Liberation Theology In Latin America Essay

By their fruits you will know them, liberation theology in Latin America

Fifty years ago the Catholic Church witnessed the blossom of a theological movement known as Liberation Theology. Drawing on the social concerns of the Church those scholars created a blend of Christianity with Marxism that explain some current pastoral phenomena of Latin America.

Much of the current debate around the subject is a war between the radical traditionalism and the Marxism disguised as Catholicism. As if the cold war wasn’t over it. Although this piece focus on liberation theology, I believe traditionalism created their own set of problems.

I see both radical traditionalism and the marxist forms of liberation theology as theological errors about the role

You can pick any big city in Brazil and you’ll see that finding a confessional with a priest would be harder than getting water in the

- Well, I said, to my knowledge, we are not in any war, we believe in the same Jesus. But why do you say it's a lost war?
- Well, answered him, in six months, we manage to form a pastor who knows how to preach the word of God, to teach the Bible. You take six, seven or even eight years to train a priest, and all he knows to preach here is the class struggle, Marxism and the divide between the poor and the less poor yet. People are tired of this, they want to hear about Jesus.

The liberation theology motto: “the preferential option for the poor” seems interesting, but when it comes at the cost of forgetting the role of Jesus Christ in the Salvation and the sacraments as channels for the Grace we should remember the verse of St. Matthew “The poor you will always have with you; but you will not always have me.” If we forget this we make Catholicism a commodity and people will leave it for other Christian confessions that at least speak of