The Americas have long harboured incredibly strong Catholic nations since colonisation, by the Spanish and Portuguese in the late 15th century and missionary efforts by groups such as the Jesuits. Yet, after many centuries of religious presence, Catholic ideas, institutions and, most importantly, people have been oppressed by differing groups within the Economic Elite.
Beginning with the aforementioned initial colonisation of the Americas by the Economic Elite of Spain (the peninsulares), the Indigenous population was slaughtered and enslaved, and its culture was subjected to genocide for the sake of material exploitation. In this early period (~1492–1542), the Church's presence was limited, but men such as Antonio de Montesinos and Bartolomé de las Casas promoted Indigenous American rights and led reforms around slavery. Later, into the colonisation and post-Conquest period (~1523–1700s), once the major Catholic religious orders had been established — including the Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians and Jesuits — efforts were finally made to preserve the languages, and therefore culture, of the native peoples, and to provide humanitarian assistance. It was only after the Wars of Independence and the creation of new independent nations (1808–1850), however, that the Vatican was able to take full control of missionary efforts, no longer bound by the patronato system, under which state authorities controlled clerical appointments and no direct contact with the Vatican was permitted. Through this system, interference in missionary efforts and the religious orders led to some exploitation of workers and the Indigenous peoples themselves; its removal, along with the Vatican's newfound control over the Church in Latin America, led to a reduction in abuses by Christians and Europeans. Latin America subsequently came under attack from Western imperialism by the USA, through direct invasion and takeover of territory (Mexico, Panama, etc.), the propagation of corporations and businesses, and political pressure (e.g. the Monroe Doctrine). Coming into the modern era (1950s–present), the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) Economic Elite, through the United States — which had become the primary imperialist power in the world — continued its subjugation of Catholic peoples, ideas and the Church in South America through several military interventions and coups, and further political action that led to the emergence of Liberation Theology in the 1960s. It is through this constant conflict between the Catholic Church and capitalist interests that the current Latin America has emerged, and now, more than ever, its people are being subjugated both economically and militarily.
Following Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas and the colonisation of Hispaniola (modern-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic) in 1492, the exploitation of Indigenous labour and resources in Latin America began. It was the Dominican friar Antonio de Montesinos, having arrived in 1510, who made the first real criticism of this. He delivered a sermon in 1511 denouncing the cruel conditions to which the Indigenous peoples were subjected by the Spanish (de Montesinos, 1511). Following de Montesinos, Bartolomé de las Casas, who arrived in Hispaniola in 1502 as a conquistador and initial participant in the encomienda system (the system governing Indigenous slaves), underwent a conversion experience in 1514 after witnessing atrocities against the Indigenous peoples, and renounced both the encomienda and his ownership of Indigenous slaves (Casas, 1995, p146).
It was de las Casas who was the first man to actively work against the Spanish Economic Elite who were exploiting the people of Latin America. In 1515 he travelled to Spain and advocated for the rights of Indigenous people, a campaign that spanned decades and culminated in his book outlining the atrocities committed against the native peoples - 'A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies', which was sent to the future King Philip II, convincing him to pass the New Laws, which abolished the encomiendas and made slavery illegal (Friede & Keen, 1971, p67–126). However, this was not upheld by the colony, and the practice continued.
Later, into sustained colonisation and the post-Conquest period (~1523–1700s), the major Catholic religious orders established themselves in the Americas. These orders, however, ultimately contributed to the suppression of the native peoples due to the patronato system, under which state authorities controlled clerical appointments and no direct contact with the Vatican was permitted. As a result, the local Spanish Economic Elite gained significant influence within these institutions and used them to serve their own interests. Despite this, many still advocated for the Indigenous peoples, protecting them from slavery, providing education, and preserving their languages and culture, which will be shown later in the article.
The Dominicans, who had arrived earliest in Hispaniola in 1510, continued this advocacy through figures beyond Montesinos and Las Casas – Domingo de Santo Tomás, for instance, published one of the first grammars of Quechua in 1560, codifying the language of the Inca heartland in much the same spirit that Las Casas had defended Indigenous rights through legal and political channels. The Franciscans, who had arrived in Mexico between 1523 and 1524, did similarly. Bernardino de Sahagún spent decades interviewing Aztec elders in Nahuatl, compiling the Florentine Codex, regarded today as the single most important ethnographic record of Aztec life and belief to survive the conquest. And yet Diego de Landa's 1562 auto-da-fé at Maní in the Yucatán saw the burning of 27 Maya codices and roughly 5,000 sacred objects, an act that destroyed irrecoverable knowledge of Maya history, astronomy and religion, with only three Maya codices known to survive worldwide today. This was a case in which direct, violent action against the natives did not serve the pure interests of the Economic Elite, but rather stemmed from the fanatical zeal of a friar, one who also happened to be preoccupied with Maya women's breasts, a rather telling detail about the man, mentioned in section 31 of Diego de Landa's account of the affairs of Yucatán. The sheer brutality of the inquisition exceeded what was permitted under the Spanish Council of the Indies. Despite this event, much more was later done by the Franciscans to preserve Indigenous culture.
