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gutierrez-gaudspes_bethj.pptx

Liberation theology arose as a Catholic response to the Marxist movements that fought Latin America’s military dictatorships in the 1960s and ’70s. It criticized the church’s close relations, including often overt support, with the regimes.

It affirmed that, rather then just focusing on seeking salvation in the afterlife, Catholics should act in the here and now against unjust societies that breed poverty and need.

http://www.religionnews.com/2013/09/09/liberation-theology-finds-new-welcome-in-pope-francis-vatican/

Gustavo Gutierrez, O.P., 1928 --

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The founder of liberation theology, the Latin

American-inspired Catholic theology advocating for the poor,

received a hero's welcome Tuesday at the Vatican as the once-

criticized movement continues its rehabilitation under Pope Francis. The Rev. Gustavo Gutierrez of Peru was the surprise speaker Tuesday at a book launch

featuring the head of the Vatican's orthodoxy office, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller; one of

Francis' top advisers, Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga; and the Vatican spokesman.

The former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger spent much of his tenure at Mueller's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith battling liberation theology and disciplining some of its most famous defenders, arguing that they had misinterpreted Jesus' preference for the poor into a Marxist call for armed rebellion.

That interpretation was powerfully attractive to many Latin Americans in the 1960s and 1970s who were raised Catholic, taught by Marxist-influenced teachers and outraged by the inequality and bloody repression around them.

Gutierrez and his backers insist true liberation theology was always

perfectly in line with the church's social teaching about the poor,

which Francis embraces. Francis wrote the preface of Mueller's

book, "Poor for the Poor: The Mission of the Church," which

contains two chapters written by Gutierrez. Gutierrez, 85, received a round of applause when the Vatican spokesman noted his presence Tuesday and another round when he approached the podium to speak about the parable of the Good Samaritan.

The former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio has had a complicated relationship with liberation theology, clashing with left-leaning members of his Jesuit order who took up its politicized call to confront Argentina's violent military dictatorship in the 1970s.

Nevertheless, Francis fully embraces its call for the church to have a "preferential option for the poor."

The Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, has been on a rehabilitation campaign of sorts, saying that with the first Latin American pope, liberation theology can no longer "remain in the shadows to which it has been relegated for some years, at least in Europe.“

http://news.yahoo.com/founder-liberation-theology-hailed-vatican-215554420.html

55. From day to day, in every group or nation, there is an increase in the number of men and women who are conscious that they themselves are the authors and the artisans of the culture of their community. Throughout the whole world there is a mounting increase in the sense of autonomy as well as of responsibility. This is of paramount importance for the spiritual and moral maturity of the human race. This becomes more clear if we consider the unification of the world and the duty which is imposed upon us, that we build a better world based upon truth and justice. Thus we are witnesses of the birth of a new humanism, one in which man is defined first of all by this responsibility to his brothers and to history.

Gaudium et Spes [Joy and Hope] #55

Pastoral Declaration on the Church in the Modern World. Dec. 7, 1965.

Elizabeth Johnson, 1941 --

On Johnson’s recent book, The Quest for the Living God:

One of the central disputes between Johnson and the bishops is language. Johnson writes that "all-male images of God are hierarchical images rooted in the unequal relation between women and men, and they function to maintain this arrangement." The bishops said: "The names of God found in the Scriptures are not mere human creations that can be replaced by others that we may find more suitable.... The standard by which all theological assertions must be judged is that provided by divine revelation, not by unaided human understanding. God does use human, and thus limited, means in revealing himself to the world." According to Terrence Tilley, in making that argument the bishops were "approaching the incoherent" since "All revelation is received through language, and all language is culturally conditioned." In sum, he said, "All they are saying here is that they have the truth and Sister Johnson doesn't.“

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Johnson_(theologian). See the “talk page.”