Credit, EPA
Peru, the country that marked the missionary trajectory of Pope Leo 14 before his move to the Vatican, was the country chosen to end the pontiff's trip to Latin America.
This same country is considered the theoretical birthplace of the controversial Christian theology often aligned with left-wing movements, Liberation Theology.
The current emerged in the 1960s, following the work of priests and lay people in peripheral Catholic communities in Brazil and other Latin American countries, in a period marked by the height of the Cold War and the expansion of authoritarian regimes in the region.
Its theoretical systematization was first carried out by the Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez (1928-2024), considered the founder of this current.
Liberation Theology is premised on the so-called "integral salvation": not only spiritual salvation, with a focus on a future eternal life, but also liberation from social, economic and historical ills. Therefore, he defends social justice and preaches the preferential option for the poor as a Christian principle.
End of content
The context of the time was conducive to the emergence of a theology that placed social problems at the center of Christian reflection.
Not only because of the Cold War — which highlighted the marks of colonial oppression in Latin America — but because of the transformations in the Catholic Church itself, driven by the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), which expanded reflection on the role of the institution in relation to the most socially vulnerable groups.
"Not that [the Church] has stopped asserting itself as the path to salvation, but it has changed the rhetoric and the way of approaching the world and people. The council also opened up the collaboration of other sciences, which, in a certain way, opened the door for the rapprochement between theology and social sciences", explains theologian Lucas Lujan.
End of Most read
During this period, Basic Ecclesiastical Communities (CEBs), groups for biblical reflection and awareness of social problems, also spread across the continent.
According to Frei Betto, a Dominican writer and friar who would become one of the main names in Liberation Theology in Brazil, Father Gutiérrez learned about the experiences of these communities during a visit to the country.
Credit, Getty Images
Watch news from Brazil and the world on the BBC World Service
Download here
End of app promotion
It is at this moment of renewal of the Church, when the religious reflection developed in Latin America was no longer necessarily "imported from Europe", that theologian Raylson Araujo places Liberation Theology.
"The local Church began to evangelize by reading the local reality", says Araujo, who is a researcher at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP).
But it was in July 1968, during a religious meeting held in Chimbote, Peru, that Gutiérrez first exposed his theological proposal.
"Theology is the understanding of commitment, and commitment is action. Liberation Theology means: establishing the relationship that exists between the emancipation of humanity — in the social, political and economic spheres — and the kingdom of God," Gutiérrez argued at the time.
Shortly afterwards, he presented a more consolidated formulation of Liberation Theology at the General Conference of the Latin American Episcopate, held in Medellín, Colombia, between the end of August and the beginning of September of that year.
For priest and historian José Oscar Beozzo, it was at this meeting that Gutiérrez's proposal took on "Latin American contours".
In 1971, Gutiérrez published Liberation Theology: Perspectives, a work that consolidated the theoretical bases of the current.
From then on, Liberation Theology would also gain strength in Brazil, especially with the work of theologian Leonardo Boff, then a Franciscan friar.
The trajectory of Gustavo Gutiérrez
Credit, Mohan/ Public Domain
Theologian and historian Gerson Leite de Moraes, professor at Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, divides the history of Liberation Theology into three phases: preparation, which lasts until 1968; consolidation and systematization, between 1968 and 1975; and the phase that continues to this day.
Gutiérrez was a central name in this second stage. Born in Lima, he had a difficult adolescence: affected by osteomyelitis, he lived in a wheelchair from the age of 12 to 18.
He decided to study medicine and literature simultaneously. At the same time, he began to participate in Catholic Action, a group of lay people dedicated to popular evangelization.
It was during this period that he began to have constant contact with the realities of Peru's peripheries, similar to those in other parts of Latin America.
Later, he deepened his theological studies at European Catholic universities, such as Leuven, in Belgium, and Lyon, in France. In 1959, at the age of 31, he was ordained a priest.
For Lujan, although Gutiérrez is considered one of the main founders of Liberation Theology, the current was born from a collective experience, "which involved religious people, social movements, Christian communities and Latin American intellectuals".
"In Peru, where Gutiérrez worked as a priest, his coexistence with impoverished populations led him to reflect on a fundamental question: how to proclaim God's love to people who lived subjected to hunger, exploitation and injustice?", he says.
"The context was marked by a few decades in the history of the Church in which it had been moving towards leaving a purely condemnatory approach to the errors of the modern world, starting to approach some of its concepts in order to find seeds of Christianity."
Relationship with the left and Vatican reaction
The association of Liberation Theology with the left is also related to the dialogue that some of its authors established with social sciences, including Marxist thought.
"Some of its authors resorted to instruments of Marxist analysis to understand the relations of domination, the organization of social classes and the mechanisms of economic exploitation. However, the use of these tools varied among theologians, and their theological foundations remained linked to the Christian tradition", says Lujan.
The current, however, was not limited to a political or economic interpretation of reality.
