Pope Francis and Liberation Theology

Yes, Pope Francis appears to be heavily influenced by, if not a card carrying member of, Liberation Theology. 

Now that's a term jostled about quite frequently on the Internet.  And I'm not saying it's the only thing that informs his views.  But in my ministry days, I had the opportunity of meeting with and studying with several who had worked in or served Latin American missions, and I picked up a few things about that particular brand of theology. 

Contrary to popular Catholic belief, Protestants - Evangelicals, too! - had individuals trying to put their own spins on that decidedly Catholic phenomenon of Latin American Liberation Theology.  And this doesn't count the other use of the term: Liberation Theologies.  Those are theological schools that seize upon the ideal of 'liberation' as the defining prism through which to understand the Gospel and then apply it to various demographics: feminist theology, black theology, gay theology and so on and so forth and what have you.  

The template for these applications is always the same: X Group is defined by being oppressed, generally by the historical Christian Faith and Western Civilization.  Therefore, we can rethink almost everything when it comes to how the Christian Faith should be applied and lived out within that group.  After all, we have Christianity as defined by the oppressors (or the winners) and therefore can make certain assumptions about how wrong its historical teachings turned out to be.  After all, 'history is written by the winners' is usually a way of saying 'the history we have is wrong.' 

So, for instance, regarding Feminist Theology.  Pride, we all learned, comes before a fall.  Pride is one of the mortal sins.  Pride in some circles is the sin, the capstone sin, the sin out of which all sin grows.  But not for the woman embracing Liberation Feminist Theology.  In that framework, Pride is a virtue to be striven for, not rejected.  It's humility that is the sin. The woman has always been oppressed by the man; forced to be servile and grovel at the man's feet.  Humility was a tool of oppression and victimization.  Therefore, it's incumbent upon the woman to rise up, throw off her chains, and embrace pride, pride in herself and her womanhood.  Humility for the woman, it turns out, is the real sin. Pride is the virtue. 

It goes on like that, depending on the group in question.  And this thinking was widely popular in the 90s when I entered ministry and studied in seminary.  Whole books were written expounding on these ideals.  And they all had at their roots the same thinking that defined so much of that Catholic movement known as Latin American Liberation Theology.

At its simplest, LALT is Marxism with a Christian spin.  It takes, to varying degrees, the teachings and ideals of Karl Marx, filtered through a few communist lenses, and applies them as the base coat upon which the various colors of the Christian palette can then be applied.  

The emphasis is on economic and social oppression of the poor and the marginalized.  All of history is the rich and the powerful oppressing the poor and the helpless.  Everything in the Gospels lends itself to this reading.  Jesus is the Messiah of the poor, the outcast, the downtrodden.  Jesus came to bring Good News to the poor.  Jesus calls down curses on the rich, but assures the poor of their everlasting bliss. And on and on.

Because the problems of humanity are best understood through the prism of economic injustice, so are the solutions.  The degree to which various Catholic Liberation theologians emphasise wordly, economic and political solutions for salvation seems to vary. Some come off as almost atheistic, seeming to have little to no patience for any traditional reading of the Gospels that dwells on more than the financial here and now.  Others talk a big talk about heaven, hell (the place where capitalists go), and spiritual salvation, but always through that all important template of economic and social justice.

One minister who loomed large in my day was Ronald J. Sider.  His book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger didn't need to be read.  The title spoke for itself.  He was quite the darling among left leaning and progressive professors and theologians I knew. He also was a big proponent of the Liberation Theology movement sweeping much of Christianity in those days.  By today's standards, he comes off as a radical fundamentalist.  I believe he even opposed laws that would make religious groups support gay marriage and abortion.

But in the 90s, he was as left as you could get.  That is until I read an article some years ago that suggested he had begun to distance himself from the Liberation Theologies he originally embraced.  The article pointed to a lecture he gave in the early 00s.  It didn't suggest he was abandoning the whole Liberation Theology movement.  But in his lecture he delivered, he pointed out some flaws and problems. 

The biggest was the obsession with economics and sociopolitical movements and solutions as the end all to everything.  Likewise was the tendency for the Gospel of God, spirit and eternity to be lost in the shuffle.  That was what a professor I had who had worked alongside Liberation theologians while he was in South America also noticed. 

He once quipped that Liberation Theology was the best boon Evangelical missionaries had in Latin America. You didn't need to evangelize.  You opened the door and in they came.  Many had grown tired of the worldly and material focus of their Catholic leaders who only wanted to expound on Karl Marx, rather than Luke or John.  Being less worldly and secular than their European and American counterparts, those South American parishioners were hungry for the spiritual world and still believed strongly in the supernatural element of the Faith.  This element was lacking in a Church that increasingly sounded more material and worldly than the old USSR. 

That professor, Dr. Hughes, also pointed out a problem that Ron Sider echoed in his lecture.  There was  almost an anal obsession about the sociopolitical and economic oppression by the West as the end all problem of everything.  Let anything happen, and it was those rascally capitalists and Western Democracies.  Let a woman be raped or a child kidnapped?  The capitalists did it.  Let a harvest fail or a disease hit, and you can bet those capitalists were behind it.  Let families suffer or struggle with doubt or fear or sin, and the bold Liberation theologian was there to remind them to blame the Western Democracies and those ever problematic capitalists. 

Somehow, as good as this may have sounded to those Catholic Liberation theologians, it didn't seem to work for their flocks.  As much as many in South America are not fans of the Western Democracies or capitalism, they were sure some things in life had nothing to do with either.  And yet, my professor explained, those leaders who embraced that brand of Liberation Theology often developed a sort of tunnel vision; a singular vision that reduced everything else, including any parts of the Gospel not dealing with the poor and money, to nothing more than a dashed off afterthought. 

All of this came back to me as I read Pope Francis's recent statements about the Covid criss and capitalism's failures.  Much of what the article says is what I remember those who had experienced Liberation Theology describing back in the day.  There is only one real problem in the world: Capitalism and the economic oppression of the poor.  There is one solution: a brotherhood of man that throws off the chains of economic and sociopolitical oppression.  Our religions and confessions of faith appear almost irrelevant to our salvation here, or in the hereafter.  It's in our calls for economic justice and that Marxist dream of a global economic revolution where salvation lies.

I have no idea how much Pope Francis is a student of all this.  I just know that when he talks, he sounds a lot like those I knew, who had experienced Liberation Theology first hand, described about that strain of theological thought.  

I can't remember the last time Pope Francis suggested the world needs Jesus, or that Christianity has, as a religious confession, a unique claim on the Truth.  But he is never shy in condemning the Western Democracies by name (who is he to judge?), nor is he slow to elevate the cause and solutions to our problems as being about the economy stupid.  If he wasn't a serious student of Liberation Theology, it's either a coincidence of all coincidences, or some of it apparently rubbed off.