For the Pope, the struggle lies within each of us

Thy kingdom come, here and now

The controversy in the Roman Catholic world about "liberation theology" puzzles non-Catholics, It has pitched the church into Latin American politics, and embroiled the Pope himself. What is it about?

The questioning in Rome last month of Father Leonardo Boff, a theology professor from Brazil, made many liberals ask why the Vatican was fussing about the work of a mild-mannered Franciscan who has published more than 30 books without bringing the Roman Catholic church to the point of collapse. Father Boff has now gone home, with a promise from Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, the head of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith (ex-Holy Office), of an official verdict on the orthodoxy of his views on the nature and the proper role of the church in the world by early next year.

The debate is important for everybody, at a time when the border between politics and religion, what is due to God and what to Caesar, is under new scrutiny. It is particularly important in Latin America, where nearly half of the world's 800m Roman Catholics live. And it goes to the root of what Christianity is about.

"Liberation theology" is new. You will not find the phrase in theological books more than 20 years old; it came into being only in the second half of the 1960s. Today its concept has adherents throughout Latin America. The most prominent of them are Father Gustavo Gutierrez from Peru, Father Juan Segundo, a Jesuit from Uruguay, Father Enrique Dussel, an Argentine who is now teaching in Mexico, Father Jon Sobrino (another Jesuit) from the Basque province in Spain, now living in El Salvador—and Father Boff.

What these men have in common is the view that theology involves not only an understanding of the Christian faith but also a political commitment to change society. Liberation, according to them, is a threefold process. First comes sociological analysis, to uncover forms of exploitation and unmask oppressors. The second task is to make the exploited aware of what is happening to them ("conscientisation"). Third comes the actual struggle against the oppressors, which takes many different forms—from open political activity (where that is allowed) and peaceful demonstrations to the formation of small groups (comunidades de base) that are entitled, in some circumstances, to wage guerrilla war. Liberation theologians stress "the primacy of action".

Political commitment, in their view, is the path to truth. "The only truth is the truth that is efficacious for man's liberation" is how Father Juan Segundo puts it in his book, "A Theology for Artisans of a New Humanity". Theology should not be cut off from life, argues Father Gutierrez in his "Marx and Jesus":

Pastor Miguel Bonino, a Protestant, argues that there is no truth outside or beyond the historical events in which men take part. There is, therefore, no knowledge except in action itself, in the process of transforming the world.

Liberation theology rejects the traditional distinction made by Christian theologians between two "spheres" or "realms", the spiritual and the temporal. Such "dualism", say liberation theologians, is reactionary. For Father Gutierrez, there is "only one vocation to salvation", embracing all men. The members of the true Body of Christ are, to Father Segundo, those taking part in the struggle for liberation.

Many of the biblical texts the liberation theologians like best come from the Old Testament, particularly the Book of Exodus, which chronicles the deliverance of the Jewish people, their "liberation" from Egyptian rule under the guidance of Moses. In the New Testament, their favourite text comes from the Magnificat (Luke 1, 52:53): "He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away." Moses, the leader of the Jewish "liberation struggle", is in some ways a better model for liberationists than Jesus, who declined to lead an uprising against the Romans.

The idea of the "class struggle" features prominently in liberation theology. Father Gutierrez argues that Marx did not invent the class struggle; he merely analysed its causes and showed how it could be made to lead to the classless society. Neutrality in the struggle is impossible. The dream of the reconciliation of classes, as expressed in various papal encyclicals, is "self-deception". The theologian has a duty to rouse the working class to an awareness of the class struggle and the need to take part in it.

What of the commandment to love one's enemies? Father Gutierrez argues that class struggle is the only way to bring about universal love. To take part in that struggle is, therefore, to love: "For this participation is what leads to a classless society without owners and dispossessed, without oppressors and oppressed. In dialectical thinking, reconciliation is the overcoming of conflict". Conflict, even its expression in violence, are a means to a loving end.

Was Moses just a political liberator?