Gutiérrez developed an understanding of liberation, articulated on three levels: the first corresponds to liberation from unjust economic, social and political structures; the second involves human emancipation, through which people assume greater awareness and responsibility for their own history; and the third corresponds to the theological dimension, related to liberation from sin and communion with God and others.
According to Lujan, these three levels are related, but have their own characteristics.
"This perspective also broadens the Christian understanding of sin. In addition to individual attitudes, Liberation Theology seeks to recognize the presence of sin in social relationships and structures that produce exploitation, violence and exclusion. In this sense, the commitment to social justice is related to the Christian experience of conversion itself", he highlights.
"Liberation, from Gutiérrez's perspective, has dimensions that cannot be reduced to a political project," he adds.
The rapprochement with Marxist currents helps explain the distrust of sectors within the Catholic Church in relation to Liberation Theology, especially during the Cold War.
Unlike many Brazilian religious people, including Boff, Gutiérrez was not formally censured or punished by the Vatican, but he was closely monitored.
"He was always scrutinized and questioned. He was the one who lit the fuse", recalls Moraes.
The Peruvian theologian "was never formally condemned", highlights Beozzo, but he was constantly monitored.
Araujo recalls that the then Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — today, the Dicastery — even opened an investigation process into the Peruvian's writings, in the 1980s. But, after questioning, the case was closed.
Gutiérrez remained consistent with his proposals until the end of his life. In considerations published in 1991, he highlighted that he came from "a continent where more than 85% of the population lives in poverty and extreme poverty".
For Araujo, the Peruvian priest was able to read the drama of Latin America and produce a theological reflection that responded to this drama through his work.
"He established the reality of the poor as a theological place."
Coordinator of the postgraduate program in Religious Sciences at PUC-Minas, historian Rodrigo Coppe Caldeira explains that, with Gutiérrez, there was an "inversion of the very way of theologizing".
"Instead of starting from doctrine and applying it to reality, we have an approximation of the initial reality, that is, the centrality of the poor and history", he says.
"They spoke of liberation praxis. Social, economic and political themes emerged as central to this perspective."
In the 21st century, the theology that Gutiérrez systematized began to receive greater recognition within the Church itself. He was received at the Vatican by Popes Benedict XVI (1927-2022) and Francis (1936-2025).
When Gutiérrez died in 2024, Francisco declared that the Peruvian had been a "great man of the Church" and described him as an example of someone who knew how to combine faith with commitment to the marginalized.
“Francisco had an appreciation for Gutiérrez,” says Moraes.
"And he always celebrated his trajectory and his tireless dedication to the helpless, even receiving him in some private audiences."
Pope Leo 14, heir to this context
Leo 14's relationship with Liberation Theology also involves his trajectory in Peru, where he lived for around 20 years, in three periods between 1985 and 2023.
In his authorized biography, written by journalist Elise Ann Allen, the pontiff quotes Gutiérrez when talking about the chain.
"Liberation Theology, from the perspective of Gustavo Gutiérrez, […] is about starting to look through the eyes of the poor and with the poor to understand how God is in us and among us."
The pope has also publicly recognized the importance that the Peruvian theologian had at the beginning of his priestly career.
In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, in October 2024, then Cardinal Robert Prevost said that Gutiérrez offered him support during his first year of pastoral work in Chulucanas.
According to Lujan, Prevost also highlighted the importance of Gutiérrez's work in the formation of small Christian communities and his concern for the suffering of poor populations.
"This coexistence is important because Prevost spent many years working in Peru, first as a missionary and later as a bishop. His religious experience was related to pastoral work in popular communities, the training of lay leaders and concern for the living conditions of socially vulnerable people", he analyzes.
For Moraes, Leão 14 assumes part of this legacy, having met Gutiérrez and following the effects of his work with the communities.
Araujo agrees that Leão has reinforced the "dimension of love towards the poor". "Whether he learned from Gutiérrez or whether it is an inheritance from Francisco, we will know over time", he comments.
Experts also point out similarities between Liberation Theology and the apostolic exhortation Dilexi Te, published in October 2025.
In the document, Leão 14 reaffirms the preferential option for the poor, criticizes social structures that perpetuate inequality and defends tackling the causes of poverty.
The text also recognizes the poor as participants in the life of the Church and agents of social transformation — a perspective close to Gutiérrez's, according to Lujan.
"This recognition has a very close relationship with the thoughts of Gustavo Gutiérrez, for whom the poor must actively participate in the liberation processes."
Lujan, however, considers that it is not possible to say that Gutiérrez determined Leão 14's worldview.
"What we can say, based on the available records, is that Prevost personally knew Gutiérrez, received his support during the missionary experience in Peru and had contact with pastoral practices close to those defended by Liberation Theology", he says.
"His actions and documents as pope also present important similarities with this tradition, especially in defending the dignity of the poor, valuing Christian communities and understanding that faith has responsibilities in the face of social injustice."
Discover more
Watch
End of Watch
