Liberation Theology

With several notable exceptions (Bartolomé de las Casas and Vasco de Quiroga, inter alia), for 450 years, Catholicism in Latin America failed to challenge Marx's dictum that "religion is the opiate of the masses." More commonly, it was even worse: a tool to destroy indigenous cultures and a justification for rapine and murder.

In the 1960s, inspired by the Cuban revolution, religious leaders around Latin America began to challenge this brutal history. They began to see revolution and justice in the history of Christianity: the flight from oppression in Egypt, the prophet's denunciations of unjust Israeli kings, Jesus's call to bring justice for the poor and let the prisoner go free. By 1980, theologians like Gustavo Gutiérrez, Pablo Richard, Elsa Támez, Franz Hinkelammert, and Leonardo Boff had proved that Christianity was essentially call for justice and peace on earth, not the promise of some illusory heaven.

More significantly, this changed attitude came to pervade every level of Latin American Christianity. In the 1968 and 1972 Episcopal conferences in Puebla and Medellín, the "preferential option for the poor" became the official policy of the Catholic Church. "Base communities," small groups of poor christians, began to read the Bible on their own, finding in it the inspiration to strive for a just world.

In the 1970s and '80s, this movement became the seed of revolution. The "godless" Sandinistas of Ronald Reagan's nightmares were, in fact, Christian socialists. FMLN, in El Salvador, was essentially a lay catholic movement: when I was there just after the civil war, I ask about the rebels' motivations for fighting. None mentioned Marx or Lenin. Every one talked of Jesus and Mary. Liberation theology also formed the base of democratic socialist movements, like the UP in Chile (overthrown by a US sponsored coup in 1973) and the contemporary PT in Brasil.

Many commentators today speak of the "death" of Liberation Theology, largely because John Paul II has relentlessly persecuted liberation theologians. This idea is about as true as rumors of the end of feminism in the United States. Yes, the most strident rhetoric is gone, and people speak less of liberation theology. But, as in the case of feminism, liberation theology has been a victim of its own success. The Latin American church can no longer be a simple opiate. Social justice and human rights have become an integral part of its mission.