Position · 1971

Liberation Theology

A theology that reads the gospel from the side of the poor, holding that God has a preferential option for the poor and that salvation includes liberation from unjust social and economic structures.

It arose in Latin American Catholicism after the Second Vatican Council. The Latin American bishops’ conference at Medellín (1968) spoke of structural injustice, and Gustavo Gutiérrez’s A Theology of Liberation (1971) gave the movement its name. It stresses practice and base communities as well as theory. The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued two instructions, in 1984 and 1986, which criticised the use of Marxist analysis while affirming concern for the poor. Its influence remains contested within the Roman Catholic Church. Critics argue that it lets political ideology shape theology.