1960–1986

Latin American liberation theology: Medellín, Gutiérrez, Puebla

Liberation theology took shape in Latin America in the 1960s. It emerged amid disillusionment with the concept of "development" and under the influence of Paulo Freire's pedagogy and Johann Baptist Metz's political theology.

The Second Conference of Latin American Bishops (CELAM II) at Medellín (1968) condemned the church's alliance with the powers. It called the continent's condition "institutionalized violence." The conference is regarded as the movement's true beginning.

In 1971 the Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez published the programmatic "A Theology of Liberation." He defined theology as "critical reflection on praxis" and proclaimed God's "preferential option for the poor."

The Puebla conference (CELAM III, 1979) reaffirmed this stance despite Rome's hopes of moderating it. The greatest controversy arose over the movement's involvement in Nicaragua's Sandinista revolution (1979) and the assassination of Archbishop Óscar Romero in El Salvador (1980). In 1984–1986 the Vatican issued instructions criticizing its borrowings from Marxism. The Brazilian Leonardo Boff was suspended from teaching and publishing for a year.