19
Metafísica y Persona. Filosofía, conocimiento y vida
Año 14, Núm. 27, Enero-Junio, 2022, ISSN: 2007-9699
Theopolitical Imagination: What Can We Learn
From the Postconciliar Church?
Imaginación teopolítica: ¿Qué podemos aprender
de la iglesia posconciliar?
1
UPAEP, Universidad
juanpablo.aranda@upaep.mx
The aftermath of the Second Vatican Council saw the emergence of theopolitical imagi-
nation defending both radical conservative and progressive views. This article studies two
such experiments, namely, Marcel Lefebvre’s rejection of the Council and liberation theolo-
gy’s yearning for a solution, here and now, of poverty, understood as a sign of the Kingdom.
I assert that both examples share a fundamental insight, that is, its yearning for a re-politi-
cization of the church, a confusion between the immanent and transcendent axis of human
existence. I suggest that what the church experienced in the 1960s is analogous to our poli-
tical situation, where citizens are increasingly disappointed with democracies, and are thus
siding with radical populist politics that use religious language to justify their programs.
Keywords: immanentism, authoritarianism, transcendence, Second Vatican Council,
radicalism.
Los años posteriores al Concilio Vaticano II vieron una explosión de imaginación teopo-
lítica defendiendo posturas radicales tanto conservadoras como progresistas. Este artículo
estudia dos de estos experimentos, a saber, el rechazo del Concilio por parte de Marcel Le-
febvre y el anhelo de la teología de la liberación de una solución, aquí y ahora, de la po-
fundamental, a saber, su anhelo de una repolitización de la iglesia, una confusión entre el eje
inmanente y trascendente de la existencia humana. Sugiero que lo que la iglesia experimentó
en la década de 1960 es análogo a nuestra situación política, en la que los ciudadanos están
1
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20
cada vez más decepcionados con las democracias, y por ello se ponen del lado de políticas
Palabras clave: inmanentismo, autoritarismo, trascendencia, Concilio Vaticano II,
radicalismo.
1. Introduction
The world’s political scene increasingly shows signs of radicalization. The
in radical politics, either from the right—with xenophobic and even racist
groups occupying the center of democratic discussions in the rich West—or
from the left, where anti-system leaders in countries dominated by inequality
and poverty have turned on the old propaganda machine, fostering resented
politics and antagonism. Democracy faces a deep legitimacy crisis; at one
extreme, technocracy alienates the citizens from their authorities, while at
the other extreme the dream of an unmediated political representation of the
have lost is the ability to communicate with the other, preferring the seemin-
gly cozier alternative provided by social media and the post-truth society, na-
mely, to stick to our ideas, surrounding ourselves of like-minded peers, who
are just as radicalized and reluctant of even considering alternative argu-
The present work proposes that the postconciliar crisis in the late six-
ties of the past century is an interesting place for studying radical politics. I
study two reactions to the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). First, I look at
Marcel Lefebvre’s rejection of the council, accusing it of giving up good ortho-
doxy in the name of a modernizing, protestant-like, liberal turn of the church.
I suggest that Lefebvre’s critique, though accurate about certain misinterpreta-
tions and blatant exaggerations that followed the council’s optimism, ended up
yearning for the return of Christendom, that is, of the theopolitical project that
bathed the Catholic church with power for a thousand years. Then I analyze
Gustavo Gutiérrez’s liberation theology, suggesting that, rather than a return
to the past, his doctrine is informed by an anxiety for results which, being born
-
manentization of the Kingdom, erasing the eschatological gulf and hoping for
an ideal society that Christian doctrine rejects as impossible.
The work aims at showing interesting parallelisms between the highly
politicized postconciliar church and the highly religious populist politics,
showing that both rest on a simplistic recourse to utopianism—founded ei-
21
Theopolitical imagination: What can we learn from the postconciliar church?
ther on the glorious past or, on the contrary, on a liberating future, here on
that the yearning for a materialized utopia is condemned to failure, at best, or
to the actualization of a hellish reality, at worst.
2. Marcel Lefebvre: Nostalgia for the good-old days
From the very start of the council, one bishop felt that the road the Church
was taking was the wrong one. Born in 1905, Marcel Lefebvre saw the council
as a liberal-modernist conspiracy to take down the true Church of Christ.
Disappointed with its results, he quickly rejected Vatican II, on the basis that
it contravened the solid Catholic doctrine of the past two centuries. This fal-
se Catholicism, he asserted, overenthusiastically embraced modernity and
the spirit of the French Revolution.
2
In 1988, John Paul II excommunicated
Lefebvre for ordaining a bishop without papal consent.
3
In 2009, Benedict
XVI lifted this excommunication, after a process of dialogue with Lefebvre’s
Society of Saint Pius X.
4
Lefebvre, to be sure, never wanted to leave the Catholic church—although
his excessive zeal and ultraconservatism led him, in the end, to reject the very
church he was trying to defend. He worried about, and correctly denounced,
-
5
to replace the com-
munion wafer. The—perhaps excessive—desire to bring the faithful closer to
God was misunderstood in some places, replacing this closeness with casual-
6
Lefebvre lamented how
the excessive encounter of the liturgy with the modern world—e.g., in the in-
corporation of secular music and the relaxation of devotion—did away with
Mass took place during which the band-girls danced and some of them then
7
2
Gaudium et spes, viewed as an Antisyllabus,
, J., Teoría
de los Principios Teológicos. Materiales para una Teología Fundamental, Barcelona: Herder, 1984, p. 458.
