Why was liberation theology so popular in latin america in the 1960s?

The Catholic Church was, for centuries, one of the pillars of Spanish power in Latin America, which was Christianized more than five hundred years ago, unlike other areas later colonized by European countries. The circumstances that made liberation theology possible have deep historical roots; however, there are some more immediate causes, both secular and ecclesial.

The generally conflictive atmosphere, and the rise of authoritarian military dictatorships all over Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, created the conditions in which the Roman Catholic Church had to take a political stance regarding growing violations of human rights, deepening poverty, and organized, armed guerrilla struggle, culminating in some cases in a successful popular revolution (Cuba in 1959 and Nicaragua in 1979). An influential idea behind early liberation theology was the dependency theory, according to which the main reason for the poverty and underdevelopment of the Third World was its dependency on industrialized countries, which were largely developed through the use of, and profit from, dependent regions. Theologically, liberation theology was a radicalization and contextualization of the influence from European political theology and, certainly, in a tradition as long as Christianity itself, of prophetic denunciation of injustice and oppression and declaration of freedom and liberation to those suffering from them.

The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) of the Roman Catholic Church established a global opening of the church to society and had an extremely important influence especially on Catholic churches in North America and Latin America. Ecumenically, the World Council of Churches took steps that encouraged Protestant churches to commit themselves to issues of social justice, especially the eradication of poverty. In Latin America, the Latin American Catholic Bishops' Conference (CELAM, Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano) met in Medellín, Colombia, in 1968, a meeting often interpreted as a critical point in the departure of the Catholic Church (as an institution) from its five-hundred-year-old relationship to the state. The church formally made "a preferential option for the poor" and aspired to become "a church of the poor." Some of the first important Catholic liberation theologians were Gustavo Gutiérrez, Leonardo Boff, Juan Luis Segundo, Hugo Assmann, Jon Sobrino, and Pablo Richard; on the Protestant side were theologians such as Rubem Alves, José Míguez Bonino, and Elsa Tamez.

At the grassroots level, priests, pastors, nuns, and laypeople started to work with the rural and urban poor, forming ecclesial base communities, or comunidades eclesiales de base (CEBs), in which people learned to interpret their everyday realities in the light of their Christian identity and faith. In some countries, such as Nicaragua and Brazil, the local CEBs played an important sociopolitical role.

According to Gutiérrez, liberation theology is "a critical reflection on praxis in the light of the Word of God." While there is a clear Marxist influence in liberation theologians' use of the concept of praxis, the Vatican's claim that liberation theology is camouflaged Marxism is exaggerated. Liberation theologians interpreted both Christianity and the Latin American situation from a new perspective, that of the colonized "Christian South," in which the majority of people lived in widespread poverty under extremely repressive governments. The method of liberation theology—to give primacy to praxis over theological speculations—has influenced nearly all contemporary theology.

In the 1990s, the influence of both liberation theology and the CEBs has diminished, partly due to the growing presence of Pentecostalism and the rise in Protestant churches in Latin America. Also, the Catholic Church has become much more conservative during the papacy of John Paul II, leaving very few liberation-theological bishops, such as Helder Camara of Brazil and Oscar Romero of El Salvador in the 1970s and 1980s, in the Latin American Catholic Church. At the same time, ever-deepening poverty and the globalization of market economies, issues of sexism and racism, and ecological concerns raise both old and new questions for liberation theologians. An analysis of idolatry as well as of the common roots of Western theology and economy (for example, the sacrificial elements in both) has led to some of the new developments that have deepened the original insights of liberation theology. Capitalism as religion and the "necessary" production of victims as a basically theological belief have been theorized by Franz Hinkelammert and Hugo Assmann. Christianity should always side with the victims and defend their lives, which is why liberation theology is also called the theology of life, teología de la vida, reflecting on the meaning of the God of life, el Dios de la vida.

Liberation theology today might best be seen as forming part of the so-called globalization critique, which, along with theories and practices of alternative globalization, tend to bring together actors and theories from both the First and Third Worlds in order to create alternatives to contemporary economic policies. A lack of democratic control of economic policies, poverty, ecological disasters, the concentrated control of natural resources, and the concomitant issues of sexism and racism, remain as issues.

• 
  Georges Casalis (1917-1987) © S.H.P.F.