The Jesuits, who were only formed in 1540, first travelled to Brazil in 1549 and then to New Spain in 1572. They were often the only force preventing the enslavement of native peoples and created Jesuit-run "reductions," beginning in 1609, which were communities for native peoples and proved quite successful, both economically and in protecting native rights (Lippy et al., 1992, p98–100). This naturally created conflict between the Catholic Jesuits and the Spanish (and, in this time and place, the Portuguese) Economic Elite, who wished to further exploit the Amerindians. Bandeirante slave traders led incursions against the reductions, and the Amerindians, armed against them, successfully fought off the Portuguese colonists (Lippy et al., 1992, p98–100).
Also during this period, in 1537, Pope Paul III issued the bull Sublimis Deus, affirming that Indigenous peoples were truly human and could be baptised, further solidifying the Church's anti-exploitative stance towards Indigenous Americans.
Moving forward, the Jesuits would have the most influence out of the religious orders in Latin America during colonisation. From the 1500s-1700s, the Jesuits had constructed around over 30 independent colonies in Paraguay and southern Brazil among the Guaraní people, expanding Catholic influence throughout the empire. At their peak, the scale of the humanitarian effort by the Society of Jesus was incredible, with over 700,000 Amerindians under their care. The Jesuits had 'owned schools, hospitals, dockyards, workshops where Indians were trained to spin, tan and make pottery.' - (Gary Smith, Yale). The Jesuits also put effort into explicitly preserving the Guaraní language, converting religious texts into Guaraní with the printing press. Guaraní is now the second most spoken indigenous language in Latin America, and remains an official language of Paraguay alongside Spanish (Bakewell, 2004, p259). It was thanks to the Jesuits that their culture and language was not destroyed for materialistic purposes. As well as this the Jesuits had also established a grand transport and messaging system to connect the colonies.
The class antagonism between the poorer native peoples under Jesuit care and the colonial empires became too great, and on 19 January 1759, King Joseph I of Portugal banned the Jesuits and expelled them from all Portuguese territories, seizing all of their property for the Crown. In addition, 1,100 Jesuits were exiled and 250 imprisoned (Byrne, 2023). Then, on 27 February 1767, Charles III of Spain followed suit, issuing a decree to expel the Jesuits from the Spanish Empire. This marked the end of the Jesuit presence in Latin America, and with it, their protection of native peoples.
However, it wasn't just the Jesuits who were oppressed in the Catholic Church, as during the 1700s, the 'Bourbon Reforms' went on in Spain. These reforms were aimed at nationalizing the Catholic Church and its properties under the crown, an attack on the Church and its institutions (Burkholder & Johnson, 2019, p316). The justification for the Bourbon reforms given by the Crown was that the resources owned by the Church were slowing economic growth, when in actuality, the economic growth sought was further exploitation of the resources, mineral and labour-wise, of Latin America (Burkholder & Johnson, 2019, p316). The Bourbon reforms also centralised power further into the Crown, arguably the centre of the Economic Elite. This created conflict between the colonies and the Spanish Crown, leading to the wars of independence from 1808–1826, which were pushed for by the Roman Catholic Church and were also heavily influenced by Napoleon in Europe, who invaded Portugal and Spain in 1807 and 1808 respectively. The historical situation is a lot more complex, however for the purposes of this article, a simplified explanation will suffice as it isn't a history textbook. After these wars of independence, everywhere in Latin America besides Cuba and Puerto Rico became independently run. In the case of Mexico, the leaders of the independence movement were Catholic priests, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla and José María Morelos, who were both executed by firing squad for their efforts.
Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, who is called the 'Father of Mexico' (Tuck, 1999), was the Parish priest of Dolores, Mexico. An incredibly learned man, having studied theology and philosophy at Morelia, he gained a bachelor's degree in theology in 1770 and studied the French language. This allowed him to read scientific works which assisted in advancing the agricultural and industrial sectors of Mexico – 'He expanded the cultivation of vineyards, propagated the planting of mulberry trees for silkworm breeding, and promoted beekeeping. He also established a pottery factory, brick kilns, commissioned the construction of tanneries, and founded workshops for various arts.' (Sosa, 1985, p480-486). He taught many of these crafts to the indigenous and Mestizo peasants as well, further advancing their standing in society. Hidalgo, in response to the exploitative labour and land conditions worsened by Bourbon extraction under the peninsulare Elite, worked towards a revolution. This began on September 16, 1810, when he, with around ten other men, went to free rebel prisoners after his conspiracy was discovered earlier, and was joined with around 300 ranchers, increasing his numbers substantially. After this, all of the Spaniards in town, including the leader, were arrested, beginning the struggle. He then marched on San Miguel el Grande where he was joined by Amerindians and other rural people. Although he was defrocked, he continued, pushing for 'Congress composed of representatives from all the cities, towns, and villages of the country, whose main objective would be to maintain the Catholic religion, enact gentle, beneficial laws, and laws suited to the circumstances of each town, to moderate the extraction of money, promote the arts, and stimulate industry.' – (Sosa, 1985, p480-486). Hidalgo pushed forward with his revolution with an army that grew in number, but met his end after he was captured on 21 March 1811, and was executed later, on the 30th of July.