3
See Canon §1382 of the Code of Canon Law.
4
latae sententi-
ae
5
, M., Open Leer to Confused Catholics, Herefordshire: Fowler Wright Books Ltd, 1986, p. 26.
6
, M., Open Leer
7
, M., Open Leer
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Lefebvre saw the post-conciliar crisis as an unequivocal sign that the
council itself had been a mistake.
8
For him, the solution was a radical one:
the baby had to be thrown out along with the bath water. The bishop thus
went beyond a critique of the excesses made by a misunderstanding of the
spirit of the council, deeming these outlandish behaviors as the necessary
consequence of a council that had betrayed the church. In the preface to his
book, J’accuse le Concile, -
-
ce on those present, because of a veritable conspiracy of the Cardinals from
9
And in
We refuse and have always refused to follow the Rome of neo-modernist and
neo-Protestant tendencies which clearly manifested themselves in the Second
Vatican Council and after the Council in all the reforms which issued from it.
All these reforms, indeed, have contributed and are still contributing to the de-
molition of the Church, to the ruin of the priesthood, to the annihilation of the
and Teilhardian type of teaching in Universities, seminaries and catechesis, a
teaching which is the fruit of liberalism and Protestantism and many times
condemned by the solemn Magisterium of the Church.
10
Vatican II, in Lefebvre’s opinion, embraced the ideals of the French Rev-
liberté, égalité, fraternité
Gaudium et spes, §17), and that religious
liberty
11
derives from human dignity (Dignitatis humanae §1, 2).
8
sought to appeal to earlier councils in order to discredit Vatican II. But that which guarantees the
, R., What Went
Wrong with Vatican II. The Catholic Crisis Explained, Manchester: Sophia Institute Press, 1998, p. 33.
9
, M., I Accuse the Council, Dickinson: The Angelus Press, 1982, p. vii. For a discussion
, R., The Rhine ows into the Tiber,
New York: Hawthorn Books, 1967.
10
Reproduced in , Y., Challenge to the Church. The case of Archbishop Lefebvre, London:
Collins, 1976, p. 77.
11
-
interested the traditional enemies of the Church so much. It is the major aim of Liberalism.
Liberals, Masons and Protestants are fully aware that by this means they can strike at the
very heart of the Catholic Church; in making her accept the common law of secular societies,
, M., I Accuse the Council, p. 26.
23
Theopolitical imagination: What can we learn from the postconciliar church?
-
12
Adopting a correspondence theory of truth, he as-
serted that it is only when our will is in line with Christ, the Truth incarnated,
that we experience our dignity. From this perspective, it becomes clear that
13
Why would we grant
rights to error? Would not that imply, necessarily, the tacit renunciation of
truth altogether? Reluctant to dress mistake—and all non-Catholic religions,
including post-Vatican II heresy, were for him mistaken—with the garments
-
14
This is a
central point: toleration creates an unbridgeable gulf between the only true
religion and the rest of them, denying the possibility for grace to be found
-
15
and stable doctrine he thought to be defending. In denying grace outside the
-
tution Unigenitus, given in 1713.
16
-
primus inter pares
17
This emphasis on the collegial nature of the magisterium
was, according to Lefebvre, part of a more ambitious project, namely, the
democratization of the church:
Democratisation of the magisterium is naturally followed by democratisa-
tion of Church government. Modern ideas being what they are, it has been
still easier here to obtain the desired result, carrying these ideas over into the
college, the government of each bishop with a priest’s college, and the parish
should share the running of his parish with councils and assemblies.
18
12
, M., Open Leer
13
, M., Open Leer
14
, M., Open Leer
15
, M., Open Leer
16
The principle nulla salus extra ecclesiam, adopted by the council of Florence-Ferrara, must be
assumed the predominance of Christianity. Moreover, the proposition was meant as a con-
Unigenitus, in 1713. , J., El nuevo
pueblo de Dios, Barcelona: Herder, 1972, pp. 383-5.
17
, M., Open Leer, M., I Accuse the Council, p. 47.
18
, J., Has the Catholic Church gone mad?,
New Rochelle: Arlington House, 1971, p. 39.
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The Second Vatican Council’s doctrine on episcopacy and primacy is con-
tained in the third chapter of the dogmatic constitution Lumen gentium (LG).
It is telling that the discussion is framed not in terms of political author-
ity, but as the correct interpretation of Jesus’ instructions to the apostles.
LG §18). Peter is one of the twelve, not distinct from
LG
LG §21). However, the exercise of episcopal
authority demands communion-
pope and the bishops, the council states that
has full, supreme and universal power over the whole church, a power
which he can always exercise freely. The order of bishops is the successor to
never apart from him, it is the subject of supreme and full authority over the
universal church; but this power cannot be exercised without the consent of
LG §22).
In trying to unpack this relationship, we turn to Karl Rahner and Joseph
-
19
20
Now, how to understand
the tension between papal primacy and the episcopal college as a divine, in-
dissoluble institution? The answer, for Rahner, is found in the local church.
