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The Vatican's Social Agenda: Activism Without Hatred
| Article
# : |
10192 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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Date : |
8 / 1986 |
1,757 Words |
| Author
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Timothy Goodman
Timothy Goodman works at the council for Inter-American
Security and writes occasionally on Catholic church issues. |
The Catholic Church's position on liberation theology is in a state of flux, or so press reports would lead one to believe. According to secular and religious pundits, high-level Vatican officials have not yet decided whether to accept or reject this new derivative of Catholic theology. Pointing to allegedly conflicting Vatican statements, reporters speculate periodically that resistance to the concept is weakening within the Vatican and conditional or full acceptance will occur in a matter of time.
Media speculation has focused especially on a recent Vatican statement reexamining liberation theology. A careful and objective reading of that it fits comfortably into the existing corpus of Catholic social teaching. Any confusion arises not from Vatican indecision but from efforts by others to manipulate the statement for partisan advantage.
In September 1984, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, issued an Instruction on Certain Aspects of the Theology of Liberation that condemned the synthesis of Christianity and Marxism. This document was, in turn, widely condemned as provincial, intellectually shallow, and ignorant of Latin America's unique social and political conditions. Denying any Marxist link, liberation theologians claimed that they were taking part in an indigenous effort, sanctioned by Vatican II, to develop a Christian answer to temporal injustice and oppression.
At the time, Ratzinger promised a second, more positive statement that would give the correct understanding of human liberation. That document, the Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation, appeared in early April
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