The man who took on the mantle of Hidalgo after his death was José María Morelos, yet another catholic priest, and an individual of mixed heritage (although defined as a Spaniard). Morelos was taught at the very college in San Nicolás, Valladolid, that Hidalgo had been taught in, and was at that time the rector (Krauze, 1998, p105). In October 1810, he read of Hidalgo's excommunication and military success, leading him to seek out Hidalgo and join the rebellion, where he was able to use his superior military skills to achieve many victories, gaining 22 within just 9 months of when he started commanding. After Hidalgo's death and Morelos' assumption of leadership in 1813, he convened the Congress of Chilpancingo with representatives of states under his control and outlined the famous Sentimientos de la Nación, a document outlining the constitution for an independent Mexican nation. Morelos was killed by firing squad on the 22nd of December 1815 after capture. Mexico would later gain independence in 1821.
Following the wars of independence, the Iberian empires retained little remaining presence in the Americas. As Spanish and Portuguese imperial authority in the region weakened, the newly independent territories entered a further period of political and military struggle to establish themselves as nations. Throughout this process, Portugal's colonies united relatively quickly into the Empire of Brazil, while the former Spanish colonies fragmented over a more extended period into numerous separate nations.
During and after the wars of independence from 1808-1826, the primary Economic Elite in the Latin Americas was transferred from the Crown and Spanish-born Peninsulares (Spanish people born in Spain) to the Criollos (Pure-blood Spanish individuals born in the Americas). With the transfer of political power in Latin America, the Criollos came to be the new Economic Elite, and thus the main opponent of the Church and people, and a new conflict emerged. The Criollos used new ideas such as Liberalism to attack the Church (yale, p528-535).
This new conflict began almost immediately. The Church was being nationalised and repressed in several areas, and many lacked clergy. As the Church would not formally recognise the new nations until 1835, the political ramifications were great, the Church being distanced from the new nations (yale, p528). State control of the Church was still a threat under the Patronato system, except under the new Criollo Elite, rather than the Crown. However, due to the aforementioned recognition of the new states, the drive to continue the system abated. The Church worked to increase its influence in Latin America, ordaining new bishops backed by Pope Gregory XVI's Sollicitudo Ecclesiarum of 1831 (LA ESPERANZA, 2024). Through this, the Church regained power over their own institutions in the region, and Pope Gregory XVI continued to push for the emancipation of Latin Americans with his bull, In Supremo Apostolatu in 1839, which condemned the slave trade and approved the ordination of Indigenous clergy despite the racism of governments of the time and de facto caste systems (The Holy See, 1839).
Throughout this time the new 'liberal' Criollo Elite had been attacking the Church and nationalising its land for their own material gain. Property of the Dioceses and religious orders was targeted by the governments of Argentina (1824), Bolivia (1826) and Nicaragua (1830). Lynch (2008, p529) writes that these measures inaugurated the gradual erosion of church property in the nineteenth century and the cancellation of loans and annuities owed to the Church (Lynch, 2008, p529). Tithes were also reduced and discontinued in Argentina, Peru, and Mexico in 1824, 1826, and 1853-4 respectively.
Beginning in the middle of the 1800s, the Mexican–American War (1846-8) marked the start of the long trend of increasing exploitation of labour and resources in Latin America by the American (United States) Economic Elite. This can be considered part of the nation's vision to continue a sort of 'Manifest Destiny' by exploiting/puppeting all of the Americas, for the supreme benefit of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) Elite. The Mexican–American war was the first time, however, that the United States went to war with an independent Latin American nation. One of the drives of the United States' imperial thrust was chauvinistic, seeing themselves as superior not just ethnically (Anglo-Saxon vs Latin/Celtic/Amerindian), but religiously too (Protestant vs Catholic); the expansion spreading these two aspects of WASP-supremacy. Also around this time we start to see the rise of the [European] Jewish Elite in exploiting Latin America through international debt and military intervention to seize the reserves of nations, and influence in swaying the foreign policy of the US and the decisions of the World Bank among others (Kofas).
In the 50 years before 1900, the Catholic Church continued to grow and modernise in South America. The vast majority of South Americans were Catholic, and due to immigration and admixture the ethnic landscape had changed too, with the old rigid sistema de castas giving way to a more racially blended society, one in which Catholic identity had become the single most powerful unifying thread across class and colour alike. It is also in this time period and the ensuing rise of US intervention that the American WASP Economic Elite began to surpass that of the Criollos, WASPs owning corporations and infrastructure for the exploitation of material and labour themselves in Latin America.
