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Home , Pope Francis, Pope Pius XI

CHAPTER 8

A FREIREAN IMPRINT ON LIBERATION THEOLOGY

Paulo Freire is considered one of the founders of liberation theology. He was a Christian that lived his faith in a liberating way…Paulo placed the poor and oppressed at the center of his method, which is important in the concept of preferential , a trademark of liberation theology. (Boff, 2011, p. 241)

With plumes of smoke spiraling out of the small chimney atop the famous in the early evening of , 2013, the electricity of excitement was radiating off the thousands of onlookers who were gathered at St. Peter’s Square. The white smoke signaled the 266th had been elected. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of , the first pope from the , would take the name Francis. Assuming that name was more than a mere symbolic gesture for the new , like the same spirit of deep faith, simplicity, humility, and a profound for the poor that guided over 800 years ago, has been one that has exuded those same charismas throughout his ministry as a Jesuit cleric in .1 The thrust of Pope Francis’ ministry is one that seeks a poor Church that possesses a heart for the poor, which is clearly making its mark on his pontificate. This desire of Francis is not only rooted in the message, but it is also the same message that is filtered through social teaching. It is, therefore, no great coincidence that only a few months after he shouldered the papacy, Pope Francis invited Father to , holding private conversations and concelebrating (Cox, 2013). A brilliant theologian from Peru, the now eighty-five-year-old Gutiérrez is often referred to as the “father”2 of liberation theology, a theological perspective that centrally places the concept of “preferential option for the poor” as its analytical starting point. Liberation theology, however, has historically been a “thorn in the flesh” for the institutional Church, and while it has not outright rejected its theology, the Church has always been more than slightly uncomfortable with theologians drawing from Marx as a critical lens to examine injustice. In other words to state differently, because of Gutiérrez’s theological thought, he has generally been viewed with suspicion from the hierarchy, even with leanings to censure him.3 In short, therefore, the significance of Gutiérrez’s meeting with

87 Chapter 8 the Pope was more than perfunctory and was no small thing;4 rather, the invitation was an affirming signal to the universal church that a theology of liberation was fundamentally rooted in the Gospel message. Indeed, in the 266th Pontiff, Gutiérrez sees a Church with a “change in atmosphere” (San Martín, 2015, para. 2).5 That change of atmosphere indeed caught the attention of Ana Maria (Nita) Araújo Freire. The widow of Paulo Freire, Nita requested a visit with Pope Francis, and he graciously obliged, receiving her at the Vatican in April, 2015. Discussing Freire’s work, which Francis has read, Nita not only sees Freire’s writings as “more relevant today than 20 years ago,” but also saw in Pope Francis one who is creating “a new face of the church” that has the plight of the poor in the forefront of his ministry (Ieraci, 2015). And while Paulo Freire was a Catholic, and believed in Jesus Christ, he was not one who was caught up in religiosity or the institutional church, as it were; he was, however, a man who richly contributed to the thinking of liberation theology, as underscored by Boff in the epigraph (Ieraci, 2015; Kirylo, 2011). The question, therefore, is what is liberation theology and how did Paulo Freire contribute to the fostering of its thought and action? To that end, the rest of this chapter will explore how liberation theology emerged on the scene, will examine critical aspects of its thinking and action, and will weave in how Paulo Freire impacted the shaping of liberation theology.6

CONTEMPORARY HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The “modern” emergence of liberation theology began in 1891 when Pope Leo XIII issued a Catholic social doctrine called (On the Condition of Workers); it was this that laid the foundation for future social teachings in the (Dorr, 1983).7 Pope Leo XIII was troubled with the horrible living and working conditions of Europe’s urban poor. He took a clear position against exploitation in trying to resolve the misery of the poor “…since the great majority of them live undeservedly in miserable and wretched conditions” (1942, p. 6). Forty years later in 1931, observing the fortieth anniversary of Rerum Novarum, Pope Pius XI released (On the Fortieth Year), which spoke out against economic exploitation and argued the shortcomings of liberal . While Leo XIII focused on structural reform, he also concentrated on personal sin and thus called for internal reform. However, Pius XI also viewed sin in a collective sense, asserting that injustice and economic exploitation were committed because of the shortcomings of liberal capitalism (Smith, 1991). After Pope Pius XI, Pope Pius XII also contributed to the social teachings of the Church, and though he espoused the right of private ownership, he “…insisted that this limited right must be subordinate to the interests of the common welfare and the broad right of all people to benefit from the wealth of the earth” (Smith, 1991, p. 85). These Catholic social teachings by Leo XII, Pius XI, and Pius XII through the 1950s functioned as the preparation for the social teachings of Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI.

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