In reality, Liberation Theology is a quicker-than-the-eye transformation of a spiritual warfare into a sociopolitical struggle; and — if need be — into an armed revolutionary warfare against capitalism.

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The Church became “the people of God”, not the hierarchic Church of Rome. Sin is not primarily personal; it is social and almost exclusively the injustice and oppressions due to capitalism. Mary the Virgin is the mother of a revolutionary Jesus — indeed of all revolutionaries seeking to overthrow capitalism. The Kingdom of God is the socialist state from which capitalist oppression has been eliminated. Priesthood is either the service given by an individual (the priest) who builds up socialism, or it is the “people of God” as it worships according to its likes. The list of such adopted Catholic expressions is as long as you like. For each and every Catholic term about piety, belief, asceticism, and theology is taken over by Liberation Theologians.

1. The positions here in question are often brought out explicitly in certain of the writings of “theologians of liberation”. In others, they follow logically from their premises. In addition, they are presupposed in certain liturgical practices, as for example a “Eucharist” transformed into a celebration of the people in struggle, even though the persons who participate in these practices may not be fully conscious of it. We are facing, therefore, a real system, even if some hesitate to follow the logic to its conclusion. As such, this system is a perversion of the Christian message as God entrusted it to His Church. This message in its entirety finds itself then called into question by the “theologies of liberation”.

2. It is not the 'fact' of social stratification with all its inequity and injustice, but the 'theory' of class struggle as the fundamental law of history which has been accepted by these “theologies of liberation” as a principle. The conclusion is drawn that the class struggle thus understood divides the Church herself, and that in light of this struggle even ecclesial realities must be judged. The claim is even made that it would be maintaining an illusion with bad faith to propose that love in its universality can conquer what is the primary structural law of capitalism.

3. According to this conception, the class struggle is the driving force of history. History thus becomes a central notion. It will be affirmed that God Himself makes history. It will be added that there is only one history, one in which the distinction between the history of salvation and profane history is no longer necessary. To maintain the distinction would be to fall into “dualism”. Affirmations such as this reflect historicist immanentism. Thus there is a tendency to identify the kingdom of God and its growth with the human liberation movement, and to make history itself the subject of its own development, as a process of the self-redemption of man by means of the class struggle. This identification is in opposition to the faith of the Church as it has been reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council. [23]

4. Along these lines, some go so far as to identify God Himself with history and to define faith as “fidelity to history”, which means adhering to a political policy which is suited to the growth of humanity, conceived as a purely temporal messianism.

5. As a consequence, faith, hope, and charity are given a new content: they become “fidelity to history”, “confidence in the future”, and “option for the poor”. This is tantamount to saying they have been emptied of their theological reality.

6. A radical politicization of faith's affirmations and of theological judgments follows inevitably from this new conception. The question no longer has to do with simply drawing attention to the consequences and political implications of the truths of faith, which are respected beforehand for their transcendent value. In this new system, every affirmation of faith or of theology is subordinated to a political criterion, which in turn depends on the class struggle, the driving force of history.

7. As a result, participation in the class struggle is presented as a requirement of charity itself. The desire to love everyone here and now, despite his class, and to go out to meet him with the non-violent means of dialogue and persuasion, is denounced as counterproductive and opposed to love. If one holds that a person should not be the object of hate, it is claimed nevertheless that, if he belongs to the objective class of the rich, he is primarily a class enemy to be fought. Thus the universality of love of neighbor and brotherhood become an eschatological principle, which will only have meaning for the “new man”, who arises out of the victorious revolution.

8. As far as the Church is concerned, this system would see her 'only' as a reality interior to history, herself subject to those laws which are supposed to govern the development of history in its immanence. The Church, the gift of God and mystery of faith, is emptied of any specific reality by this reductionism. At the same time, it is disputed that the participation of Christians who belong to opposing classes at the same Eucharistic Table still makes any sense.

9. In its positive meaning the 'Church of the poor' signifies the preference given to the poor, without exclusion, whatever the form of their poverty, because they are preferred by God. The expression also refers to the Church of our time, as communion and institution and on the part of her members, becoming more fully conscious of the requirement of evangelical poverty.

10. But the “theologies of liberation”, which reserve credit for restoring to a place of honor the great texts of the prophets and of the Gospel in defense of the poor, go on to a disastrous confusion between the 'poor' of the Scripture and the 'proletariat' of Marx. In this way they pervert the Christian meaning of the poor, and they transform the fight for the rights of the poor into a class fight within the ideological perspective of the class struggle. For them the 'Church of the poor' signifies the Church of the class which has become aware of the requirements of the revolutionary struggle as a step toward liberation and which celebrates this liberation in its liturgy.

11. A further remark regarding the expression, 'Church of the People', will not be out of place here. From the pastoral point of view, this expression might mean the favored recipients of evangelization to whom, because of their condition, the Church extends her pastoral love first of all. One might also refer to the Church as people of God, that is, people of the New Covenant established in Christ. [24]

12. But the “theologies of liberation” of which we are speaking, mean by 'Church of the People' a Church of the class, a Church of the oppressed people whom it is necessary to “conscientize” in the light of the organized struggle for freedom. For some, the people, thus understood,even become the object of faith.

13. Building on such a conception of the Church of the People, a critique of the very structures of the Church is developed. It is not simply the case of fraternal correction of pastors of the Church whose behavior does not reflect the evangelical spirit of service and is linked to old-fashioned signs of authority which scandalize the poor. It has to do with a challenge to the 'sacramental and hierarchical structure' of the Church, which was willed by the Lord Himself. There is a denunciation of members of the hierarchy and the magisterium as objective representatives of the ruling class which has to be opposed. Theologically, this position means that ministers take their origin from the people who therefore designate ministers of their own choice in accord with the needs of their historic revolutionary mission.