Around 1900, US imperialism in Latin America transformed from direct invasion, as seen in the American–Spanish war (1898), to a policy of regime change and use of hard power in the region. The Monroe doctrine was American doctrine of keeping all the Americas within its sphere of influence. It had been laid out by James Monroe in 1823, but didn't lead to much at all until the US had the naval power to back it up, and the political and economic motives to enforce it. This was first seen in 1895, when the US intervened in a territorial dispute between Britain and Venezuela, forcing Britain to allow America to arbitrate the dispute. The US had proved that it could back its doctrine of intervention.
After this, in 1903, the US backed the recently seceded Panama from Colombia, through naval hard power, in return allowing the US to finish construction on and own the Panama Canal, what would become an extremely important point for trade. From 1906-1909, the US established a provisional government after the Cuban one had collapsed in order to protect their own economic interests there. From 1911-1933, the US occupied Nicaragua in order to protect banana plantations and infrastructure owned by American corporations and to prevent any other nation besides itself from making a Nicaraguan canal (Musicant, 1990). From 1915-1934, Haiti was occupied for banking interests, with the nation's bank and national reserves being seized under the scheme of Frank A. Vanderlip, the president of National City Bank of New York (now CitiBank) (Bauduy, 2015) (Hudson, 2017). At this time, James Stillman Rockefeller was a board member of the National City Bank of New York, but would later become president himself in 1952. From 1917-22, the US military used military intervention in Cuba to protect US interests in sugar production (Perez, 1979, 65-129).
Up until the 1940s, the US had extensive imperial activity in Latin America, which would continue during the 'Cold War', but what did the ethnic and religious landscape of Latin America look like at this point? The vast majority of people in Latin America were Roman Catholic (although church attendance remained low), but it was the Mestizo people who were the true base of the Church (and still are) in Latin America, whereas the Elites of the society had moved on from the Church into other beliefs (Yale, p550). Yet the Mulatto were 'indifferent to organised religion'. This ethnic and religious makeup meant that in essence, the Catholic Church had truly become the Church of the poor in Latin America. While the Economic Elite from within Latin America and the US were busy exploiting the Catholic working class, the Church continued to provide support and services. This provided the perfect conditions for Liberation Theology to form later on in the 1960's.
Although the US Economic Elite continued to exploit Latin America during the late 1930's and 1940's, there was a lack of direct military intervention and coups. During this time the US had to devote its resources to the war effort, to defeat Germany and Japan. After this however, the world entered the 'Cold War', where the Economic Elite across the globe fought against the USSR and other communist states militaristically, and economically, through the Capitalist machine. This fight against communism became a common justification by the US to coup and invade countries in the interest of their own Elite.
During the years 1954 and 1955, a lot occurred. Firstly, Camilo Torres Restrepo, a great proponent of the creation of the Liberation Theology movement, was ordained as a priest in 1954. In that same year, the CIA performed a coup d'état in Guatemala on behalf of the United Fruit Co, to protect their economic interests in the state. This came after the nation toppled a military dictatorship in 1944 and created a democratic government that was instituting land reforms at the benefit of the Guatemalan people rather than the American Economic Elite (Handy J, 1994). Combating communism was used as a pretext for this conflict by the US president at the time, Dwight Eisenhower. In 1955, the first meeting of the Latin American and Caribbean Episcopal Council (CELAM) occurred among the clergy of Latin America in Brazil to discuss the various issues, among them, serious social issues within Latin America. Moving forward, this organisation would continue to push for action on social issues (influencing Vatican II), and supporting Liberation theology which was soon to come.
In 1959, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara successfully led a Socialist revolution in Cuba, showing that the Latin Americans could indeed fight American imperialism and be truly independent. This was further proven in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 where the Cubans successfully defended against a US invasion of the nation. During this time where socialist Latin American movements were gaining traction and were proven to be able to defeat imperialist entities, Restrepo was working at the National University of Colombia, becoming a proponent of the new Christian Socialist movement to combat the extreme poverty suffered by so many in South America and the Elites who exploited them. Also in 1961, Pope John XXIII released the encyclical Mater et Magistra, which addressed the social issues at the time, emphasising that the state had a duty to intervene in matters like wages, welfare, and living standards to protect workers, and that wealthier nations bore a moral responsibility to assist the poorer, non-industrialised world (The Holy See, 1961), further opening the way for Liberation Theology to emerge in Latin America. Vatican II, held from 1962-65, rapidly modernised the church and further pushed for increased Christian social teaching and work. During the 60s, CELAM was restructured under Miguel Darío Miranda y Gómez, creating several new institutions which were filled with socially conscious members of the Clergy, further enhancing it as a medium for the Liberation theology movement to rise and propagate (Smith, 1991). Around this time Vatican II also induced a second Episcopal conference in 1968 which included Liberation theologists like Gustavo Gutierrez (who coined the term 'Liberation Theology' in his 1971 book) and Juan Luis Segundo. Among the contents of this conference were documents stating that the Church would pursue "authentic liberation", of Latin America which was suffering under "neocolonialism" and "imperialism of money" (Gremillion, 1976).
