Liberation Theology

Arthur Liacre

In the movies Broken April, Carandiru and Desmundo, we are not only faced with the theme of freedom but also with the factors that prevent of favor people to acuire their freedom. One of them is religion. Whereas Broken April shows us how religion is interpreted in its extreme fashion by both families, how it rules the law of revenge and thus determines the fate of people, Carandiru shows us at some point a Church full of prisoners who come to worship their God as if they could escape from their earthly fate: poverty. Brazil stands as world’s largest Roman Catholic nation, and it also stands as the country where social inequalities are the highest. For every catholic and even non-catholic who knows that one of the essential goals of Christianity is bringing a relief to the pain and protecting the poorest and oppressed, this reality has carries a large inconsistency. How come this situation has happened? Did the Church fail in its mission? Has any alternative been proposed? One Catholic movement has attempted to propose an alternative, the Liberation Theology (LT). As its name clearly mentions, the main purpose of LT is to free people, in particular the poor from their oppressed condition and ultimately create an equal society. Although it has generated controversy within the Roman Catholic Church, it is considered as having favored the emergence of progressive forces within Brazil. However it is considered as having lost its aura. I propose in this paper to first briefly explain the emergence and characteristics of the LT, then highlight its main achievements and finally examine where the movement stands today.

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"There is only one point of departure—a reality of social misery—and one goal—the liberation of the oppressed" – Leonardo Boff.

By these words, one of the founders of the movement defined the essence of the LT. This movement emerged in Latin America in the late 1960s early 1970s and benefited from the conjugation of several events. On the one hand, the bishops’ conference of 1968 in Medellin and the publication of the works of the Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez were considered as the Latin-American landmarks of the emergence of LT. On the other hand, LT arose in a moment when the Catholic Church in Europe was initiating a renewal, notably formalized by the second Vatican Council. At that time, the Church wad trying to redefine its approach to civil society and this trend has been particularly prevalent in Latin America.

Thus, the movement of LT proved to be particularly adapted to the socio-political Brazilian context of the 1960s, where—as we will comment further on--a large number of theologians come from: Leonardo and Clodovis Boff, Frei Betto, José Comblin, Hugo Assmann. This emanated from a diagnosis made the Church and some social movements: Latin American countries were capitalist, dependent and this in turn was seen as the reason why inequalities were extreme. Thus, in contrast to the European theology, which was dominated more by the questions of secularization and atheism, the liberation theology preferred to focus on issues more specific to the Latin American context, such as the question of human dignity and the personhood of the poor. Why was the term liberation chosen? It comes directly from the record of Jesus’s first sermon in Luke 4: 18-21, where it is stated that Jesus had come to "liberate those who are oppressed".

Thus partisans of the movement argue that this state of dependency and oppression was the result of the incompetence both of the government and the institutional Church itself. contrary to the traditional European theologies, the movement had "a preferential option for the poor". In fact, up to the early 1970s, the Church had clearly endorsed the political power in Brazil, including the early years of the military rule which had begun in 1964. However, when the state started to show clear disrespect for human rights and exercise strong pressure upon Church workers, the Church became no longer cooperative. It is at that time that the institutional Church and he LT movement got closer.

In more theoretical and philosophical terms, the theological premises of the movement are grounded in a sort of opposition not only to the social situation of Latin American countries but also to the traditional theology--mostly influenced by Europe--where a dualism between spirit and the substance is defended. Liberation theologians reject that dualism and argued that both could and should be reconciled to improve the situation of the poor. As Leonardo Boff says, "it is perhaps the greatest merit of the theology of liberation to have succeeded in doing with theology what Socrates did with philosophy". In fact when Cicero declared that Socrates had "brought philosophy down from the clouds to earth", Boff contends that liberation theology was a new way of doing theology as it ties together idea and practice and "speaks of the concrete life of the people".

Now that we have defined the roots and main characteristics of LT, we will take a look at how it has dealt with the political reality in Brazil and how it has been able propose a new sort of praxis in order to empower the poor.

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Has liberation theology succeeded in empowering and freeing the poorest in Brazil? Has the movement changed anything at all in the political and social arenas? How? LT has accounted for several achievements during the 1970s, early 1980s. Two levels of achievements from which the LT can be assessed. One is to have mobilized, at an ideological level, the Catholic Church as a whole against military rule and the other is to have brought evolutions in the social and political life of Brazil.

