Liberation Theology, a KGB Invention? That Is Way Too Simple...
By
Luiz Sérgio Solimeo
Preface by Julio Severo: Recently, a former communist from Romania said that Liberation
Theology, which is predominant in Latin America, was exclusively created by the
KGB. I do not doubt the KGB’s malevolence, but other voices, especially from
Latin America, can shed a better light on this issue. Luiz Sérgio Solimeo is a
conservative Catholic Brazilian who has written an insightful article in
Portuguese about Liberation Theology, and I have asked him to translate it into
English. To further help our understanding, I mention an interesting comment by
John L. Allen, of Crux, who said:
Catholic
Archbishop Hélder Câmara of
Olinda and Recife in Brazil didn’t have to be ‘maneuvered.’ He was already on
board with liberation theology before anyone in Moscow knew it was stirring. That’s
not to say the KGB didn’t do whatever it could to support leftist movements in
Latin America critical of capitalism and the United States. It would be
surprising if they hadn’t, given the zero/sum Cold War logic that anything that
seemed to hurt one side benefited the other. In that sense, Pacepa is likely
correct about the KGB strategy, but may be giving the agency too much credit
for its results.
This is true! Long before a
supposed official launch of Liberation Theology by the KGB, Archbishop
Hélder Câmara promoted this socialist theology, and now the Vatican is taking steps
to canonize him. After Oscar Romero, Câmara will be the second
official Liberation Theology “saint” in the Catholic Church.
Here is the article by Mr. Solimeo:
 |
| Ion Pacepa |
“The
movement was born in the KGB and had a KGB-invented name: Liberation Theology,”
Pacepa says. And he tells how Khrushchev and a Russian general had agents
infiltrate the World Council of Churches and maneuvered with the same means a
group of South American bishops gathered in Medellin, Colombia, in 1968.
Reality is More Complex
Although
one cannot rule out Moscow’s hand in spreading this revolutionary movement,
reality is much more complex: Liberation Theology was the fruit of a long
process that took place inside Church sectors worked over by Modernism and
imanentist modern philosophies, as well as by the influence of liberal
Protestantism.
Its
origins – not to go further back – can be traced to the pontificates of Popes
Leo XIII (1878-1903) and Saint Pius X (1903-1914).
Modernist Heresy
Through
various documents and disciplinary measures, Pope Saint Pius X condemned a
whole set of philosophical, theological, moral and social errors that were
brewing for some time in Church educational institutions. This ensemble ─
which he calls “the
synthesis of all heresies”
─ he named Modernism. It is the
Modernist heresy.
Modernism
─ particularly described in the
encyclical Pascendi Dominici Greges, of 1907 ─
is a more radical version of Catholic liberalism which strives to infiltrate
the spirit and mentality of the world into the Church. Modernism is
fundamentally naturalist and imanentist, denying the supernatural and divine
transcendence and reducing religion to a mere feeling without dogmatic truths
or immutable moral precepts.
Unfortunately,
although St. Pius X condemned Modernism, its spirit and many of its doctrines
and goals continued to meander in ecclesiastical and lay circles. In 1910, the
holy Pontiff issued the Motu Proprio Sacrorum Antistitum, which stated: “Modernists,
even after the Encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis unmasked them, did not give
up their designs to disturb the peace of the Church. Indeed, they continued to
recruit and gather new adherents in a secret society ... [They] are injecting
the virus of their doctrine into the veins of Christian society.” [1]
Nouvelle Théologie
Later,
in 1950, the theological and philosophical errors disseminated by this
modernist secret society were condemned by Pope Pius XII with the encyclical
Humani Generis. Among the condemned errors are naturalism and Teilhard de
Chardin’s “mystical evolutionism,” which identified Jesus Christ with
evolution, making any dogmatic truth or morality taught by the Church
meaningless. Thanks to its mentors (mostly French), this current became known
as Nouvelle Théologie.
Socio-political and Economic Modernism
In
the early 20th century the socio-economic aspect of modernist theological
fermentation was represented by Marc Sangnier’s Le Sillon (“the furrow”). This
lay movement preached a radical socio-economic egalitarianism and was also
condemned by Saint Pius X in 1910 with his Apostolic Letter Notre Charge
Apostolique.
This
trend was later systematized in philosophical terms by Jacques Maritain, a
French philosopher and convert to Catholicism, in his book Integral Humanism
(1936) – which Fr. Antonio Messineo, S.J., qualified as “integral naturalism”
in an article in the Civiltá Cattolica. [2]
In
his book, although Maritain criticizes Communist atheism and totalitarianism,
he praises the “profound intuition” of Marx--intuition that Maritain believes
“to be the great flash of truth running trough his work.” This “flash of
truth,” he explains, is Marx’s thesis of the “alienation imposed in the
'capitalist' world on the work-force, and of the dehumanization with which the
owners and the proletariat are thereby simultaneously stricken." And he
believes that the role of Catholics is to rescue this Marxist intuition from
his atheistic philosophy. Because, he says, "whatever aversion Marx may
personally have nourished against Christianity, this intuition itself is
pregnant with Judaeo-Christian values.” [3]
With
his book, Maritain opened the way for collaboration between Catholics and
Communists, since he accept not only as true, but even as Christian, the
essence of Marxist’s social and economic theory. Most of all, he destroyed the
foundations of the Catholic anticommunism and suggested a “third way” or “third
position.”
Above
all, Maritain’s book destroyed the vigor of Catholic anti-communists,
increasingly leading Catholic Action and Christian Democrats toward the left.
