The purpose of this research is to examine the Catholic response to liberation theology. The plan of the research will be to set forth the principal elements of liberation theology as it is commonly understood, including its origin, chief exponents, and primary issues, and then to discuss the official Catholic Church position toward the movement, including areas of agreement and disagreement with it. As appropriate, reference will be made to the importance of liberation theology to Christianity in general and the development of Church teaching in particular.
To discuss why one must consider liberation theology as an important issue for modern Christianity, and especially for Catholics, it becomes necessary to discuss the full range of changes in society at large and changes in the church that to varying degrees mirror changes in social and cultural perceptions. To put it another way, liberation theology is theology which is grounded in the experience of the concrete world as well as in the world of eternity or indeed of ideas. The term itself appears to have derived in significant part from the work of contemporary Latin American theologians, who in turn appear to have derived their theological ideas from their experience of events, attitudes, and trends in Latin America operating in the post Vatican II era. This happened to coincide with the massive, often irrevocable political, social, economic, and cultural changes in the Western world during the 1960s. It was in this climate that liberation theology emerged. As Hoeferkamp notes,
"Liberation" has been the great "generating word" (the
phrase is Paulo Freire's) in Latin America. Ever since the
Cuban revolution, the prospect of liberation from social and economic colonialism and especially from the servitude to
poverty and cultural deprivation has captured the
imagination of millions of Latin Americans. . . . The Roman
Cath...