Liberation Theology Under Review

Liberation theology has come under sustained scrutiny in recent months, especially its chief theore-tician, Father Gustavo Gutierrez, of Peru. The immediate source of the inquiry is the Vatican Congre-gation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but it seems clear that other less visible forces within Latin America itself have stimulated the in-vestigative process. Liberation theology is perceived as a threat to various economic and, political interests in Central and South America. It italicizes certain essential elements of the Gospel which speak of our obligation to come to the aid of the poor and to employ the resources of government for the sake of society's weakest citizens, not its strongest. Finally, it challenges us to be attentive always to our own complicity in the perpetuation of unjust and oppressive systems. Progressive Catholics are some times accused of practicing a pick-and-choose Catholicism, also known as Catholicism a la carte. But if the charge is true, they probably learned it from their conservative brethren, who have long ignored or explained away the papal teachings on social justice. "Mater, si~ magistra, no" was, after all, a conservative rallying cry against Pope John XXIII's Mater et Magistra in 196L If politically conservative Catholics are not reluctant to dissent from official Church teachings on the social question, on can hardly be surprised by their vigorous opposition to a theology which has little or no official sanction. I said "little or no" because Pope Paul VI in his Populorum Progressio (1967) and the Second Latin American Bishops' Conference at Medellin, Colombia (1968), laid some of the foundations for liberation theology. If criticism of liberation theology from the Catholic right is more or less predictable, is that also the case with regard to support from the Catholic left? One expects that it is, and therein lies a problem. Liberation theology, for all its strengths, is not above criticism. It has been selective in its biblical motifs (liberation, Exodus, concern for the poor). It has placed great emphasis on some books of the Bible (Luke's Gospel) and shown less interest in others (the Fourth Gospel). It has tended to define oppression and deprivation in exclusively economic and political terms (laying itself open to the change of Marxism), while seeming to ignore their other manifestations. Indeed, in its early stages liberation theology seemed blind to the sexism within its own culture. Finally, it has made light of the need for the ongoing renewal and reform of the Church on the grounds that such preoccupations distract us from the task of liberating the poor and the oppressed in society at large. This is not to say that all or even most liberation theologians have displayed these tendencies, but they did become characteristic of many camp-followers, not only in Latin America but also in the United States. To be sure, Latin American liberation theology is one of the most important, and positive, developments in the post-Vatican II Church, and Gustavo Gutierrez is undoubtedly its most reliable and most balanced exponent. But it serves no useful theological or pastoral purpose to meet uninformed, one-sided and even malicious attacks upon it with equally one-sided, unnuanced defenses. That only plays into the hands of those who believe that theologians are just another self-interest group. When under attack, they immediately move their wagons in a circle. The recent statement from the editorial board of Concilium in defense of liberation theology and in criticism of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith may add currency to that assumption.