Applied to the church itself, this line of reasoning leads Father Segundo to reject the idea of "sacramental union"—the solidarity of the faithful within the church—as an "illusion". It is impossible, in his view, to remain in communion with those "who think and do things that are completely different", or with those whom he judges to oppose God's will in the world.

What's all this, then?

There is a strong political background to the growth of liberation theology. When the rush to development in Latin America in the 1950s and early 1960s produced a left-wing reaction against economic inequality, the church felt the tug of these criticisms. At their meeting at Medellin in September, 1968, the Latin American bishops gave their blessing to the concept of liberacion. God has sent his Son, they declared, so that in the flesh he may come to liberate all men from sin, ignorance, hunger, misery, oppression: in short, from the injustices and hatreds which stem from egoism.

It did not take long, however, before the liberation theologians had their critics. In 1976, the Catholic church's international theological commission issued a warning against the use of theories which "harbour explicit or implicit ideological elements that rest on debatable philosophical assumptions or an erroneous anthropology". The warning specifically referred to "analyses inspired by Marxism and Leninism".

The election of Pope John Paul II marked a turning point. In his address to another Latin American bishops' meeting, at Puebla in January, 1979, the Pope said that it was right to work for liberation provided it was an "authentic liberation", resting on the right view of Christ. The Kingdom of God, the Pope said, was not to be confused with power in the world. Political, economic and social liberation did not coincide with salvation. Far from being a "revolutionary, a subversive from Nazareth", Christ rejected violence and opened the way of conversion to all—even the publicans.

The Vatican's "Instruction on Certain Aspects of the Theology of Liberation", published last month on the eve of Father Boff's visit to Rome, echoed that earlier papal salvo. It warmly endorsed the aspirations of the poor for a better life. But it made a detailed criticism of various "deviations . . . brought about by certain forms of liberation theology which use, in an insufficiently critical manner, concepts borrowed from various currents of Marxist thought".

What are the "deviations"? One is the view that all sin is "social", the result of bad "structures" in the organisation of material life. Another is the "exclusively political" reading of biblical texts such as Exodus and the Magnificat. Such interpretations, says this document, ignore the "radical newness" of the New Testament. The liberation of Exodus was not just a matter of politics. Freedom in the Christian sense is above all freedom from the slavery of sin. The main objection to liberation theology is that it politicises the message of the Gospels. The transcendental aspect vanishes; social theory is raised to the level of theology.

The Vatican approves of the idea that any effective struggle against poverty requires a scientific analysis of its causes, but it claims that some liberation theologians confuse this with Marxist analysis. Marxism, the document goes on, is rooted in ideological premises which are incompatible with Christian faith. Among these are the concept of a "partisan truth" and the idea of the class struggle as a dominant law of history. For Marxists, faith becomes "fidelity to history", hope is turned into "confidence in the future" and love changes into an "option for the poor". The poor of the scriptures become the proletariat of Karl Marx. Even the Eucharist becomes the celebration of a struggle, instead of a sacrament for unity.

Communists in cassocks?

For good measure, the Vatican "instruction" goes on to say that the idea of "the class struggle as a road towards a classless society is a myth which slows reform and aggravates poverty and injustice". It warns those taken in by that myth to "reflect on the bitter examples history has to offer about where it leads".

This reference incenses advocates of liberation theology. Their answer is that their hopes for Latin America have nothing to do with what has happened in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe. The presence of so many Catholics, including priests and members of religious orders, in left-wing movements from Nicaragua to Chile will ensure that monolithic communist-controlled regimes are not the final outcome of the campaign for liberation.

It is easy to see why Marxist-Leninists welcome Catholics, especially priests, as their allies. Che Guevara said: "When the Christians have the courage to commit themselves completely to the Latin American revolution, the Latin American revolution will be invincible". In Catholic Latin America, the revolution needs the church's support to win. That is why the Sandinist regime in Nicaragua wants Father Miguel d'Escoto, Father Ernesto Cardenal and other prominent priests to stay in the government, even if it means breaking the church rule which forbids priests to hold political office. What the regime wants is visible proof for ordinary Nicaraguans that the church is for the revolution.