Up until 1968, the US was still practicing imperialism on behalf of its Elites, mainly WASPs and European Jews. In 1963 a military regime took over the nation of Ecuador. As a nation, Ecuador was already in serious international debt slavery (a term the author is using for when a nation is in a sense, enslaved to debtors, in a sense making the nation a puppet to Capital, which in this case is to the WASP/Jewish Elite), shown in the fact that 'from 1952 to 1961, 40 percent of foreign loans were used to pay off previous foreign loans, a cyclical process that accelerated after the U.S.-backed military dictatorship took over in 1963' - (Kofas, p3). The debt had already reached $94 million by the end of the 1950s, and following the military junta's takeover, it rose further still, climbing to $241 million by 1970 and continuing to grow from there (Kofas, p2).
Also in 1963, there was a coup d'état in the Dominican Republic, executed by the US in order to secure financial interests in the state. In February 1965, the Dominican Republic had a debt of $3.9 million, compared to a GDP of $2.42 million, and had annual debt payments of $350,000 (World Bank, 1969). The political strife in the nation which followed the military coup in 1963 devolved into a civil war in 1965 against the new military Junta, putting the interests of foreign debtors at risk, and the US intervened with more than 20,000 troops to aid the military Junta. The result was decisive and the civil war ended with the victory of the Junta over the more left-wing, Dominican-centric, Bosch (previous leader before the coup) supporters. Subsequently, in 1969, the World Bank deemed that the nation had a 'satisfactory' financial situation and allowed for loans to again be given to the Republic (World Bank, 1969).
March 1964 saw the US-backed military coup of Brazil's democratically elected government, instituting a far right military dictatorship that lasted from 1964-1985. Previously, Brazil itself had also been in deep debt slavery to international entities, reaching $3.1 billion owed before the coup in 1964. Due to this debt and Brazil's inability to pay it all off, the Elite rallied the US to coup the nation in the interests of their capital. In just one month after the new Economic Elite - friendly military regime was put in place, J. Burke Knapp (Senior Vice President and Chairman of the Loan Committee of the World Bank) 'met with two officials from the US State Department prior to their departure on a six-day mission to Brazil, in order to update them about the Bank's 'current thinking' on Brazil.' - (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, p23). Knapp convinced his guests that Brazil was 'worth investing in again'. Soon after this, Octávio Gouveia de Bulhões (Finance minister under the new regime) wrote to George David Woods (Worldbank president) 'it is my conviction that the financial measures now being undertaken by this Government will go to a long way towards creating an appropriate climate' - (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, p23-24). This invitation was 'forwarded to Woods by Israel Klabin, an industrialist and heir to Klabin Irmãos & Cia. Klabin had been invited to the United States by a group of American bankers and industrialists, led by David Rockefeller as chairman of the Business Group for Latin America, who were interested in developing business relations between the Brazilian and American communities.' - (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, p24). This evidence makes it quite clear that the coup was undertaken in order to make Brazil more friendly to the US Elite and their economic interests. The World Bank, IMF, and other lenders could now make more profit off the debt of an already economically oppressed people, and industrialists could increase their power in the nation (shown with David Rockefeller's 'Business Group for Latin America'.
In 1971, the US performed a coup in Bolivia against the leftist and anti-imperialist administration of Juan José Torres, which was preceded by the World Bank and others refusing to provide loans to the Bolivian government to develop infrastructure in the nation (US, 1971). Under the military dictatorship which followed, both workers and civil rights were oppressed.
In 1973 and 1976 the US couped Chile and Argentina respectively. Also, these events will not be given full explanations, as this article is becoming too long. Perhaps in a later day I will make a second edition where I go into depth in all the coups more, however for the moment, if the reader is left unsatisfied by the detailing on coups they may go elsewhere.
Throughout the 1960s and 70s when these various US-backed coups were occurring, the Latin American liberation theology movement was growing, primarily in response to the rampant exploitation of Latin American people at the hands of the WASP/Jewish elite based in the US. During these years, CELAM (although its leadership was dominated by 'conservative' bishops) showed that the clergy supported Liberation Theology in Latin America through the 1979 Puebla Conference where concepts such as a 'preferential option for the poor' and Base Episcopal communities (as discussed previous) were affirmed from the 2 Episcopal conference of Latin America.