21
and acquires tangibility not
as an institution, but as communion,
22
It is only in the local church as
19
, K.; , J., The Episcopate and the Primacy, New York: Herder & Herder 1962, p.
12. Cf. , J.; , H., ¿Democracia en la Iglesia?, Madrid: San Pablo, 2005, pp. 22-30.
20
., The Episcopate and the Primacy, p. 16.
21
event indicates a moment (in time) when the conscious subject has been taken hold of by
act and event signalled a relation-
-
New Blackfriars,
22
, K.; , J., The Episcopate and the Primacy, p. 25.
25
Theopolitical imagination: What can we learn from the postconciliar church?
primacy, which exists insofar as the church is a church, that is, for the purpo-
se of unity, with the rights of the episcopate, which are granted because it is
in the local church that the universal church acquires visibility. In addition,
23
an
24
The church recognizes the freedom with which God acts upon the communi-
the episcopacy as a collective body, and then in the church as the people of
the authority of the pope over individual bishops is not the same as the power
is primacy in the college”.
25
26
insofar as the council cannot
exist without the pope as its head.
27
This image gives more dynamism to the relationship than
the one we would get from a hastily adopted unity. This dialectic is already
between universality and particularity. A church whose self-understanding
demands it to go to every corner of the world and speak to each in its own
language (Acts 2:6) seems to be contradicted by the emphasis on the Roman
element.
28
This tension produces, in the same way that in Rahner, a positive un-
29
sole source of salvation, emanating from the declarations on ecumenism and
religious liberty, are destroying the authority of the church’s Magisterium. In
23
, K.; , J., The Episcopate and the Primacy, p. 31.
24
only and exclusively by those who have chosen them. The bishops don’t represent the people,
, J., El nuevo
pueblo de Dios, p. 188.
25
, H. et al., The Church. Readings in theology, New York: P.J. Kennedy & Sons, 1963, p. 41.
26
, H. et al., The Church…, p. 41.
27
, K.; , J., The Episcopate and the Primacy, p. 43.
28
See , J., El nuevo pueblo de Dios, p. 144.
29
, J., El nuevo pueblo de Dios, p. 62.
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fact, Rome is no longer the unique and necessary Magistra Veritatis”.
30
How-
ever, nowhere did Vatican II renounce Catholic exclusivism—as, e.g., in LG
§13, 14 and 39. We are confronted again with the problem of truth: Lefebvre
is right when he reminds us of the intimate connection between Christ,
31
led him to overlook the tensions inherent in its documents, as well as its con-
tinuity not only with the two centuries immediately prior to it but, more im-
portantly, with the whole Christian tradition. Lefebvre’s sources cover only
the rest of the church’s long history. For instance, one can easily put Gregory
Mi-
rari vos (1832), in Lefebvre’s lips:
Depravity exults; science is impudent; liberty, dissolute. The holiness of the
sacred is despised; the majesty of divine worship is not only disapproved
perverted, and errors of all kinds spread boldly. The laws of the sacred, the
rights, institutions, and discipline—none are safe from the audacity of those
speaking evil (§5).
But it is perhaps in Lefebvre’s understanding of the role of the state in
Here we see his argumentation becoming weaker as it goes, surrendering to
the ideal of the strong political church that ruled over Christendom. Lefeb-
vre anchors his political ideas in Leo XIII’s great encyclical, Rerum Novarum,
then it is the role of the state to curb false ideas spread by other religions to
defend
32
Lefebvre gives no
argument to link the notion that the state’s goal is a moral one—an insight
complying with its duty of protecting the weak and uneducated.
30
, M., I Accuse the Council, p. 97.
31
, Y., Challenge to the Church
32
, M., Open Leer
27
Theopolitical imagination: What can we learn from the postconciliar church?
a deep-seated conviction, namely, that Christendom was not only a positive
time for the church, but its most faithful materialization. Lefebvre does not
hide his annoyance about the separation between church and state. Congar
-
33
However,
for Lefebvre political power is inseparable from the one true Catholic church:
were trying to falsify the Faith and thus endangering the eternal salvation of
everyone. The Inquisition came to the help of the heretics themselves, just as
one goes to the help of persons who jump into the water to end their lives.
34
What Lefebvre had in mind was not only the preconciliar church. He year-
ned for the old authoritarian times. In a sermon given on August 29, 1976,
Lefebvre praised General Videla’s dictatorship in Argentina:
Take the example of the Argentine Republic. What kind of a state was it in
But now there is an orderly government which has principles, which has
authority, which is starting to tidy things up, which is stopping brigands
from killing other people; and the economy is actually starting to revive, and
the workers have actually got work to do, and they can actually go home
knowing that they are not going to be brained on the way by someone who
wants to make them go on strike when they don’t want to go on strike.
35
Brian Sudlow exculpates Lefebvre’s praise of a murderous regime stres-
36
The
issue, however, is not whether Lefebvre supported political extremism, but
what kind of social arrangement—what Claude Lefort calls mise en scène— he
33
, M., Open Leer
34
, M., Open Leer
Joseph de Maistre. See his Leers on the Spanish Inquisition.
35
, Y., Challenge to the Church
36
French Cultural Studies, 28(1), 2017, p. 84.