A Pope from eastern Europe who has lived under communism does not relish the possibility that his huge Latin American flock might one day find itself under communist rule—with the help of the church. Is he wrong, as some Latin American Catholics so passionately argue?

Catholics have been used before as "useful idiots"—the phrase coined by a one-time secretary-general of the Communist International (the Comintern), Dimitri Manuilsky—to help a communist revolution. In Slovenia, the most devoutly Catholic part of Jugoslavia, a number of left-wing Catholics (including some priests) joined the Tito partisans during the second world war in the struggle against the German and Italian occupation. Once the victory was won, these former allies of Tito ceased to be a political force. Some joined the Communist party, and rose in its ranks, but those who protested against the regime's increasing authoritarianism—such as Edvard Kocbek, a prominent writer and Tito's first education minister—were shunted aside. These Slovene left-wing Catholics had not developed a "liberation theology", but they had been influenced by left-wing French Catholics such as Emmanuel Mourner, founder of the magazine Esprit and an eloquent advocate of co-operation between Marxists and Christians for social justice.

Ratzinger to ask, Boff to answer

The bishops in Nicaragua, like the Pope, worry that the Sandinist regime may be trying to engineer a split between the heavily politicised "church of the people", led by Sandinist priests, and the official church led by Archbishop Miguel Obando y Bravo. That concern was uppermost in the Pope's mind as he prepared to address the Latin American bishops in Santo Domingo this week on the 492nd anniversary of the first mass on American soil. The head of the Jesuits has been holding Conferences with Latin American Jesuits, many of whom support not only liberation theology but also left-wing movements in Central and South America.

As Jugoslavia, so Latin America?

The crisis in Central America makes the situation doubly complicated for the Pope's men. While insisting that the church's main task is concerned with matters of the spirit, they need to demonstrate that this is not merely an excuse (as the Marxists and their allies argue) for supporting the status quo. The church must show that it favours progress and justice. A new document now in preparation in the Vatican will, it is said, offer an officially approved liberation theology that can apply not only to Latin America but also to the communist world and even to the west. An awesome task.

In his attempt to assert his authority, the Pope is backed by some handpicked lieutenants: Cardinal Ratzinger of the Holy Office; the new head of the congregation for the religious orders, Archbishop Hamer, known in his previous post in the Holy Office as "the hammer of the heretics"; and the new Jesuit general, Father Kolvenbach. On the ground, the staunchest supporter of the tough new line is Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, the energetic 50-year-old secretary of the Latin American bishops' conference (and the liberation theologians' bête noir). But there is likely to be strong opposition. In Brazil, for example, the country's two cardinals demonstratively accompanied Father Boff to Rome last month, presumably to show that they were on his side. The Pope himself and Cardinal Ratzinger's office have just been holding talks with most of Peru's 52 bishops, summoned for a special visit to Rome. The Peruvian bishops are said to be divided over Father Gutierrez, himself a Peruvian. Two of his books have been under investigation by the Holy Office since 1983.

The argument about liberation theology reaches beyond Latin America. If the creed prospered in Latin America, it could spread to Catholic Asia, notably the Philippines, and to Africa, until now the great hope of the Catholic church. In August, the Pope felt it necessary to send a message to a meeting of southern Africa's bishops in Zimbabwe. He told them that "the solidarity of the church with the poor, with the victims of unjust laws or unjust social and economic structures, goes without saying". But the way in which this solidarity is achieved "cannot be dictated by an analysis based on class distinctions and class struggle".

The second Vatican council proclaimed 20 years ago: "The church, by reason of her rule and competence, is not identified with any political system. The political community and the church are autonomous and independent of each other in their own fields". This was supposed to end the church's unhappy entanglements with secular power. Little did the Vatican council's fathers realise that a new entanglement would arise so soon.