In pointing out the main contributions and achievements of LT, Leonardo Boff cites that it has "always sought to manifest deep roots in reality, especially in the reality that constitutes the life of the poor—who are the vast majority of human beings living in Latin America—and never disappeared behind the clouds of a disincarnate spiritualism". It is almost unanimous to say that LT has brought a clear change in the Church’s conception of poverty in Brazil. From a very insulated approach in the 1960s with regards to the poorest and most modest people, the arising of LT has brought a new vision and has in some way—as we commented before—modified the praxis. By this we mean that Catholicism came closer to the social reality and that instead of focusing exclusively on the spiritual dimension of people’s suffering, it has attempted to convert the spiritual dimension into a concrete application. In fact, the traditional conception of Catholicism was to consider that even though modest people did not or could not fully understand all the premises of Christianity, the simple fact that they were evangelized, would guarantee a form of superior freedom and innocence. By opposition, LT has worked at raising poor people’s level of consciousness, showing them that their own condition on earth was not favorable and that things could change if they took the necessary steps. In that one can consider that it has succeeded in empowering people.

Thus the great strength of LT has been to take the military rule as an opportunity to mobilize the Church as a whole for the empowerment of the poor. And this has translated into a social and political conception.

We have talked extensively about the link between faith and the concrete applications that LT proposed to stimulate. How did this new theology translate in concrete social terms?

In the social arena, one of the famous achievements of LT is to have built and instrument of empowerment of the poor people by creating the ecclesial base communities ("Comunidades Eclesiais de Base" – CEBs). Mclean states that for liberation theologians, "the CEBs provided in part an incipient civil society, a space for the previously excluded poor to organize, gain leadership experience and to improve their own social situation". CEBs consisted of a group of 15 to 30 believers who got together for prayer and the study of the Bible. Clearly, the composition of CEBs was not uniform throughout Brazil. A CEB from the Northeastern region could vary considerably from a CEB of the South-Eastern region in terms of composition, structure and function. But the purpose of CEBs was not limited to the simple study of the Bible. CEBs also functioned as grass-roots organizations that tried to improve local living conditions by creating a network of mutual assistance. In that, LT has provided and put together a tool meant to empower poor people and teach them how to organize themselves.

CEBs started as a social phenomenon. Soon, the contribution of CEBs became not only social but also political. They became de facto places where political opposition organized itself. As Mclean further describes: "CEBs…provided the conditions for a more just and egalitarian, indeed democratic society". Democracy became the core political claim of LT and the lack of a genuine democracy was pointed as the main reason why inequalities were as extreme in Brazil. But the political struggle of LT had first to deal with the military rule. In fact, through the Ato Constitucional 5, the military government had suppressed most of the independent forms of civil and popular organization and repressed their leaders. Therefore the number of CEBs grew rapidly and at the beginning of the 1980s, one could count between 60,000 to 80,000 CEBs. In fact, CEBs provided a framework in which "the voice of the voiceless" could be heard. One of the factors that played into that rapid spread was the fact that the institutional Church was supportive of the initiative.

Liberation theologians saw CEBs not only as religious groups but also as the embryo of a new political organization, what Mclean interprets as a form of participatory democracy. One of the key Brazilian figures of liberation theology, Frei Betto, described CEBs as "popular, democratic and socialist". Clodovis Boff, a no less popular figure of the movement, confirmed by saying that "the CEBs constituted…one of the few free spaces in which the people were able to gather, discuss their problems in the light of faith and the challenges of life and to exercise the skills of popular liberation…". Therefore CEBs were not anymore envisioned as a pure social project but also as a means of achieving a political project, strongly inspired by the Marxist conception. In addition to allow for a renewal within the Roman Catholic Church, it allowed for the divulgation of progressive ideas and in some sense provided the sole framework in which opposition to the military rule could be organized. Although other various forces have played into the shaping of opposition, to some extent the LT has set the conditions under which social forces could organize themselves. The arising of the Landless Farmer’s movement in 1979, the constitution of the Worker’s Party in 1982 as well as the union CUT in 1983 were to some extent stimulated by the emergence of the movement.

Iain S. Maclean summarizes the political project of LT by saying that "only a new socialist society created through a new humanity, by the removal of oppressive structures, initially identified as capitalism…liberal or formal democracy, could ensure rights, equality and justice for all Brazilians". By declaring that, Maclean attempts to show that although LT has allowed civil society to find a form of political representation under the military rule, it has found itself marginalized when democracy returned in the country. Liberation theologians not only rejected the military rule. They fundamentally rejected the pre-coup conception of democracy, which had seen the elites strengthen their position. Thus liberation theologians strongly advocated a participatory democracy. However from the moment democracy returned in Brazil in 1984, liberation theologians saw their works and claims being relinquished and criticized as the works of Francisco Cartaxo Rolim prove. We will comment on this further on.