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favored. To his question, the answer must be: one that resembles Christen-
the state’s coercive arm is used in order to protect the interests of the one, true
church, and at the same time invests political power with a divine sanction.
dissatisfaction with the post-conciliar culture. This worry was shared, to be
-
cluded—who didn’t conclude from this situation that the Second Vatican
Council had betrayed the Church of Christ. It is important to note that an
important aspect in Lefebvre’s radicalism was its being theologico-politically
-
cular and spiritual power again, and to bring the marriage between church
and state back once again. We can see this in (1) his selective use of sources,
di-
verse tradition of the church; and (2) in his yearning for a return to the pre-di-
senchanted times, where the Catholic church reigned not only in the hearts
jurisdiction, through legislation and the coercive capacity of the government.
3. Liberation theology: The transcendent-immanent
tension of the Kingdom
The reactions to Vatican II came from conservatives who sought to preserve
a church untouched by the modern age and progressives who believed that
just saw, Marcel Lefebvre accused the council of heresy and the betrayal of the
-
lished in 1968 under the leadership of Edward Schillebeeckx and Piet Schoo-
nenberg, constitutes a landmark. The Catechism abandoned the old scholastic
language and tried to speak in words accessible for the modern person. It em-
braced an anthropological and overtly phenomenological stance, in harmony
with the new methods in historical exegesis. The document was, in the words
-
ing members of socialist parties, and anyone who read socialist newspapers
37
37
The Furrow, 22(12), 1971, p. 741.
29
Theopolitical imagination: What can we learn from the postconciliar church?
in modernity and work with the secular world to solve the many problems
of humanity was followed by deep disillusionment. This time, the criticism
came from Latin America. The problem was not the encounter between the
modern (European) world and the church, but from the awareness that a
-
ops and theologians’ cry, Nous accusons, shook Europe: the reconciliation of
the church with the world was not, and could not be, authentic until those
without voice—the weak, the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized—
and done justice. Liberation theology was born as a cri du cœur, a remind-
er that a church that forgets the poor is a church that fails to live the mes-
sage of Christ. This message sounds today as urgent—or perhaps even more
so—than in 1971, when Gutiérrez’s book, A Theology of Liberation,
published.
38
In this section I limit myself to studying Gutiérrez’s liberation-
ism, which must not be understood as suggesting that this is the only, or the
powerful versions.
Contrary to Lefebvre’s Society of St. Pius X, liberation theology didn’t split
from the church nor deny the authority of the magisterium. The movement
has never been condemned, although a couple of church documents—Liber-
tatis nuntius (1984) and Libertatis conscientia (1986)—suggested possible devi-
ations or dangers in its postulates. Moreover, liberation theologians tried to
of the church. The seminal works of liberation saw themselves as answer-
ing the call made in Vatican II to think these documents and transform their
Bishops held in Medellín (1968) and Puebla (1979), both emphasized the no-
words regarding the care for the weak and poor (cf. Mt 25:35-36, 40). John
39
The starting point of liberation theology is a critique of the primacy of
orthodoxy over orthopraxis, that is, the idea that knowing what one must
think or believe takes precedence over the practical knowledge about what to
almost exclusiveness this doctrine has enjoyed in Christian life and above all
-
38
, G., A Theology of Liberation
39
Quoted in , G., A Theology of Liberation…, p. xxvi.
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40
When Gutiérrez connects this idea with Hegel’s
have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change
41
-
-
ment of faith: in our case, to participate in some way in the process of libe-
at the root of liberation theology. It operates within
the great dialectic of theory (faith) and practice (love).
42
Thus, liberation theology implies a new way of doing theology. This also
the many stories of oppression found in the Bible. The Exodus, for example,
is relevant for its narrations of God’s liberation of his people from the Egyp-
tian yoke.
43
Liberation here means not only—or primarily—a liberation that
will happen at the end of times, when those faithful to God will enjoy eter-
nal blessedness. Israel was freed from oppression, hunger, depravity, and
violence exerted by a powerful and cruel master.
44
In the same way, Jesus’
only eternal salvation. Although the kingdom of
40
, G., A Theology of Liberation…, p. 8. This, however, does not necessarily mean that
liberation theology advocates for the primacy of praxis. In the preface to the 1988 edition of
, G.,
A Theology of Liberation…,Libertatis Nuntius (available in Spanish at:
41
Cited in , ., The Cambridge Companion to Liberation Theology, New York: Cam-
42
, L.; C., Introducing Liberation Theology
43
-
terpreted the Exodus of Israel from Egypt as a symbol (typos) of baptism and seen in bap-
the Exodus to baptism seems to be a loss of reality, a retreat from the political-real into the
, J., Joseph Rainger in Communio, Vol. II, Michigan: Eerdmans,
2013, p. 61. For a political reading of Exodus see , M., Exodus and Revolution, New
York: Basic Books, 1985.
44
, G., A Theology of Liberation…, p. 88.
31
Theopolitical imagination: What can we learn from the postconciliar church?
fruit in our own time.
45
-
ce of poverty represents a sundering both of solidarity among persons and
also of communion with God. Poverty is an expression of a sin, that is, of a
46
Working
for the cause of justice, that is, siding with the poor, the weak, and the for-
visible. Gutiérrez endorses Schillebeeckx’s understanding of the kingdom,
which runs close to pure immanentism:
-
We have here a political hermeneutics of the Gospel.