Liberation theologies appeared in Latin America within the Catholic church in a context marked by military dictatorships and the social crisis at the end of the 1960s. The two most famous pioneers were the Brazilian, Leonardo Boff, a Franciscan and the Peruvian, Gustavo Guttierrez, who was the first to formulate these theologies in publishing Liberation Theology in 1971.

Throughout the 16th to the 19th centuries, Latin America was largely Catholic, an ultra authoritarian Catholicism. At the end of the 1960s, movements questioned the Catholic Church which coexisted in too cosy a manner with the civil authority. At the same time, dictatorships and military regimes came into being which eliminated all opposition.

In this period of strong economic development worldwide, the very poor, looked with envy towards the model of the North American society.

Liberation Theologies

Taking into account the context of the times, liberation theologians emphasised the economic, political and social factors : the poor must be freed from their poverty, by making them actors of their own liberation. They denounced capitalism as a cause of oppression. They used a Marxist analysis but separated their political commitment from their Christian ideals.

They sought to free themselves from Western models which did not respond to the concrete problems of the masses and were unworkable in this unjust social order. The church, as a social institution, certainly had an influence on the life of the community, it had to work to open up society to more justice, and to peace.

This movement, initiated by Catholic groups, was to be found throughout the world within ecumenical protestant circles, close to progressive and even revolutionary circles. They were influenced by European theorists amongst whom was the pastor, Georges Casalis (1917-1987) who supported Liberation theologies and taught in Nicaragua.

In 1968, members of the Latin American episcopate met at Médellin (Colombia) and declared that social injustice could not be condoned by the church “which must give priority to the poor”.

The Method

It is necessary to start from the reality of the context and formulate a theology which will thus be informed by an analysis of reality supported by the social sciences.

Personal commitment comes first, theological reflection is the second stage. On making a commitment, you first have to have the means to understand the reality which you want to change. Theology should always be a critical reflection, but coming from a historical commitment.

For Georges Casalis, it was to begin – not from eternal truths to come back to reality – but rather, from the risks and obscurity of daily struggles in solidarity with the oppressed, and to make sense of them in confrontation with the way of Jesus Christ.

The Contents

This is the “preferential option for the poor”. In the Bible one sees how the poor are treated by God (poor – children of God) how they are actors of liberation. Since God himself has made this choice, the churches must too.

The kingdom of God comes into being in history, from the church of the poor, and not the church for the poor. Thus all must take into account reality in all its dimensions, find and feed into it Christian faith as a gesture of liberation, an act of transformation, relying on hope and the energy of the poor.

How were Liberation theologies received ?

Liberation theologies were subjected to systematic criticism :

• By the Roman Catholic curia who accused them of confusing Christian faith with Marxism (but there were no condemnations or excommunications until much later). Rome dismissed or moved bishops involved (Mgr Camara) and named new bishops ;
• From the USA who wanted to destabilise these movements by using the concern that they encouraged revolutionary regimes. The USA would support evangelical and fundamentalist protestant churches (for the last 100 years there has existed in Latin American countries a fast growing evangelical Protestantism hostile to Liberation theologies) ;
• Critical European theologians :
  • Why should the poor have a better understanding of the gospel than others ?
  • This intuitive method of theology is insufficient.

Liberation theologies developed in Africa and in Asia, but in different forms :

• Struggle against racial and ethnic oppression (by people of colour against Whites)
• Struggle against cultural oppression (a movement developed by Blacks whose cultural identity was for a long time denied)

There would come into being a theology of racial liberation, a theology of cultural liberation, as well as a theology of feminist liberation, born in the West and spreading into the countries of the developing world, in defence and in promotion of women’s rights.

On the other hand, Liberation theologies had little impact in Europe.

Liberation theologies run out of steam (end of the 1980s)

In 1986, the Lima congress (presided by Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo) accused Liberation theology of being an attempt to destabilise the church since it used Marxist forms of analysis which made for confusion between the religious and the political. He proposed a Reconciliation theology.

From that date :

• Popular movements began to lose their importance at the same time as more democratic regimes were put in place ;
• Priority was no longer given to the setting up of an egalitarian society by means of a church of the people ;
• Ecological fears began to develop ;
• Ecumenical circles weakened ;
• Liberation theologies met strong opposition from Pentecostals and Evangelicals : many of the poor opt for Pentecostalism, especially from the end of 1989.
• Indigenous, black, coloured, popular and feminist theologies developed.

The church of the poor became a popular, ethnic religion.