Libertatis Conscientia: Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation
The second instruction on liberation theology from the Vatican’s doctrinal office, issued in 1986. It sets out a Christian teaching on freedom and liberation and says it is to be read together with the warning of 1984.
Paragraph 2 says that the instruction of 1984 had promised a second document on the main elements of Christian doctrine on freedom and liberation, that this is that document, and that the two are to be read in the light of each other. The text speaks of the church’s love of preference for the poor and of a special option for the poor that excludes no one and is not to be expressed in partisan categories (68). It rejects the theory that class struggle is the structural dynamism of social life (77) and what it calls the myth of revolution (78), and admits armed struggle only as a last resort against an obvious and prolonged tyranny, while judging passive resistance more in keeping with moral principles (79). Near its end it says that a theology of freedom and liberation is needed by the times (98).
It is signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as prefect and was approved by John Paul II. See Medellín and Liberation Theology.
Cited in
- 24 August 1968, firm date