But what was Liberation Theology really, and why was it so contentious for many Catholics? Liberation Theology is the Catholic belief that all Humans should be freed from societal shackles (provided by the oppressing class), in order to follow their 'Historical and Ontological vocation to become more fully Human' - (Freire, 1968, p55). That is, Humans are born ontologically incomplete, unlike animals that act on instinct, or objects that simply exist, and therefore must continually work on themselves to achieve their highest good, an Aristotelian 'eudaimonia' of sorts, in order to become human to the greatest extent that God envisaged when creating Man. Aquinas, building on Aristotle, termed this striving toward one's highest good "magnanimity" (magnanimitas) - the virtue by which a person stretches their soul toward great things befitting their dignity as a being made in the image of God, rather than settling for what is base or mediocre. To be magnanimous, then, is to actively pursue the fullest realisation of one's God-given potential, refusing to accept the diminished, oppressed existence imposed by unjust systems. In magnanimity, the whole person - body and soul as a single substantial unity, in Aquinas's own terms, is oriented toward the fullest realisation of one's God-given potential, the physical, earthly self serving not as a separate vehicle, but as the very form through which this potential is actualised. The theology holds that the inherent nature of Capitalism is of an Elite oppressing a working class, which obstructs individuals in said working class from obtaining such a eudaimonia. Furthermore, Capitalism is but another social construct, like so many other ideologies designed to oppress; it is no inherent truth of reality. The real truth of reality is God, the God that has made the Catholic Church the Evangeliser of his word and Arbiter of his will among humanity. 'you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free' - (Jn 8:32). The teachings contained within the Bible and word of God found through the Church's interpretation of the Bible, guided by the Holy Spirit.
But on to why there is some contention between Catholics and Liberation Theology. Liberation Theology, in terms of theory (as in how it is described in a more academic sense) is written in a Marxist fashion, using Marxist terminology and theory. Although one could argue that dialectics proves the existence of god, as there must have been an original thesis and antithesis (akin to the Scholastic original mover and spoken about by my friend 'Its the Butcher'), the prevailing line of thought in Marxist thinking is that the idea of God (especially that of Abrahamic religions) is inherently false, and that the Church and religion are 'opiate of the masses' - Karl Marx, tools used by the Elites to make people distracted from fighting for a better material world by focussing solely on the afterlife. This, as well as the adoption of 'Marxism' by socially liberal individuals, has created an association between socialism and atheism; although the two could not be further apart. Example: Without a God who has provided us with the objective morality of all things (for He is all knowing and all present) there is no objective morality and all is permissible. In this case, morality is not some innate truth in the universe, but a collectively agreed upon social idea between humans, and if this is the case, then why not allow people to be oppressed by an oppressing class, after all everyone has agreed to this social/moral system! The two notions of Atheism and Socialism (that is promoting an unchanged objective morality) are incompatible.
Also, due to violence and actions taken by Socialist movements across the globe against the Church (and organised religion in general), Catholics have gained a negative perception of anything related to socialism. Therefore, when Liberation Theologists cite writings or use the terminology of Marx and Hegel, it appears that they are supporting an anti-religious system, when in actuality, they are using a philosophical framework to explain humanities social systems and history.
Another reason for the contention is on Orthopraxy. If one is to consider a Catholic's theological framework (analytically) as Orthodoxy (Right Belief), Orthopraxy (Right Action), and Orthopathy (Right Emotion), then Liberation Theologists believe that Orthopraxy should be prioritised over Orthodoxy, especially in situations where people experience such hardship. This can easily lead to bastardisation of the teachings of the Church, and therefore leads to this contention. Liberation Theology, however, should not in this sense 'prioritise' orthopraxy over all things else, as without emphasis and equal prioritisation with Orthodoxy, Orthopraxis can itself be bastardised as it is in essence derived from Orthodoxy. Therefore, as much as one should think to prioritise Orthopraxis over Orthodoxy, they should continue to promote the right beliefs. It is a common failure for many Catholics in society, however, to not follow praxis and not to push against oppressing forces of the oppressed peoples of the globe, since; 'faith without works is dead' - James 2:26
Moving forward into the 1980s, the US intervened in Nicaraguan politics by providing funding to the Contras, rebels who were waging guerilla war against the Socialist Sandinista government in order to secure US interests in the area. The US secured funding for the Contras by allowing them to operate within African-American-majority neighbourhoods in the US to sell cocaine, providing support and cover for them to do so, and covertly using them as a middleman to weapons to Iran (which would later cause other complications) (San Jose Mercury News, 1996). In 1989, Panama was directly invaded by the US, toppling the Manuel Noriega dictatorship and installing a US-friendly government, securing American control over the strategically vital Panama Canal, which they already had joint control over and US military infrastructure.
Another way in which the US government spread its control and influence within Latin America is by promoting Protestant denominations through the Summer Institute of Linguistics, translating sources into the native's languages to spread Protestantism among Amerindians, preferential treatment of Pentecostal/Evangelist Churches over the Catholic Church in US backed regimes, promotion in the education sector and psychological operations such as Radio Broadcasting.
