Liberation Theology emerged in the 1960s as an ethical option for people who were in poverty in Latin America. Broadly speaking, he interprets biblical teachings with the intention of supporting the demands of the most unprotected sectors by political and economic institutions.
Its development was one of the antecedents for the emergence of several social movements and even theoretical models that reformulated not only the Church, but some of the most important practices, mainly of Latin American communities.
Theology, which comes from Latin theos (God and logos (reasoning), it is reflection and philosophical study on the knowledge, attributes and facts related to God
It is a very complex field of study with many centuries of history, whose development has had different nuances depending on the place from which it started. Therefore, offering a definition of Liberation Theory implies approaching its history and context.
Theology in Latin America
The most remote origins of theology in the Latin American region are found in the Spanish conquest, a time when a model of social order had been established based on a Christianity that was quite oblivious to the injustices caused by colonization and slavery.
In this context, There were priests attentive and sensitive to the clergy’s own complicity in the reproduction of social inequalities, as well as the little access that the poorest people had to the Church itself. They laid the first foundations to question the practices of the church and colonial Catholicism, which subsequently continued to develop in the European context.
With the Latin American independence movements, the Church entered a deep crisis. The community was divided between those who supported, or even fought for, independence, and those who did not; a process that was finally not completely consummated after the Latin American struggles, therefore, it has continued to develop in different facets over time.
Theology and social struggles
Entering the 20th century, a good part of Latin American Catholicism began to recognize several of the social problems that the region was going through, so a sector of the Church began to create alliances with social movements and struggles in favor of the most vulnerable.
In the 1960s, and in the face of the political and economic crises that worsened in Latin America, as well as the transformations of the Catholic Church in these areas, society and an important sector of Catholicism became intertwined.
Thus, in the following decade, this sector positioned itself as one of the main promoters for the transformation of different social problems that were generating a lot of poverty. They began to question the premise that God and the Church can reach everywhere, regardless of social situation and economic condition.
Among other things, they questioned the concentration of Catholicism in large cities, as well as various practices of the church that resemble its representatives, with the political and economic representatives that divided societies between poor and rich. Once again there were those who realized that the Church was participating as an ally of social inequalities
The rise of Liberation Theology
Especially in Brazil, a good part of the Church began to seriously question social conditions; even the political class itself began to call social injustice “the great sin.”
From this, local strategies began to be generated for the development of the countryside, which were useful at least initially, and which above all influenced the radicalization of the middle class, which began to significantly support the working class. In this context, for example, Paulo Freire’s adult literacy movement and his pedagogy of the oppressed appear.
Time later, and different nuances, Liberation Theology spreads to Cuba, then Venezuela, Guatemala, Peru and other countries in the region, with which the US government in power even launched an “Alliance for Progress”, which promised aid for social development (although it also deployed police forces to contain the guerrillas). With this same part of the Church was united with democratic parties in the implementation of social aid.
In short, social revolutions were beginning to have to do with theological reflections, which further exacerbated the crisis of the traditional Church. An important sector of the Church was not so much in politics, but in direct social action, in community projects for development. This was Liberation Theology.
From social action to political action and other limits
Liberation Theology also encountered some limits, precisely by recognizing that poverty is a structural problem that requires political actions from the most basic level.
From there, Liberation Theology had to be directly linked to political, and later economic, commitments. For example, Different social-theological movements emerged Thus, when the Second Vatican Council document was proclaimed, an initiative to reform the Church that marked the 20th century, where among other things a more active role was given to the faithful and a more modest role to the Church, Latin American theologians strengthened their view. criticism and focused it on the problems of the region.
That is to say, the subject of theology was no longer just the individual, but rather the critical articulation of the theologian with the believing community, especially communities in poverty.
This is also why it is known as Latin American Liberation Theology, because by having focused on the problems of Latin America, an important break with the European matrix had been established. There were even those who called themselves “Bishops of the Third World” or “Movements of Priests for the Third World.” They themselves were the ones who used the word “liberation.”
Priests had to have a commitment to the transformation of society, against global structural and institutional violence. Poverty is beginning to be understood as an issue that has to do with God, and also its solution.
Its subsequent development extended into different branches and towards reflections in contexts outside of Latin America. More recently it has been developed in conjunction with feminism, Marxist theory and also around the question about the constant victimization of people in vulnerable situations, that is, about the need to recognize people in poverty as agents and not just victims, in social structures.
