Brief: US v. Liberation Theology (Part 1)

This is the first of a two-part deep dive into how U.S. foreign policy stared down the political threat of Liberation Theology by promoting Evangelical Christianity in Latin America. The CIA and USAID, in league with Vatican conservatives like Cardinal Ratzinger, spent money and social capital on the suppression of this vital new movement which insisted that poverty is political and that faith without structural change is hollow. 

By contrast, the Evangelical emphasis on individual sin, salvation, and personal prosperity aligned with Cold War and neoliberal interests. 

Spiritualities engineered to serve empire don’t just pacify the poor abroad—they come back to police democracy at home. The “Evangelical boomerang” shows up in shifting Latino religious demographics and voting patterns, while the “reverse boomerang” hints that Liberation Theology language—once condemned—now shapes Pope Leo’s message in this time of rising fascism. 

If MAGA mystics, prosperity preachers, and tech-bro shamans offer a gospel of self-aggrandizement, Liberation Theology counters with a message of shared material reality: no one owns the food, we share it; the Sabbath serves people, not power; love of God is inseparable from love for the poor. 

Part 1 lays the intellectual and historical groundwork; Part 2 follows the covert money networks and then asks whether a newly emboldened Catholic social vision can stiffen global resistance to authoritarian capitalism.

Show Notes

New Post-Election Survey Reveals Stark Religious Divides in Presidential Vote Choice - PRRI

Latino evangelicals praise Donald Trump as president-elect who respects Christians

Pew study finds Trump gained with Catholics, nonwhite Protestants in 2024

The Latinx Religious Red Surge?

Among U.S. Latinos, Catholicism Continues to Decline but Is Still the Largest Faith | Pew Research Center

Salvation Now - Boston Review 

Tense Theology in a Holy Hierarchy: Liberation Theology Versus the Vatican

Ratzinger and the Liberation Theologians - First Things

VATICAN REPORTED TO HAVE SOUGHT REBUKES FOR 2 OTHER LATIN CLERICS - The New York Times

Boff defends liberation theology - UPI Archives

Instruction on certain aspects of the "Theology of Liberation"

THE CASE AGAINST LIBERATION THEOLOGY - The New York Times

Christians & the class struggle | Commonweal Magazine

LATIN TOURS OVER, ROCKEFELLER URGES NEW U.S. POLICIES; Plans a Report to Nixon in August on Broad Range of Hemisphere Problems 

Antonopoulos, Paul; Ribeiro, Daniel França; Cottle, Drew. "Liberation Theology to Evangelicalism: The Rise of Bolsonaro and the Conservative Evangelical Advance in Post-Colonial Brazil." Postcolonial Interventions, Vol. 5, Issue 2. 

Boff, Leonardo; Boff, Clodovis. Introducing Liberation Theology. Translated by Paul Burns. Tunbridge Wells: Burns and Oates, 1987. 

Dupuy, Alex. Haiti in the New World Order: The Limits of the Democratic Revolution. Boulder, CO: Westview Press/Perseus Books, 1997.

Dupuy, Alex. Haiti in the World Economy: Class, Race, and Underdevelopment since 1700. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989. 

Dupuy, Alex. The Prophet and Power: Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the International Community, and Haiti. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2007.

Gutiérrez, Gustavo. A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation. Translated and edited by Sister Caridad Inda and John Eagleson. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988. 

Gutiérrez, Gustavo. The Power of the Poor in History: Selected Writings. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1983. 45.

Hallward, Peter. Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment. London and New York: Verso, 2007. 

Hardy, Elle. "Prosperity versus liberation: How Pentecostalism’s prosperity gospel replaced Catholic liberation theology in Latin American life." Aeon.

Lernoux, Penny. Cry of the People: The Struggle for Human Rights in Latin America — The Catholic Church in Conflict with U.S. Policy. Rev. ed. New York: Penguin Books, 1982. 

Scheuren Acevedo, Sonia M. "The Opposition to Latin American Liberation Theology and the Transformation of Christianity, 1960–1990." Master’s thesis, Florida International University, 2016.

Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. "Religious Fundamentalism and Imperialism in Latin America: Action and Resistance." Dossier no. 59, December 19, 2022.

U.S. Directorate of Intelligence."Liberation Theology: Religion, Reform, and Revolution, A Research Paper." GI 86-10028. April 1986. Accessed via CIA Records Search Tool (CREST), National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD.