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The revolutionary virus of the gospel Interview with Father Antoine Gisler On January 28, Pope John Paul II began his sixth visit to Latin America, his aim, amongst others being to stem the tide of the so-called liberation theology which is causing deep divisions inside the Catholic Church.
Addressing Venezualan bishops shortly after his arrival he denounced liberation theology on the grounds that it sought 'an illusory earthly liberation'. The pope wished to make it quite clear that he is not 'only for the poor' and that he does not as pope represent any particular class, as the Episcopal Secretariat of Central America and Panama emphasised before his last visit.
Liberation theologists, on the other hand, make it quite clear that they are for the poor and in the following interview conducted by La Breche, the paper of the Swiss section of the Fourth International, Antoine Gisler, a leading proponent of liberation theology explains this. Father Gisler is a spiritual missionary who lived for 15 years in the Antilles and four years in Senegal.
Question. What do you understand by liberation theology?
Answer. Liberation theology is at the moment mainly a phenomenon of the Third World. It was born in a context of oppression and the struggle against that oppression; it is identified as an element of that struggle. It has been nourished in the field of the practice and experience of christians in the Ecclesiastical Communities at the Base (CEB). Anyone who wants to understand it must understand these organisations.
A CEB meeting discusses very downto-earth issues: problems of drinking water; or the repair of a road; vaccinations; redundant workers. CEB members also read the Bible and discuss it. In it they find a god who takes the side of the oppressed. They feel growing inside them the idea of liberating themselves through common effort. They have caught the 'revolutionary virus' as Charles Maurras (1) once called the gospel.
Apart from all this they try to understand, to analyse and get to know the causes of exploitation which the Third World countries are the victim of. So they find out about how it works; about the mechanism of the market, and other socio-economic structures. They are witnesses to the existence of social classes and their antagonistic nature. Members of the CEBs are mainly involved in action, in self-help, in trade union work International Viewpoint 25 February 1985
The campaign against liberation theology does not emanate only from the
Vatican.
In 1980 in Washington the Institute for Religion and Democracy was established under the direction of
Peter Burger, a protestant sociologist and Michel Novak, a catholic journalist. This hallowed institution was specially set up to stop aid going from
North American christian groups to the popular church in Latin America and to proponents of liberation theology.
This institute is financed by several organisations some of which are not a million miles away from the Republican Party. The ways of the Lord certainly are very mysterious... ete. The fundamental aim, as the saying goes, is not to interprete the world but to change it.
Q. And where does theology come in all of this?
A. We are fully involved. In thinking about biblical texts or about the god you find there and his role in the history of mankind, CEB members are developing theology. They do need - and they are the first to recognise it, fraternal help from a professional, that is a theologian. But that person has to get involved with them and stand with them in their fight
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