Beginning in 1935 with the two linguists William Cameron Townsend and Kenneth Pike, who learnt Nahuatl and Mixtec to create translations of the New Testament, SIL was made to spread Protestantism to the Natives, and was supported by the Mexican government to do so in order to combat the influence of the Catholic Church and solidify the Strength of the secular Mexican government, this relationship formalising in 1951 through an agreement between SIL and Mexico's Public Education Ministry (SEP), which lasted until 1979 (Paxman, 2021). During the Cold War, SIL received grants from USAID, and spread to several other countries including Guatemala, Peru, Brazil, and Ecuador, furthering the US's soft power by spreading Protestantism, pushing against the economically-left wing church. Also among the literature that SIL distributed was material with explicit anti-socialist material pushed through Bible stories. According to the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), SIL "have been linked to those of oil companies, which used SIL's policies to confine the indigenous peoples of the Amazon to a tenth of their original territory." (IWGIA, 1981) (Philadelphia Bulletin, 1981).
The US and its allied regimes also showed a marked preference for Pentecostal and Evangelical churches over the Catholic Church, viewing the former as a politically inert counterweight to a Catholic clergy increasingly tied to Liberation Theology. This is clearest in Guatemala under General Efraín Ríos Montt, a born-again Pentecostal who seized power in 1982 and was praised by Reagan as "a man of great personal integrity and commitment" even as his government carried out mass killings of the Maya, while Catholic priests supporting Indigenous land rights were assassinated or disappeared (Grandin, 2004). A similar pattern is visible in Ecuador, where SIL's work directly served American extractive interests: by "pacifying" the Huaorani and confining them to a reservation, SIL "made it easier for U.S. oil companies to explore their government-awarded concessions" (Stoll, 1982), a link also noted by the IWGIA (1981). Broader claims of coordinated US embassy support for evangelical campaigns elsewhere, such as in Brazil under military rule, remain sourced mainly to journalistic accounts rather than peer-reviewed scholarship and should be treated cautiously.
Cru, or the 'Christian Campus Crusade' is a Far-right wing evangelical organisation focused on expanding Evangelical Christianity, focusing on college students to do so. It received support in the 1980s from the US to spread Evangelism (Elitist religion used as means to exploit) to further combat Catholicism (protector of the exploited) (Barnaby, 2025).
The final documented mechanism was psychological and informational warfare aimed directly at discrediting Liberation Theology. An example of this was Bolivia's 1975 "Banzer Plan," in which dictator Hugo Banzer's Interior Ministry, working with the CIA alongside the intelligence services of ten other Latin American countries, compiled dossiers on Liberation Theologians, planted Communist literature inside churches to justify shutting down progressive Catholic publications, and expelled foreign priests and nuns sympathetic to the movement (Morrison, 2022). The USIA also distributed materials branding Liberation Theologians as Marxist infiltrators, and that the CIA funded missionary radio networks like Trans World Radio and Ecuador's HCJB to broadcast anti-communist sermons into regions where the movement was strongest (Barnaby, 2025). Such psy-ops were apart of a larger campaign by the United States to turn people against anti-elitist movements.
Today, exploitation and oppression of Latin America continues at the hand of the Elites of the United States, except not through direct interventions and coups (not including the recent capture of Maduro), but rather through corporations operating and exploiting the people and environment of Latin America. Corporations driving to increase their share of Global Capital year on year are artificially increasing the price of goods beyond what production costs alone would justify, increasing their own profits. In essence, this erodes the purchasing power of ordinary people's money year on year while increasing the share of Global Capital controlled by the Elites. Corporations are pushing against workers rights, exploiting labour by underpaying the people, controlling the media in order to sway public opinion against left-wing politics, and are creating a culture of consumerism in order to enslave the people to the very products that they buy, thus convincing the populace that they are defined by the material things they possess rather than what they do, and who they are. Corporations seek to Homogenise culture into one ultra-consumerist class defined by whatever generates the most profits, emphasising an oxymoronic version of Individualism, where the collective does not matter, but rather the self, and yet that 'self' has only been sold to them by the Economic Elite and it is not an actual individual identity. These ways in which the Elite (through corporations) exploits Latin American persons (but not exclusively Latin Americans of course) is detrimental to the aforementioned achievement of 'eudaimonia', which requires constant intellectual exploration of one's self and one's Catholic faith in order to truly be the ontologically complete version of oneself as intended by God. The Catholic faith is directly contradictory to the culture that the Elite imposes on people (through corporations), believing in equality between all people, spirituality over materialism/consumerism, and following an objective morality. It is therefore necessary for the Elite to attack Catholicism, done through the aforementioned methods and through Liberalism. Liberalism, used in the past to attack the Church by the Criollos after independence of Latin American nations from Spain (shown in the 1700s-1850s section), is the belief in 'rights of the individual' above all things else, rejecting the Objective Morality set out by God, and making all things permissible, creating a political movement in direct conflict with the Church.
