Liberation theology in focus again

by Desmond O'Grady advances mean,"new forms of in Rome
ON the eve of Pope John Paul II's trip to Colombia, the debate on Liberation Theology has flared up again.
Friar Leonardo Boil', the Brazilian Franciscan theologian, and his priest brother, Clovis, have written an open letter on liberation theology to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. At the same time the Italian Minister for Defence, Giovanni Spadolini, has published an article about a recent conversation with Ratzinger which reveals the Cardinal's continuing distrust of liberation theology. (For a week from July 16, Ratzinger will be in Lima to discuss with the Peruvian bishops a manual they are preparing on liberation theology).
In their letter to Cardinal Ratzinger, the Boff brothers use a football metaphor to describe the situation after the second Vatican document on liberation theology, which described it as "not only orthodox, but useful and necessary", and the visit of Brazilian bishops to Rome.
The Boff brothers say that as a result of these two events, the defence of liberation theology is now all but watertight: "It's difficult to score a goal today against liberation theology".
In other words, they feel immune from criticism of liberation theology which links the gospel directly with the struggle for social justice.
The Boffs launch an offensive against the style and tone of the recent Vatican liberation theology document which they call "doctrinaire, abstract, conceptual and deductive".
They complain that it does not inspire involvement in liberation' of the oppressed. They call on the Church to side with the oppressed and assert that, in most cases, the rich countries' liberties and scientific-technical
domination" over poor countries. They foresee "millions . . . of organised poor" dominating the world.
"In South America" said Ratzinger recently, according to Giovanni Spadolini's report on their dinner table conversation, "there are Catholic publishers who bring out only books which argue that poverty is a path to redemption, and that the poor must oppose the rich".
According to Spadolini's articles, Ratzinger loathes such "pauperism" and his language about the three priest government ministers in Nicaragua, and the whole situation there, would "earn Reagan's approval".
What, then, is the state of play on liberation theology which is influential not only in Latin America but in much of the third world and beyond?
Initially the Polish Pope seemed deeply suspicious of Marxist contamination of liberation theology. In Poland there is diffidence of social justice rhetoric for it has been used by the regime for decades but there is still insufficient chalk for schools or bandages for hospitals.
For his part Cardinal Ratzinger has intellectual objections to the formulations of theologians of liberation, and his first document on the subject, issued in mid 1984, seems to have been an attempt to disqualify them, it was not successful, partly through bad timing.
At that time Ratzinger promised a second, more positive, document on the subject. It appeared this year with all air of a reluctant fulfilment of a rash promise. It gave a pale green light for a liberation theology which steers clear of violence or of Marxist version of the gospels.