By: Rev. Gerald S. Twomey, Ph.D.
The concept of “the preferential option for the poor” has deep
biblical, patristic and papal magisterial roots, but was refined
through a new theological methodology developed in Belgium in the
1930s and refined in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970’s.
The process was based on the “Jocist” pointers: see/judge/act
popularized by Canon Joseph Cardijn, but was reinterpreted by
Gustavo Gutierréz in a series of articles and lectures leading up
to the second meeting of the Latin American Bishops’ Conference at
Medellín, Colombia in 1968. The rise of the “base
communities” in Brazil and throughout Latin America in the
post-Vatican II era, combined with the vision of Pope John XXIII
that the Church should be a “Church of the poor,” gave impetus to
this movement, along with progressive directions assumed by the
Church under the advisement of papal advisors Msgr. Pietro Pavan
and Father Louis Lebret, who served as staff to Pope Paul VI for
his 1967 encyclical, Populorum Progressio. At this
point, the papal preference for a theology of “development” began
to shift towards a theology of “liberation.” This thrust
gained impetus through the 1971 synodal document, “Justice in the
World,” along with Paul VI’s 1971 encyclical, Octagesima
Adveniens.
With the election of Pope John Paul II in 1978, a crackdown
occurred on liberation theology, orchestrated by Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith. John Paul II objected to the methodological pointers
borrowed from Marxism and employed by liberation theologians, and
felt that the term “preferential option for the poor” was divisive
and wont to promote class conflict. Individual liberation
theologians such as Gustavo Gutierréz and Leonardo Boff were
disciplined and admonitions were issued on their work by the
C.D.F. On his own, Cardinal Ratzinger pursued a spirited
campaign against liberation theologians, accompanied by certain
members of the Latin American hierarchy. In 1984, an
instruction from the C.D.F. severely criticized the central tenets
and methods of liberation theology. John Paul II appointed
Cardinal Bernadin Gantin as his emissary to broker a positive
resolution to the conflict. In 1986 a more moderate and
positive second instruction on liberation theology was issued by
the C.D.F.
At the third conference of the Latin American Bishops
(C.E.L.A.M.) held at Puebla, Mexico, in 1979, John Paul II adopted
certain language of liberation theology, but modified the concept
of the “preferential option for the poor,” to include a qualifier
that it not be seen as exclusive. He preferred to use such
terminology as “love of preference for the poor,” as seen in his
1987 social encyclical Solicitudo Rei Socialis.
However, his direct interaction with the poor through international
travel on pastoral visits and his dialogue with bishops and
theologians enabled him to expand his view. In various
allocutions and public addresses, by the mid-1980s he began to
embrace the concept and utilize the terminology without
reservation. In his 1981 encyclical commemorating 100 years
of Catholic Social Teaching, Centesimus Annus, he
appropriated the term, “the preferential option for the poor,” in a
major magisterial document. Its use continued in later papal
documents during the reign of Pope John II, and the term was also
included in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the
Church issued by the Pontifical Council Iustitia et Pax
shortly before Pope John Paul’s death in 2005.
While the United States Catholic Bishops have repeatedly
identified the “preferential option for the poor” as one of six
cornerstones of Catholic Social Teach over the course of the past
three decades (e.g., the term appeared four time in the landmark
N.C.C.B. pastoral letter on the economy, Economic Justice for
All), curiously, the term has been avoided entirely in the
original and revised versions of the Catechism of the Catholic
Church. Pope Benedict XVI has also refrained from
utilizing this term in his various writings and allocutions,
perhaps reflective of the hermeneutic of suspicion that he applied
to the theology of liberation when he served as prefect of the
C.D.F. Conversely, Pope John Paul II moved from consciously
distancing himself from the term to embrace it, even describing it
as “necessary for the Church.”