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LT has in fact progressively faced some internal limits, related to its will to politicize faith as well as external limits related to the come back of democracy in Brazil. Today it is said that the movement has lost part of its influence.

As we commented before, CEBs have been particularly instrumental during the peak years of the military rule. They provided local forums where modest and poor people could express themselves and get organized. Progressively, they became not only a social encounter, i.e. grassroots organizations, but also acquired a political meaning. Liberation theologians ambitioned to progressively apply their ideas at a broader level, i.e. apply their political conceptions at a national level. In that CEBs have started to be criticized. In fact, a form of selection of participants in the CEBs was under way. In order to efficiently promote the political project of the movement, more educated, although modest, people were needed. Thus in the eyes of many, CEBs have in some sense limited the access to the poorest with no particular educational background. They have failed to distinguish the different strata of the poor and in that have appeared as selective.

A second internal limit of the movement has been its clear Marxist orientation, that claimed to defend the poor and the workers at the same time, the so-called "pobretariado" (poor-working class) in Brazil. Liberation theologians had been supported by the institutional Church during the 1970s, but when John Paul II took office in the Vatican in 1978, a clear change occurred with regards to LT and its political project. The Marxist inspiration of the movement was strongly criticized. This whole Marxist perspective generated a lot of controversy as shows Luigi Bordin: "without the mediation of social sciences, the LT would not be able to sense in a concrete and scientific fashion its material object, the political praxis". In that, the institutional Church, very much focused on the struggle against communism, could not endorse the ideology of a movement. Therefore LT became a sort of dissident movement and started to be openly and vigorously criticized within and outside Brazil, characterized as a movement that promoted the politicization of faith. As Pierre Sanchis shows, several Brazilian archbishops, as Dom Falcao, voiced their disapproval of the movement, saying that "the marxist analysis, taken in its globality, suppose a vision of man, of society and of history incompatible with the Christian faith". Dom B. Kloppenburg and Dom Luciano Cabral Duarte were also strong opponents to the liberation theologians.

Paradoxically, even if LT was very much engaged in the opposition to the military power, its ideas lost credibility when in 1978, the so-called "Abertura" arose. As Mclean sums up in a very accurate manner, this has presented a problem for the movement; in fact "now that the military government was relaxing its hold on the political arena and permitting limited open politics, the option facing liberation theologians was no longer the relatively simple one of opposition to military rule, but rather the more complex scenario of making decisions in the competitive political arena". In fact when in 1979 a Party Law was passed, the CEBs were no longer the sole option for the voiceless.

This marked a new period for liberation theologians. But nowadays, it can be interpreted in two ways. Either one could consider that liberation theology had lost most of its influence and therefore had become less relevant, as official political representation was und construction with the Worker’s party of Lula. Either one can see in this a new stage, where the conceptions of LT did not need anymore to be presented but where liberation theologians simply enjoyed the fruits of their previous efforts. The friendship between Frei Betto and Lula and the political support brought by the CEBs to the PT were signs that LT had influenced this new era of the political life in Brazil. However taking the PT as a vehicle for its political aspirations progressively appeared as unrealistic. In fact "this was an idealistic position, acceptable given the struggles against authoritarian rule throughout the Seventies, but impractical as it turned out, in a competitive and pluralist party context where differences in strategy and policy were bound to emerge and to divide".

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One could give a broader explanation of the achievements of the LT. I have chosen to focus on the way that the movement has found its way to promote and pass on its message. Today, President Lula’s government is apparently composed of figures that have participated or adhered in some way to the activities of the LT. In addition to five ministers, even Henrique Meirelles, president of the Central Bank of Brazil, is one of the persons who adhered to LT back in the 1970s. Although, for some, LT may only appear as an epiphenomenon, it seems to have brought a large contribution in the political life of Brazil. Its influence and ideas were particularly evident during the 1970s when the military rule was strong. It was provocative, inspired from Marxist ideas and had in some way shaken the theoretical foundations of Roman Catholicism. Its goal was to fight against inequalities by empowering the poor. Its goal was not only to fight against totalitarianism but also for a new form of democracy, more participative. Has it succeeded?

In a recent interview, Clodovis Boff, compares LT today as a piece of sugar that has progressively dissolved in the Brazilian political life. Therefore it is very difficult to identify clearly who is responsible for which result, but we know that ides defended by LT are present. I contend that liberation theology has brought a substantial contribution in initiating a movement of mobilization in the Brazilian society. I would interpret the formation of the MST, of the CUT and of the PT as manifestations of this contribution. And the victory of the PT in the last presidential elections is also for me one of the long term impacts of the movement.