3
September 1984 A.D. Vatican
Squeezes Marxist Theologians—JP2 & the “Rat-Man,” The Bavarian German Shepherd, “The Battle
Ship16,” Benedict XVI
Graves, Dan. “Vatican Rebuked Theology of
Marxists.” Christianity.com. Apr 2007. http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1901-2000/vatican-rebuked-theology-of-marxists-11630849.html. Accessed
19 May 2007.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict
XVI, was a close ally of Pope John Paul II. As Cardinal Prefect of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, his pronouncements carried
weight. On this day, September
3, 1984 he denounced aspects of a theology
which had been growing in popularity in Latin American countries.
In the second half of the 20th
century, Liberation Theology, a fusion of Christian and Marxist ideals, emerged
from among some of Spanish America's prominent Catholic theoreticians. Marxist
ideas seemed to propel the religious. In Liberation Theology, Latin Americans
are the underclass, the oppressed. They are victims and not responsible for
their spiritual and economic condition. Outsiders force both on them.
Liberation theologians hoped through Christianized socialist mechanisms to find
a better life here without losing eternity hereafter. Some had no compunction
in calling for violence to change the system. They were opposed to such Western
concepts as free enterprise and private property.
John Paul II had suffered under
socialism. He had few illusions as to the damage any materialistic system
(Capitalistic or Communistic) can do to the soul. The Vatican found it needful
to protest.
"Millions of our own
contemporaries legitimately yearn to recover those basic freedoms of which they
were deprived by totalitarian and atheistic regimes which came to power by
violent and revolutionary means, precisely in the name of the liberation of the
people. This shame of our time cannot be ignored: while claiming to bring them
freedom, these regimes keep whole nations in conditions of servitude which are
unworthy of mankind. Those who, perhaps inadvertently, make themselves
accomplices of similar enslavements betray the very poor they mean to
help."
Leading Liberation theologian
Gustavo Guiterrez writes thus: "It is to see man in search of a
qualitatively different society in which he will be free from all servitude, in
which he will be the artisan of his own destiny. It is to seek the building of
a new man." This is to be accomplished through putting into place a
socialistic economic system.
You do not hear as much about
Liberation Theology today as you did ten years ago. Vatican chastisement and
changing world political conditions seemed to have diminished its prestige, but
its ideas are still taught in all sorts of connections (such as women's
liberation) and remain influential.
Bibliography:
2. Martin, Malachi. The Jesuits. New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1987.
3. Novak, Michael. Will it Liberate? New York: Paulist
press, 1986.
Last updated April,
2007.
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