47
For liberation theology this means rejecting the system that has been desig-
-
the Christian message:
The universality of Christian love is, I repeat, incompatible with the exclu-
sion of any persons, but it is not incompatible with a preferential option for
the poorest and most oppressed. When I speak of taking into account social
God’s love embraces all without exception.
48
Liberation theology thus appears as an original way of doing theology,
the careful balance between progressiveness and continuity. Every time li-
beration theology seems to be taking a step beyond the church’s magisterial
teachings, a quick counterbalance is suggested that restores its unity with
the church. This is, in my opinion, its geniality, which is not free of dangers.
45
, G., A Theology of Liberation…, p. xxx.
46
, G., A Theology of Liberation…, p. 168. Cf. , L.; C., Introducing Liberation
Theology, p. 52.
47
, G., A Theology of Liberation
48
, G., A Theology of Liberation…,
the struggles of the oppressed for their liberation is the history of the call of the Holy Spirit to
, L.; C., Introducing Liberation Theology, p. 56).
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status quo, that is, a profound transformation of the private property system,
access to power of the exploited class, and a social revolution that would
break this dependence would allow for the change to a new society, a socialist
49
The Marxian echoes are unmistakable here. However, throughout
we saw, he distinguishes his political theology from Marxism, at least be-
cause for Catholicism the possibility of salvation is extended to all people,
times in the work,
50
suggesting more or less reliance on violence, but always
51
Liberation theology, however, raises several questions. Here I discuss two
main challenges. First is its widely discussed relationship with Marxism.
Alistair Kee sums up this relation when he claims that, in Gutiérrez’s work,
-
52
Feuerbach on Marx here is fundamental. According to the former, religion is
-
tivity, and then again makes himself an object of this projected image of him-
53
Religion helps human beings to explain
that which is mysterious in themselves. For Marx, however, religion is not the
source of mystery, but of error:
Man, who looked for a superhuman being in the fantastic reality of heaven
and found nothing there but the reection of himself, will no longer be dis-
49
, G., A Theology of Liberation…, p. 17.
50
-
51
, G., A Theology of Liberation…, p. 64; cf. , L.; C., Introducing Liberation The-
ology, p. 40.
52
He provides several examples of this debt: (1) it is because of Marx that Gutiérrez senses the
inadequacy of development and consequently prefers the term liberation; (2) the concept
of praxis is indebted to Marx’s view of the relationship between theory and action; (3) the
(4) the idea that following the example of the civilized countries would
-
pression, etc. , A., Marx and the Failure of Liberation Theology, Philadelphia: Trinity Press
International, 1990, pp. 164-167.
53
, L., The Essence of Christianity, New York: Harper & Row, 1957, pp. 29-30.
33
Theopolitical imagination: What can we learn from the postconciliar church?
semblance to himself, only an inhuman being, where he
seeks and must seek his true reality.
54
Religion creates a world, to be sure, but an inverted, false one. Under
Marx’s lens Feuerbach appears, then, still too theological. This explains
why the criticism of religion is at the basis of all criticisms: because only
through the critique of religion is it possible to discover a methodology to
criticize other forms of false consciousness. According to Kee:
So far as Marx’s reversal theory is concerned, the criticism of religion is inte-
gral to the development of his whole philosophy: it cannot simply be extracted and
dealt with as a discrete social institution. As the premise of all criticism, it is
essential for understanding all subsequent disclosures of reversal.
55
The problem here is that it is not possible to instrumentalize Marxism to
the point where one could retain the carcass of the theory, i.e., its socio-his-
torical methodology, and transpose it to the Christian-liberationist project,
the metaphysics of which are located at the antipodes of the former’s pro-
-
logy without taking care of its metaphysical basis.
56
how much we deny—as Gutiérrez is at pains to do—that our project is an
immanentization of Christianity when the tools we have chosen to work
with create a paradox between what we want and what we can do.
A second challenge emerges when we compare Gutiérrez’s claim that li-
beration theology seeks to create consciousness in people and liberate them
bishops and priests. We could see this, again, with Marxists eyes: bishops and
priests are to the Latin American poor what Marx was to the proletarian class.
small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary
57
liberation theologians can be seen as the minority that, conscious of
-
the future. But even if this is the case, an important challenge emerges: How
can liberation theology avoid the danger of building a new Christendom?
achieve this development of power is precisely by resolutely casting our lot
54
Quoted in , A., Marx and the Failure of Liberation Theology, p. 45.
55
, A., Marx and the Failure of Liberation Theology, p. 61, emphasis mine.
56
Cf. Libertatis Nuntius, VII.6, 9.
57
Marx, Manifesto of the Communist Party.
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with the oppressed and the exploited in the struggle for a more just socie-
58
Here, Gutiérrez is at best avoiding the question, namely: Should the
work of priests and bishops? Are they to seek an active engagement in poli-
tics? And if that is the case, how to avoid a religious government once they
are successful? Is it not rather the case that, whenever the clergy transforms
itself into a political vanguard, Ivan Karamazov’s story of the Grand Inquisi-
tor becomes a terrifying possibility, and the work of liberation is turned on its
head, becoming a new servility? Dostoyevsky’s Inquisitor opposes Christ’s
return to earth:
over, and over for good. You don’t believe that it is over for good? You look
at me meekly and do not even consider me worthy of indignation? Well, I
think you ought to be aware that now, and particularly in the days we are
currently living through, those people are even more certain than ever that
they are completely free, and indeed they themselves have brought us their
At last they themselves will understand that freedom and earthly bread in
to share between themselves! They will also be persuaded that they will ne-
mutinous.
