Posted on 12/28/2009 10:33:25 AM PST by NYer
It went almost unnoticed, but on December 5th, Benedict XVI articulated one of the most stinging rebukes that has ever been made by a pope of a particular theological school. Addressing a group of Brazilian bishops, Benedict followed some mild comments about Catholic education with some very sharp and deeply critical remarks about liberation theology and its effects upon the Catholic Church.
Apart from stressing how certain liberation theologians drew heavily upon Marxist concepts, the pope also described these ideas as “deceitful.” This is very strong language for a pope. But Benedict then underscored the damage that liberation theology did to the Catholic Church. “The more or less visible consequences,” he told the bishops, “of that approach - characterised by rebellion, division, dissent, offence and anarchy - still linger today, producing great suffering and a serious loss of vital energies in your diocesan communities.”
Today, even some of liberation theology’s most outspoken advocates freely admit that it has collapsed, including in Latin America. Once considered avant-garde, it is now generally confined to clergy and laity of a certain age who wield ever-decreasing influence within the Church. Nonetheless, Benedict XVI clearly believes it’s worth underscoring just how much harm it inflicted upon the Catholic Church.
For a start, there’s little question that liberation theology was a disaster for Catholic evangelization. There’s a saying in Latin America which sums this up: “The Church opted for the poor, and the poor opted for the Pentecostals.”
In short, while many Catholic clergy were preaching class-war, many of those on whose behalf the war was presumably being waged decided that they weren’t so interested in Marx or listening to a language of hate. They simply wanted to learn about Jesus Christ and his love for all people (regardless of economic status). They found this in many evangelical communities.
A second major impact was upon the formation of Catholic clergy in parts of Latin America. Instead of being immersed in the fullness of the Catholic faith’s intellectual richness, many Catholic seminarians in the 1970s and 1980s read Marx’s Das Capital and refused to peruse such “bourgeois” literature such Augustine’s City of God or Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae.
Again, this undermined the Church’s ability to witness to Christ in Latin America, not least because some clergy reduced Christ to the status of a heroic-but-less-than-divine urban guerrilla and weren’t especially interested in explaining Catholicism’s tenets to their flocks.
Then there has been the effect upon the Church’s ability to engage the new Latin American economic world which emerged as the region opened itself to markets in the 1990s. Certainly much of this liberalization was poorly executed and marred by corruption. Nonetheless, as the Economist recently reported, countries like Brazil - once liberation theology’s epicenter - are emerging as global economic players and taking millions out of poverty in the process. The smartest thing that Brazil’s left-wing President Lula da Silva ever did was to not dismantle most of his predecessor’s economic reforms.
Unfortunately, one legacy of liberation theology is some Catholic clergy’s inability to relate to people working in the business world. Ironically, business executives are far more likely to be practicing their Catholicism than many other Latin Americans. Yet liberation theology has left a residue of distrust of business leaders among some Catholic clergy - and vice-versa. Distrust is no basis for engagement, let alone evangelization.
The good news is that the Church in Latin America is more than halfway along the road to recovery. Anyone who talks to younger priests and seminarians in Latin America today quickly learns that they have absorbed the devastating critiques of liberation theology produced by the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in the 1980s. If anything, they tend to regard liberation theologians such as the ex-priest Leonardo Boff as heretical irrelevancies.
Indeed figures such as Boff must be dismayed that the Catholic Church has emerged as the most outspoken opponent of populist-leftists such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. As Michael Novak observed in Will it Liberate? (1986), liberation theologians were notoriously vague when it came to practical policy proposals. But if any group embodies the liberationists’ economic agenda, it is surely the populist-left who are currently providing us with case studies of how to drive economies into the ground faster than you can say “Fidel Castro.”
As time passes, liberation theology is well on its way to being consigned to the long list of Christian heterodoxies, ranging from Arianism to Hans-Küngism. But as Benedict XVI understands, ideas matter - including incoherent and destructive ideas such as liberation theology. Until the Catholic Church addresses the legacy of this defunct ideology - to give liberation theology its proper designation - its ability to speak to the Latin America of the future will be greatly impaired.
Ping!
I still have very vivid memories of doing battle with the surrogates of the Sandanista’s in NM during the 1980’s. During that time I was deeply involved in State and Local politics and witnessed their supporters from Nicaragua stumping in NM.
Most of them were Mary Knoll Nuns.
Liberation Theology is Communism in a Religious Wrapper. It is the Vehicle that the Sandanista’s used to come to power in Nicaragua back then.
Obozo’s Church in Chicago is a Liberation Theology Church with a Black racist twist. All else is the same, it is a weak cover for Communism.
Liberation Theology is neither.
“Anyone who talks to younger priests and seminarians in Latin America today quickly learns that they have absorbed the devastating critiques of liberation theology produced by the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in the 1980s. If anything, they tend to regard liberation theologians such as the ex-priest Leonardo Boff as heretical irrelevancies.”
This is very true!!! The Holy Spirit is quite busy via the Church in Latin America these days! ;-)
wellllll....Marx IS easier to read than Aquinas....
There may never be the ability to assess the amount of damage that the catholic left has done in So. America, but we could start with Danny and the boys in Nicaragua. I give Benedict a lot of credit for taking on this dragon, but it’s a day late and a dollar short.
bump
Liberation theology is merely one of the outcomes of Antonio Gramsci’s ‘long march through the institutions’. In Latin America in particular, the Catholic Church was subsumed under the Church of Che.
But you don’t have to go very far to witness the corruption that now inhabits and informs the pulpits of most, if not all mainstream religious organizations. If what you’re hearing sounds like a gospel of socialism, sheepery and submission, then you’re almost certainly correct.
The websites of most mainstream religious organizations are no mroethan two or three clicks away from ‘social justice’ and ‘economic justice’ themes. Check out www.ucc.org for a good example.
Maryknoll
bump
Thanks for spelling correction, had forgotten correct. Has been many years since I was exposed.
They were not the only surrogates in NM then, but the most open.
I attended meetings for both sides. Sandanista & Contra.
Contra supporter was young man from Costa Rica. He was killed some months after I took part in his meeting.
I am not Catholic, but this issue caused a big split in Catholic Church in South & Central America. Pope at the time was extremely critical, but some of the Cardinals in Latin America defied him. One was on the Junta in Managua Nicaragua, he was cultural minister if I remember correctly.
Too sadly true. But there are changes afoot, and they can't come quickly enough!
Nah, he's just finishing what he started back in the 80's.
Lol ... why am I not surprised. There are still quite a few of them out there but, as the article notes, they are rapidly fading away with age. It never caught on with the younger set.
Great article. It gives me hope for Latin America.
Thanks for the info. Awful stuff, huh?
In my line of work, I find this to be very true, especially the distrust of businessmen. At one Catholic school here, the religious went so far as to say that certain parents wouldn't go to Heaven or were sinful because of their business success (nevermind, that the proceeds from those businesses were donated to the school in the form of a newly resurfaced parking lot and lots of $$$ for the new gym). I thought that the parents were perfectly justified in being upset about this. Part of the give and take of fundraising is a matter of trust and as the Church depends very much on the generosity of the "haves" it's bad policy to criticize them, especially when profits were made legitimately.
Putting things back together is going to take time and perseverance. In the US, the clean-ups started in the mid-80's and they're still underway.
Thanks for posting some positive news! Nice to read, among all the articles about our current downward spiral in the US.
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