Liberation Theology

Abstract

This article explores the historical and social roots and the basic components of a process of renovation in Catholic theological teachings known as liberation theology. I will focus primarily on liberation theology's social and political rather than religious elements. The triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 shocked Latin America. Poverty and misery, the seeds of revolution, could be found in most Latin American countries. The new alternative presented by the Cuban Revolution found a large and receptive audience among Latin Americans, in particular young middle-class intellectuals. The response to the revolution varied among different sectors of the elite. Some, in countries such as Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia, resorted to military control in the hope of curtailing revolutionary sentiment. Others adopted the relatively flexible reform program of the Alliance for Progress, aiming at redressing the social ills that were the underlying cause of revolution. The Christian Democratic movements manifested this reformist trend, promising an alternative to radical change by revolution, on the one hand, and the maintenance of the status quo by military force, on the other. The Catholic church, shaken by the flight of 70Wo of the Cuban clergy following the revolution, was searching for an alternative of its own to prevent the spread of communism on the continent. The poor and laboring classes, victims of poverty and social injustice, and sectors