Incidentally,
during his stay in the United States, Maritain became a close friend and ally
of the notorious communist agitator Saul Alinsky. [4]
Especially
in Latin America, this work became the “handbook” of the Catholic Action
movement and its political arm, the Christian Democratic parties.
The “Third Position”: “No Enemies on the Left, No Friends on the Right”
The
First Conference of Christian Democracy in America was held in Montevideo,
Uruguay, in 1947 with the aim of promoting Maritain’s “Third Position.” The
gathering’s final statement said Christian Democracy was based on Church social
doctrine and on Maritain’s “Integral Humanism.” The document criticized
Fascism, communism and capitalism. But it showed distaste for anticommunism,
seen as a “sower of discord.” In short, consistent with the formula “Pas
d’ennemis à gauche, pas d’amis à droite” (no enemies on the left, no friends on
the right), the “Third Position” (neither capitalist nor communist) turned out
to be especially anti-anticommunist.
From Catholic Action to Communist Guerrilla Warfare
With
the death of Pope Pius XII (October 1958), the Christian Democrats in Italy and
elsewhere began the so-called “opening to the left,” allying with socialist
parties and speaking about “Christian socialism.”
In
Brazil, for example, the youth of Catholic Action (who were also the grassroots
of Christian Democracy) went even further and in 1960 allied themselves with
communists in the student movement. This alliance went so far that in 1962 they
broke away from the Church and formed a socialist political movement, the
People's Action. And by the end of that decade, this movement led formerly
Catholic young people to join communist urban guerrillas.
Liberation Theology’s Culture Medium
Theories
of Nouvelle Théologie and Maritain’s political philosophy also penetrated
seminaries throughout the world, influencing young priests and religious. In
Brazil in 1969, three Dominican novices, former members of the Youth of
Catholic Action, were arrested by the police for links with communist
guerrillas.
It
was in this ambience of intensely modernist and leftist fermentation that
theologians such as Uruguayan Juan Luis Segundo, SJ, Brazilians Hugo Assmann
and Leonardo Boff, OFM, and Peruvian Gustavo Gutierrez laid the foundation of
the Liberation Theology. Because of Peronist (Juan Domingos Peron, 1895-1974)
influence, in Argentina this “theology” had a more populist character and was
led by Frs. Juan Carlos Scannone, SJ, and Lucio Gera.
A Latin American “Theology”?
Although
Liberation Theology is said to be a Latin American “theology,” in fact it is
grounded in Catholic and Protestant European authors and in the communist
theoreticians, Karl Marx and Antonio Gramsci.
Deification
of the “poor,” as Marx did with the “proletariat,” which he presented as the
“redeemer” of humanity, is the central point of this “theology.”
Liberation
theology is not meant to help the poor, as the great saints of the Church have
always done, but only to use them. Consistent with the Marxist theory of class
struggle the poor are but a weapon used against the “rich.”
Nor
is Liberation Theology intended to improve the economic situation in countries
where it operates. Rather, it leads to misery, which these pseudo-theologians
identify with “evangelical perfection.” Their model is Cuba, idolized as a kind
of “earthly paradise,” where misery takes on, as it were, a “sacred” character.
It is clear from testimony by Leonardo Boff and Clodovis Boff that they follow
“miserabilist” heresies from the decadent Middle Ages: “Also inspirational to
liberation theology are the singular evangelical experiences of so many
hereticized prophets ... without forgetting the precious contribution of
medieval pauperist reform movements and the evangelical postulations of the
great reformers.” [5]
From this quick historical overview
one sees that, with or without the KGB, the internal crisis raging in the
Church for so long would logically have led to liberation theology.
“Unperceived Ideological Transshipment”
The
KGB has possibly contributed in spreading this political-religious ideology
which is presented as Catholic theology because it is a very useful means of
communist expansion, especially in Catholic circles, and for maintaining
Communist regimes in the unfortunate countries that suffer under its rule.
However,
the decisive factor in the emergence and proliferation of Liberation Theology,
and its practical application in Latin America has been the real “unperceived
ideological transshipment” ─ to use the famous expression
coined by Prof. Plinio Corrêa
de Oliveira [6] ─
suffered by young Catholic idealists who entered seminaries or joined
Catholic Action and were gradually led away from religious fervor and Catholic
orthodoxy toward affinity with the Marxist theories of egalitarianism and class
struggle.
Therefore, communism and the KGB
are not found in the beginning of the process that led to the emergence of
Liberation Theology, but rather at its end, as a necessary consequence of
adhering to egalitarian and evolutionary principles of heretical theoreticians
from the early twentieth century.
Notes:
[1]
http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-x/la/motu_proprio/documents/hf_p-x_motu-proprio_19100901_sacrorum-antistitum.html.
[2]
Antonio Messineo, S.J, “Umanesimo Integrale”, Civilta Cattolica, Sept. 1, 1956.
[3]
Jacques Maritain, Integral Humanism, Freedom in the Modern World, and A Letter
on Independence, University of Notre Dame press, Notre Dame, Indiana, 1996, p.
181 and note 8.
[4]
Cf. Sanford D. Horwitt, Let Them Call Me Rebel – Saul Alinsky His Life and
Legacy, Alfred A. Knopt, New Yor, 1989, pp. 167, 177, 191, 197, 369, and 484.
[5]
Leonardo Boff and Clodovis Boff, Como Fazer Teologia da Libertação, Vozes,
Petrópolis, 1986, p. 57.
[6]
Cf. Unperceived Ideological Transshipment, at
http://www.tfp.org/tfp-home/books/unperceived-ideological-transshipment-and-dialogue.html.
Source: Last Days Watchman
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