59
Liberation theology fails to shield itself against a relapse into Christen-
dom. To continue with our analogies, just as Marx didn’t discuss what the
future would look like after the triumph of the revolution, liberation theolo-
gy has no words about the role of a highly politicized clergy in a post-revo-
lutionary Latin America.
60
The best protection against Christendom is found
in the distinction between the secular and the religious, which implies that
the church’s hierarchy—while certainly not apolitical—should be focused on
eternal life.
61
This does not preclude the necessary and just demand of libera-
58
, G., A Theology of Liberation…, p. 151.
59
, F., The Brothers Karamazov, New York: Penguin Books, 2003, pp. 328, 330.
60
not wish to exercise political power or eliminate the freedom of opinion of Catholics regard-
ing contingent questions. Instead, it intends—as is its proper function—to instruct and il-
luminate the consciences of the faithful, particularly those involved in political life, so that
their actions may always serve the integral promotion of the human person and the common
good. The social doctrine of the Church is not an intrusion into the government of individual
countries. It is a question of the lay Catholic’s duty to be morally coherent, found within one’s
Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church,
§571. Available at
61
-
al mission and is really faithful to it, the more he has the right—because he has the corre-
35
Theopolitical imagination: What can we learn from the postconciliar church?
tion theology to the church to become a church of the poor. In fact, it seems to
me that the excessive politicization of the church, a yearning for power, has
led to the many scandals and corruptions the church faces today.
This unnecessary politicization of the clergy—which encroaches upon a
sphere that belongs to the laity—derives from two conceptual problems in
liberation theology. Liberation theology was born in a time of crisis: priest,
nuns and others were killed, thrown out of planes into the sea, persecuted,
but even heroic. A just war had to be waged, and for this reason many libera-
tionists were martyred. However, these moments of crisis are neither perma-
nent nor all-embracing. Failing to distinguish a moment of crisis, which may
justify active political action, even to the point of using physical force, from
a post-crisis scenario, eliminates all hope for a normalization of social life. It
does not seem that this distinction is made, for example, by Gutiérrez. In the
rightly criticizes those who use the gospel to create a coarse, romanticized
notion of poverty.
62
Clearly, poor people are not loved by God because the-
re’s something intrinsically lovable in their poverty. But, on the other hand,
Christ does much more than just announcing material liberation. Underlying
poor is a constant in history. This is not, of course, a reason for defeatism, but
an observation founded upon human nature. As Reinhold Niebuhr claims:
63
It seems to me that
Gutiérrez fails to grasp the complexity of the Catholic doctrine on poverty.
The dangers implicit in liberation theology’s excessive anxiety over libe-
ration here and now is more than evident in the more recent generation of
-
gians tried to align their teaching with that of the church, a new generation
of liberationists has emerged, the doctrinal position of whom is at variance
with the church’s central dogmas. In an article discussing liberation theology
, H., Paradoxes of Faith, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987, p. 95.
62
, G., A Theology of Liberation…, p. 164.
63
, R., Major Works on Religion and Politics, New York: The Library of America, 2015, p. 291.
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the incarnation is not that God became human, but rather that God became
64
an idea that contradicts the centrality of the Incarnation for the Chris-
tian faith. To be sure, Jesus’ poverty is integral to the salvation message; howe-
ver, the real miracle, the authentic scandal, is that God assumed the human
condition—for, evidently, the distance between the richest and the poorest of
and his creature.
65
not
18:36). What would be, otherwise, the meaning of Jesus’ soothing words to
fully here and now, and not otherworldly
as well, then Jesus’ words to the penitent thief are not soothing, but cruel, no
more than a reminder of the fact that, nailed to a cross and about to die, he
just missed true life and authentic liberation. Consequently, for De La Torre
66
But this interpretation is foreign to the
-
is not between Christianity and Islam, or Hinduism and Buddhism. Rather,
the struggle occurs between the world’s disenfranchised and the materialistic
67
for liberation theology, poverty and oppression are manifestations of a more
general problem, namely, sin
68
64
, C., and , E., The Cambridge Companion to Christian Political Theology, New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2015, p. 32.
65
, C., and , E., The Cambridge Companion… Contrast this idea with Gutiérrez’s:
fellowship and justice; and, in turn, this realization opens up the promise and hope of com-
-
, G., A Theology of Liberation…, p.135).
66
, C., and , E., The Cambridge Companion p. 32. Cf. Libertatis Nuntius: -
clusively political interpretation is thus given to the death of Christ. In this way, its value for
67
rre, M., The Hope of Liberation in World Religions, Waco: Baylor University Press, 2008,
p. 6. Libertatis Nuntius
struggle for human justice and freedom in the economic and political sense constitutes the
See also Libertatis Conscientia §21.
68
See Libertatis Nuntius IV.14-15.
37
Theopolitical imagination: What can we learn from the postconciliar church?
