Liberation Theology is back as Pope Francis holds capitalism to account

Amid accusations of Marxism, Pope Francis has turned the Vatican into the spearhead of radical economic thinking

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Liberation Theology is taking over the Vatican a quarter of a century after Jean-Paul II systematically sought to stamp out the “singular heresy” in the radical parishes and dioceses of Latin America, a task carried out with dutiful efficiency by Cardinal Ratzinger at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The “preferential option for the poor” is back. The doctrine that so inflamed controversy in the 1970s and 1980, famously wedded to Nicaragua’s Sandinista cause, now has a Papal imprimatur. It is close to becoming official doctrine for the world’s 1.2bn Roman Catholics under “Evangilii Gaudium”, the Pope’s first apostolic exhortation. This will have consequences.