Liberation theology in the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America, 1968 to 1988: Conflicting concepts of social mission and their political context.

In 1968, bishops representing all parts of the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America met in their Second General Conference to debate the "transformation of Latin America in the light of the Council". Among the diverse political influences affecting their conclusions, the demands for radical social change, coming mostly from a group of younger theologians and clergy, were significant. Those demands, soon embodied in what became known as "liberation theology", were based on the argument that there was a biblical and theological mandate for revolutionary transformation of society, to be achieved primarily by the elimination of capitalism, in favour of some type of purified socialism. Most leaders of the Church in Latin America, and the Vatican, found the most extreme of the liberation proposals to be unacceptable, both in relation to basic concepts of the role of the Church in social mission and in relation to the partisan political commitment proposed in Latin America. This thesis examines the ensuing conflict over concepts of social mission during the period 1968-1988, a particularly turbulent one for the Church, with a view to assessing the extent to which the liberation case, theologically and politically, can be accommodated within the social teaching of the Church. It concludes that, while the original political thrust of the movement in the 1970's remains unacceptable, the liberation theologians have made an important contribution to processes of democratization and social change, for example in the base communities, in the role of the laity and in the development of a feminist liberation movement in the Church. (Abstract shortened by UMI.