nev on Nostr: So I'm not going to get too much into Liberation Theology 101 here, but it arose in ...

So I'm not going to get too much into Liberation Theology 101 here, but it arose in Latin America in the late 50's-70s in response to *waves at 500 years of history, Vatican II, etc.*. Clergy and theologians advocated for radical solidarity with the poor, actually acknowledged feminist criticisms of the Church and poverty's disproportionate effect on women, and supported leftist revolutions and rebellions in the face of right-wing mililtary oppression. Ecclesiastical "base communities" (kind of like independent congregations) centred ordinary lay people's interpretations of the Gospel in light of their own lives. It was often called Marxist; proponents argued they used the tools of Marxist analysis without limiting themselves to it.

Anyway, as you can imagine, the extremely anti-communist Pope John Paul II was NOT A FAN. Nor was the conservative head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (once known as the Inquisition and currently known as the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith), one Joseph Ratzinger, who of course became Benedict XVI. So while paying lip service to the Church's "social teaching" (against poverty, oppression, capitalism run amok, etc.), they cracked down on liberation theology—works were condemned, clergy were disciplined and effectively blacklisted.
While the "father of liberation theology", Gustavo Gutierrez, was a Dominican, quite a few Jesuits were associated with the movement (e. g. these guys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_murders_of_Jesuits_in_El_Salvador ). Future Pope Jorge Bergoglio…was not one of them. Not only did he rein in politically active Jesuits, he was perceived as collaborating with (or, more mildly, not doing enough to stand up to) the Argentinian junta. But he grew more progressively minded over his career (as detailed in this fantastically thorough and enlightening 2013 piece by James Carroll: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/23/who-am-i-to-judge // archive: https://archive.ph/1S0Ye) [edit: fixed link]

You'd expect even a relatively conservative Latin American Pope to go easier on liberation theology than if he were from anywhere else, but Francis went about actively reversing decades of censure. E. g.

- He thoroughly rehabilitated Gustavo Gutiérrez (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/11/vatican-new-chapter-liberation-theology-founder-gustavo-gutierrez, https://www.religiondigital.org/corresponsal_en_el_vaticano-_hernan_reyes_alcaide/Vaticano-definitivamente-Gustavo-Gutierrez-preferencial_7_2139456035.html)

- He "unblocked" Archbishop Oscar Romero's, uh, mysteriously stalled cause for sainthood (https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-beatification-of-oscar-romero // https://archive.ph/wggsg) and canonized him in 2018 (https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/archbishop-oscar-romero-becomes-a-saint-but-his-death-still-haunts-el-salvador // https://archive.ph/LpNAF)

- He un-suspended Ernesto Cardenal, who was suspended for doing the absoutely unthinkable…no, not sexual abuse, c'mon folks, you know they don't exactly crack down hard on it…no, he TOOK A ROLE IN GOVERNMENT. The Sandinista government. (https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/02/18/pope-francis-lifts-suspension-imposed-nicaraguas-ernesto-cardenal)

(There's probably lots of other shit that happened, I don't follow things that closely, but those are some major events.)

So yeah. That is one of his most surprising legacies that you might not know about!

(Note: in the decades to come and around the world, liberation theology flowered into Black liberation theology, queer liberation theology, and more…but that's another story.)

#LiberationTheology