Liberating Liberation Theology

Pope Francis’s insistence that the church be “for the poor”, and his pointed criticisms of capitalism and consumerism have gone a long way to rehabilitate the liberation theology movement and incorporate it within the church...The Vatican itself has not formally embraced liberation theology. Even Cardinal Müller himself has denied that his appointment as prefect by Pope Francis – which was seen in some circles as a triumph of liberation theology because of Müller’s relationship with Gutiérrez – represented the “opening of a new chapter” following the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict.
“I would like to point out that there is no discontinuity between Benedict XVI and Pope Francis on the issue of liberation theology,” Müller told Inside the Vaticanmagazine in 2013. But when he was then asked whether he agreed with Benedict’s declaration in 2009 that liberation theology had produced “rebellion, division, dissent, offense and anarchy”, Müller replied: “The negative aspects of liberation theology referred to by Benedict XVI are the result of the misunderstanding and wrong application of this theology.”