The war between the Liberation Theology movement and Rome is over

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asnate said:
From La Stampa:
vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/teologia-della-liberazione-freedom-theology-teologia-de-la-libertad-vaticano-vatican-25842/

These are very good news!
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The church has always been a champion of the poor and weak. But what she has typically opposed and corrected in Liberation Theology was the tendency to focus on the material as a replacement for the spiritual. Humans are body and soul. While it is true that the sins of the rich and powerful can have an outsized effect on society compared to the sins of the poor, this is no reason to build the rich and powerful into scapegoats who relieve the poor from the need for repentance and Grace. That was, IMO, the fatal flaw of LT in practice, if not in theory. It neglected the reality of Original Sin by transferring the blame for human suffering from the universal effects of human sin to the oppression of the rich.

This doesn’t let oppressive rich and powerful people off the hook, mind you! To the extent that LT pointed out real injustices it can and should be honored. It’s just that in practice, there was the tendency for a long time to jump to the equally serious, but opposite error of demonizing the rich and making them the scapegoat for all human suffering in the world. Suffering comes from SIN, and ALL of us are guilty. Not just THEM (rich people, white guys, Jews, communists, insert boogeyman/scapegoat here). At bottom, human misery is caused by US, not THEM. The theory of LT may not directly be scapegoat based, but the practice fairly often was. That’s what got it slapped down, not evil Vatican political machinations.
 
Liberation theology took grace away from Christ, and put our salvation into our own hands, and so much of it focusing on salvation by being happy here on earth.

And the angry people who were influenced by liberation theology, and the class warfare, and if you were a Catholic from a capitalist country, your Catholicism was not wanted. This happened to many of us.

The biggest problem with liberation theology is once it gets into you, your faith in Christ is broken, and now you are focusing on the group mentality. There are priests who almost or did lose their faith over this ‘theology’.
 
I know you are stuck with the title but it’s very misleading. There was no “war” with Liberation Theology. The proponents of LT from the late 20th Century were told that the way they were teaching LT was flawed. To some extent, LT proponents have assented to Church teaching and adjusted their approach and presentation. They were obedient and the Church acknowledges that. It’s just the way the Church works.
 
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