by Ignatius and the Jesuit style of proclaiming the gospel. Even if Ignatius famous-
ly quoted: “I will believe that the white that I see is black if the hierarchical Church
so defines it” (Mottola 1989: 141), the Jesuits have over the last decades supported
many of Liberation Theology’s struggles with the Vatican.
Schillebeeckx emphasises the social and spiritual community of the church, of a
low-level engagement and participation into the ordo of the service. Inspiration is
taken from the initial formations of churches in the first centuries after Christ
where the organization of the Church was still fluid, and emphasis was on the small
local community that formed each individual parish. It was a time when the strat-
ified hierarchical control was still impossible to organize. Since then many com-
munities have struggled to avoid the top-down structure of the Church, and peri-
ods of, sometimes violent opposition have passed through history, often instigated
by local priests and clerks of minor orders (Cohn 1957: 157). It has been an urgent
question for the small communities to question the stratified mode of control,
because “supreme responsibility becomes tyranny in the hands of men, even in the
Church.” (Schillebeeckx 2004: 85)
As argued before, the aim of the theology of liberation is to use faith as a leading
force for social change in rural or industrial economies and authoritarian political
systems. Through socio-religious activism it aims to overcome the Enlightenment
dichotomy between facts and values (Pottenger 1989). According to many libera-
tion theologists this dichotomy that once triggered a new curiosity and basis for
science has now also become a straightjacket for our understanding of the world.
It has lately also been exposed as a political project where facts indeed has shown
to be tools of power, rejecting the voice of the powerless with the use of “facts”.
Part of the theology of liberation has also triggered reinterpretation of the Bible
from the viewpoints of marginalized social or cultural minorities, which has been
known under the name of “contextual theology” or “inculturation”, the later refer-
ring to the adaptation of the way the Gospel is presented and construed for the
specific cultures being evangelized. These tendencies assemble a wider range of
exegetic practices of locally transformed liturgy, often with ethnic, feminist or eco-
logical interpretations of the faith.
One of the main contributors to the field of liberation theology is the Peruvian
priest Gustavo Gutiérrez who came to be one of the main ideologists of the move-
ment. He underlines how liberation has three dimensions: Firstly, political libera-
tion and the elimination of poverty and injustice. Secondly, the emancipation of
the poor helping them develop themselves freely and in dignity. Finally the libera-
tion from selfishness and sin and the re-establishment of a true community with
God and other people (Gutiérrez 1973).
For Gutiérrez, religion becomes a pivotal force and an intersection of several lines,
of faith, action, liberation and development, and this alliance forms an emancipa-
tory force of unfolding and evolution. As an alternative to an inward looking spir-
ituality of contemplation and hermitical sanctity he emphasizes the activity of
working together with the poor, forming community together, and faith not being
withdrawn to the church. The most important task of the church is done out in the
fields - contemlata aliis tradere - ”to transmit to others the fruits of contemplation”
(Gutiérrez 1973: 7). Gutiérrez sees this practice as a transition of theology to an
Ignatian spirituality, seeking a synthesis between contemplation and action, the
orthopraxis, rightfulness in concrete behaviour. For Gutiérrez the local church