4. Theopolitical imagination and the eschatological horizon
When, in 1935, the German theologian, Erik Peterson, wrote his authoritati-
ve essay, Der Monotheismus als politisches Problem, he was charging against the
of waging for a messianic political project that displayed a hubris such that it
threatened the very foundations of Western civilization. His work is not just
an erudite treatise on early Christian theopolitical imagination, but a coded
message, veiled as a comparison between Augustine, Eusebius, and Constanti-
explain to his friend the dangers of an undue divinization of the political realm.
Many Christian thinkers saw the emergence of the Roman Empire as a
providential instrument for the Christianization of the world. These early
Christians saw the Roman Empire as belonging to God’s plan, in the sen-
Rome. Eusebius linked together the end of Jewish kingship and Augustus’s
rule as the Providential preparation for the birth of the Messiah. What began
Christian era begun. In The Proof of the Gospel
on Christianity as a rebellious and antisocial cult and created a Christian po-
litical theology. By welding the Roman Empire with the redemptory work of
Jesus, Eusebius linked God’s monarchy with earthly political authority. The
Roman Empire was God’s plan, and thus its authority was willed by the King
of Kings (basileus basileōn).
city as an image of the heavenly order, is cancelled on the theological side. In
his Third Theological Oration, Gregory of Nazianzus argued that the unity of
69
The im-
possibility for a correspondence between the earthly and the heavenly orders
is explained by the unbridgeable distance between the Trinitarian mystery
in the Roman Empire an eschatological marker, rejecting that the Pax Romana
was the perpetual peace announced by the Psalms.
69
, E., Theological Tractates, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011, p. 103.
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38
is given by its paradoxical character: the Incarnation implies that the Kingdom is
here (Mt 1:23, cf. Is 7:14; Mt 12:28, Luke 17:20) but, at the same time, not yet (Mk
1:15, Mt 6:10).
70
The time of the church, Peterson argues in Die Kirche, runs from
Pentecost to Christ’s return which, according to Paul, will come only when the
Gentiles and, after them, the Jews, convert (Rom 11:25). The pilgrim church is
not, to be sure, the Kingdom since, as Augustine explains, there are in it many
who belong to the earthly city
71
and thus it must wait for Christ to come and di-
vide the tares from the wheat (Mt 13:30). Seen from a soteriological perspective,
that the Kingdom is here but not yet builds a bridge between earthly life and
salvation: a Christian cannot despise earthly realities to devote herself fully to
other than a life of service and love to others and God (Jn 13:14, 34). Earthly life is
far from disconnected to salvation: it is the very soil where the drama of the con-
of which must nevertheless wait until Christ’s triumphal return (Mt 24:29-51).
Peterson’s work helps us understand the ever-present temptation to bring
God’s kingdom to earth, here and now, so as to denitely solve the many su-
is condemned to failure, at best, or to the actualization of a hellish reality, at
worst. That a perfect world is unachievable in this life is explained by the
very unnaturalness of the human being or, in metaphysical words, by her be-
ing free. Imagining an achieved perfection, thus, ignores the radical unpredic-
tability of the human being and, more often than not, utopia is transformed
unconformity with the imagined model. This explains, from the theological
72
and, from the political one, Claude
quest for a substantial identity, for a social body which is welded to its head,
73
Despite its danger, utopian imagination is necessary in every human so-
ciety, for it sets the ideal against which human endeavors must be assessed,
in order not to fall in a comfortable mediocrity or, worse, to end up justifying
evils and injustices for lack of clear standards. Utopia is, therefore, not an end
to which human beings run, but the way the human mind approximates the
just, good, and beautiful life so as to throw light on the way life actually is.
70
, G., Christology. A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus,
University Press, 2013, pp. 54-55.
71
De Civitate Dei I:35.
72
, J., Joseph Rainger in Communio, Vol. I., Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2010, p. 19.
73
, C., Democracy and Political Theory, Cambridge, Polity, 1988, p. 20.
39
Theopolitical imagination: What can we learn from the postconciliar church?
The Second Vatican Council was, to be sure, a momentous event for Ca-
tholicism and, in no minor way, for Western modernity as a whole. The op-
-
closing the old caesura a new era for the West was to be born. This joyful
-
tholics felt the church to be capitulating to the forces of liberalism. The coun-
cil was certainly a space for reconciliation with the secular world as well as
with other Christians and religions. There is no doubt, for instance, that some
of Luther’s critiques to the church in the sixteenth century found an ear at
the council, as the decree on the liturgy and the rejection of the papacy as a
monarchic power show; also, the decree Nostra aetate
doctrine that blamed the Jews
74
with deicide and opened a way for a rich ecu-
menic dialogue with separated Christians while maintaining the Catholic ex-
ceptionalism, that is, rejecting religious pluralism. The radical conservatives
-
ver, as we have seen, the pope is not -
tors of the church, that is, the one serving all (Mt 20:28; Mk 9:35). Rather than
a political power, the church is a spiritual community distinguished by its
therefore, to make it the end of life rather than the arena wherein the soterio-
logical drama is played, leads to a caricature of the Christian faith (Lk 9:25).
-
75
some of whom
-
the inequities and injustices lived by millions here and now, partnered with
ideologies alien to Christianity, then failing to reconstruct the proper balances,
tensions, and paradoxes inherent to it. For those who fall prey to worldly im-
mediatism, the temptation of considering the church as something malleable,
76
as clay in human hands ready for pursuing their goals, becomes a real danger.
