NY Times on Liberation Theology

Here's an interesting article from the front page of today's Times on the persistence of Liberation Theology.  This persistence should come as no surprise.  As the article says, in the years since Cardinal Ratzinger began his (let's say) "encounter" with liberation theology, "the social and economic ills the movement highlighted have worsened." 

The simple fact is that Liberation Theology will not and cannot die because it represents the legitimate aspirations of the poor (in Latin America and elsewhere) and because the message of liberation (spiritual, but also political and economic) is too deeply embedded in the Bible to ignore.  This theology will either persist within the Church, on the margins of the Church, or (if need be) outside the Church.

Obviously, Liberation Theology's social science has changed over the years.  No more Marxist analysis.  This is obviously a good thing, but I don't think jettisoning Marxist frameworks fundamentally changes the substance or significance of Liberation Theology.  Marxism was never really essential to Liberation Theology, conservative critics notwithstanding. Liberation Theology is fundamentally a methodology:  doing theology in light of concrete work with and on behalf of the poor.  As long as theologians continue to engage in this reflection in light of liberating praxis, they will continue to produce theology that challenges the priorities of the institutional Church, which is committed to (and organized around) a fundamentally different model.  This will inevitably lead to tension, and at times even conflict.  But this tension can be a positive thing, and, at the end of the day, I think there's room for both models.