explosive growth of Protestant religious movements, there are more pressing issues on the Vatican's agenda. Contact 803-461-3226, dbell@ltss.edu.
• Craig Nessan, professor of contextual theology and academic dean at Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa, has written about the Gospel of Luke and liberation theology and the North American response to liberation theology. He says liberation theology has been incorporated more as a dimension of mainstream theology that advocates justice for the poor, women, oppressed racial groups and other minorities. Contact 563-589-0207, cnessan@wartburgseminary.edu.
• James H. Cone, Charles A. Briggs Distinguished Professor of systematic theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York, is the author of Risks of Faith: The Emergence of a Black Theology of Liberation, 1968-1998 (Beacon Press, 2000) Contact 212-280-1369, jcone@uts.columbia.edu.
• Harvey Cox, Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., is the author of The Silencing of Leonardo Boff: The Vatican and the Future of World Christianity (Meyer Stone, 1988). In 1985, Cardinal Ratzinger issued a call to silence the Franciscan theologian, one of the most widely read proponents of liberation theology. Contact 617-495-5752, Harvey_cox@harvard.edu.
• Nancy Eiesland, associate professor of the sociology of religion at Emory University in Atlanta, is the author of The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability (Abingdon Press, 1994), the first liberation theology of disability in the United States written by a person with a disability. Contact 404-727-6346, neiesla@emory.edu.
• The Rev. Robert Sirico, president of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty in Grand Rapids, Mich., says he thinks that liberation theology faded with the collapse of the Soviet Union. But the theology has "morphed," he says, and much of its progressive agenda reappears in 'eco-spirituality', indigenous rights groups and anti-globalization efforts. These movements, he says, tend to avoid the explicitly Marxist language of their predecessor while using the same socialist analysis. Contact 616-454-3080, rsirico@action.org.
• Michael Novak, philosopher, theologian and public policy commentator at The American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, is the author of Questions about Liberation Theology (Paulist Press, 1991). He argued that by the late 1980s, liberation theology was in danger "of slipping into a backwater” because it had done very little to help the poor. Contact 202-862-5839, mnovak@aei.org.

Background

• Read a May 2, 2005, Washington Post article, "An Abiding Faith in Liberation Theology," about the status of liberation theology in Latin America.
• Read "Peru's Catholics Brace for Fissures in their Church," published May 8, 2005, in The New York Times.
• Read the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's 1984 document, "Instruction on Certain Aspects of the Theology of Liberation," signed by Cardinal Ratzinger.
• Read a concise history of liberation theology by Leonardo and Clodovis Boff from a preface to their book, Introducing Liberation Theology (Orbis Books, 1987).
• Read a critique of liberation theology in a 1994 article, "The Retreat of Liberation Theology," by Edward A. Lynch of Hollins College in Roanoke, Va., from the web site Catholic Culture.
• Go to a Providence College web site on religion in Latin America.
• By 2020, Hispanics are expected to account for more than 50 percent of U.S. Catholics; they currently account for 39 percent, according to statistics posted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Nearly half the world's 1 billion Roman Catholics live in Latin America.
• A June 23, 2005, poll found that the Catholic Church's credibility remains high in Latin America, where residents often distrust government, according to a June 23, 2005, Catholic News Service story.