77
74
See , D., Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition, New York: W.W. Norton, 2013.
75
See , V.; , J., The Rainger Report, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1985, pp. 34-35.
76
has his own. The churches have become our undertakings, of which we are either proud
, J., Fundamental Speeches from Five Decades, San Francisco: Ignatius
Press, 2012, p. 144.
77
inside the church, the multiple ways in which it has betrayed the message of Christ, falling
, J., Funda-
mental Speeches, p. 146.
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An intimate connection is then found between this two, apparently oppo-
sed, sides. They both work with a deformed idea of the church. More spe-
political resolution of the human drama, for
an immanentization of eschatology that will solve, once and for all, human
misery, thus transforming the church into a political instrument.
5. Theopolitical imagination in a time of crisis
That we live in a time of general crisis should be evident to anyone with
78
economically,
inequality has steadily grown since the 1970s under the reigning neoliberal cre-
do;
79
societies increasingly divide themselves in warring camps—conservatives
against liberals, nationalists and xenophobic against open-borders promoters
and cosmopolitans, and so on—to the point that no communication seems pos-
sible between them. This situation is aggravated by a social media governed by
an economic mentality that treats products and ideas as commodities for sale,
thus creating the fantasy of unanimity by saturating individuals with informa-
and fanaticism that impedes any kind of democratic dialogue.
80
Religious ex-
many scandals reported about them, not least the pederasty crisis in the Catho-
lic church—giving way to a diversity of pseudo-religious experiences, some of
which see faith as a quasi-magical device designed to produce individual weal-
th and health,
81
while others completely disregarding respect for the dignity
of the person and her rights, as the cult to Santa Muerte
82
and other sects that
engage in criminal acts, as Keith Raniere’s NXIVM.
A world where ideas are seldom taken seriously; where the public arena
for democratic discussion has been abandoned; where education is obsessi-
78
See Freedom House: Freedom in the World 2021: Democracy under siege,
79
See , ., Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
2014, ch.8; , W., In the Ruins of Neoliberalism. The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the
West, New York: Columbia University Press, 2019; , A., Neoliberalism’s Demons. On
the Political Theology of Late Capital, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2018.
80
Social Dilemma
81
See , K., Blessed. A History of the American Prosperity Gospel, -
versity Press, 2018.
82
See , A., Devoted to Death. Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint, -
sity Press, 2012.
41
Os movimientos metafísicos da Filosoa Portuguesa Contemporânea
been either forced to become an empty rite, a series of movements, words,
and incantations lacking any depth or contact with reality, or has rather
and for all; where societies have no shared understandings or, when they do
-
ty with values that challenge the status quo and the hierarchy of inequalities;
83
rather than a community
in the proper sense.
-
ticle, throws light on our current crisis. It seems that our present crisis is
in more than one sense analogous to that of the postconciliar church. The
theopolitical experiments of the second half of the twentieth century resulted
either from an excess of optimism, which, once the intoxication ceased, left
many believers with a taste of incompleteness or even hypocrisy; or from the
for hegemonic times. Today we are also faced with the disappointments of
an excess of optimism, namely, the promise that the triumph of democracy
from a dangerous nostalgia for a people without divisions,
84
while the te-
chnocrats assert that the problem was not the alienation of the people from
the State but rather that the professionalization of the State, according to the
neoliberal model, has not yet been completed. Both the postconciliar church
and the recent populist experiments seem eager and impatient for political
change, to the point that in both cases we see the rejection of fundamental
tenets, religious or democratic, in the name of a true, or authentic liberation,
freedom, or political life. The parallelism is also obvious when we take a look
to the overenthusiastic promises, most of which are just unrealistic and no-
twithstanding incredibly useful to awaken political radicalism.
Moreover, that contemporary populism is theopolitical is no secret: from
former president Donald Trump in the United States, to Andrés Manuel
more prominent in the continent, the political use of Christian faith—that
is, its reformulation into a civil religion—has been an important part of the
propaganda machineries of these presidents. These politicians have taken
Rousseau by heart: religion is used whenever the ideas that the leader wants
83
, ., Leviathan
84
See Constellations, 28(4), 2002, pp. 1481-
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42
to convey are too abstruse for the people, and thus recourse to the divinity
-
85
populism promises peace and re-
conciliation while feeding on agonistic politics, often using God and religion
as criteria for discriminating between the good, honest, or authentic people
and those who lie, exploit, and betray the (real) people.
Christianity, however, powerfully opposed the political use of religion,
opposed civil religions and denouncing them as human constructions de-
signed to oppress human beings. The separation between church and state
was stated by Jesus himself (Mt 22:21). Not without irony, that very church
consolidated itself by means of a theopolitical experiment, namely, Christen-
State by the Church for its own purposes, climaxing in the Middle Ages and
in absolutist Spain of the early modern era, has since Constantine been one of
the most serious liabilities of the Church, and any historically minded person
86
between freedom and equality, the person and her community, shared va-
that, while human beings remain what they are, that is, free persons endowed
with a powerful but nonetheless limited rationality, and an ontological need
for the other, the world will always be a place where good and evil, wisdom
and ignorance, charity and envy, coexist side by side. When radicalism takes
the stage, the possibility for any serious encounter with the other becomes
null at just the same time as tyranny smiles wickedly.
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