Sure, John Paul II and Benedict both tried to suppress it, even while agreeing with its major tenet, "the preferential option for the poor." Despite this ambivalent resistance from the head office, liberation theology continues to influence the South American church in important ways.
The critique of liberation theology is that it relied on Marxist social analysis. Some liberation theology was based in Marxism, but most was not. You don't need a Marxist base in order to argue for Christian solidarity with the poor. Why fiddle with Marx when you have the Lord Jesus on your side?
South Americans generally don't fuss over the nuances of theology like the Europeans do. Rather than parse words, they are content with supporting human rights and trying to help the poor, activities not unique to liberation theology, but certainly supported by it. Jessica Weiss of the Associated Press (AP) reports:
Yet much of the movement remained, practiced by thousands of grassroots "base communities" working out of local parishes across the hemisphere, nurtured by nuns, priests and a few bishops who put freedom from hunger, poverty and social injustice at the heart of the Church's spiritual mission.
In fact, liberation theology is broad enough and entrenched enough that it has various strands within it. Msgr. Gregorio Rosa Chavez, the auxiliary bishop of San Salvador, notes that "there are many theologies of liberation". He names one the pastoral variety of Pope Francis, which he calls the "theology of the foot," because it walks with the people. Then, there is the university variety, which Rosa Chavez calls "theology of the desk."
These are still the opening days of Francis' papacy, and no sure direction can yet be discerned. For the time being, however, many Latin Americans are looking to the new pope with hope that ministry to and for the poor will take center stage.
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