The Elite also exploits Latin Americans through resource extraction, destroying the environment and livelihoods of many, as well as denying Latin Americans rights to their own mineral resources. The Amazon rainforest for example, an incredibly large habitat covering 6 million square kilometres and containing over 3 million species, is being destroyed by timber and agricultural corporations such as the aforementioned Klabin (1950s-modern day section), with over 26% being deforested by 2022 (Amazon Watch, 2022). In the town La Calera, in Colombia, a Coca-Cola bottling plant caused drought due to how much water it extracts from the water supply, doing so for over 40 years with no concessions to townspeople, forcing the residents to go into water rationing and to consume the very product that was destroying them (The Guardian, 2026). And there are many more cases of resource extraction that should be left to the reader to research for themselves.
Due to the US support of Protestant organisations in Latin America to combat the influence of the Catholic Church, Protestantism has grown to take a much larger portion of the population of Latin American nations since the 1980s. As of the Pew Research Center report released on the 21st Jan 2026, the percentage of the populations of Latin America identifying as Catholic has fallen by 9 percentage points or more across every one of the six major countries surveyed since 2013–14, with Brazil and Chile now barely retaining Catholic majorities at just 46% each (Pew Research Center, 2026). This decline in Catholicism has not translated into a direct increase in Protestantism, however, instead, the religiously unaffiliated have seen the highest growth, now outnumbering Protestants in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico. This outcome arguably serves the Elite's interests just as well as outright Protestant conversion: whether a former Catholic adopts a depoliticised, individually-focused Evangelical faith or abandons organised religion altogether, the result is the same: elitist capitalist ideology displaces anti-materialist Catholic ideology, eroding a historically unified institution capable of mobilising the poor against economic exploitation, in favour of either a privatised, consumerist spirituality or no countervailing moral framework at all.
The Catholics in Latin America have been subjected to continuous exploitation by the evolving Economic Elite, beginning in 1492 with Christopher Columbus' landing and colonisation in Hispaniola, which established the Peninsulares as the new Economic Elite of the region, exploiting Amerindian labour and resources, with Catholic clerical individuals such as Antonio de Montesinos and Bartolomé de las Casas being the only objectors to the cruel conditions that the Indigenous peoples were put through. Roughly around 1523 and forward into the 1700s after various Catholic orders had established themselves, under the patronato system, the Peninsulare Elite controlled the clergy and orders which they actually used to aid in exploiting the natives. Despite this, many Catholic clergy still aided the Indigenous peoples, protecting them from slavery, providing education, and preserving the native languages and culture. The actions of these Catholic Clergy better reflect the actual stance of the Church, provided by Pope Paul III's bull 'Sublimis Deus', which was released to affirm that Indians were truly human and able to be baptised, solidifying the Church's anti-exploitative stance on the Indigenous Americans. Still, despite the Patronato system, the Jesuits proved to be the greatest defenders of Amerindians from the 1500s-1700s, constructing around over 30 independent colonies in Paraguay and southern Brazil among the Guaraní people, taking care of over 700,000 Amerindians, and doing much for them. Moving forward into the 1800s, when most Latin American nations gained independence from their colonisers, the Economic Elite changed from the Peninsulares to the Criollos, with exploitation of Latin Americans and the Church continuing, using Liberalism as an excuse to do so. After the independence movements, the Vatican regained control of its own clergy, however, due to the end of the patronato system. Further into the 1800s, the Church was still attacked, with Tithes banned and Church property nationalised. It was the 1850s, however, which again marked a change in the oppressive Elite; from the Criollos to a primarily WASP-American Elite, with one of the drives of the US' imperial thrust being Chauvinistic, seeing themselves as superior not just Ethnically (Anglo-Saxon vs Latin/Celtic/Amerindian), but Religiously too (Protestant vs Catholic), the expansion spreading these two aspects of the WASPs. Also around this time we start to see the rise of the Jewish Elite in exploiting Latin America through international debt and military intervention to seize the reserves of nations (Haiti). By 1900, the vast majority of South Americans were Catholic, and due to immigration and admixture the ethnic landscape had changed too, with the old rigid sistema de castas giving way to a more racially blended society, one in which Catholic identity had become the single most powerful unifying thread across class and colour alike. In this racially blended society, the Mestizo people were the true base of the Church (and still are) in Latin America, whereas the Elites of the society had moved on from the Church into other beliefs. Throughout the 1900s, the US, which was (and remains) the vehicle of the WASP/Jewish Elite around the globe, couped and occupied countless Latin American nations, continuing their exploitation, pushing the Church to take further social stances in response to this. Going into the modern day, the WASP/Jewish Elite still exploits those Catholics in Latin America, except primarily through corporations and a new consumerist identity forced upon the people in order to create their own homogenised, intellectually disabled capitalist culture. Through the centuries of exploitation and oppression of the Amerindians, and then new Catholic Latin Americans in the new religious and ethnic landscape, the Catholic Church has been advocating and protecting Latin Americans and pushing the continent forward. Also through all this exploitation, so many Catholics in Latin America have held onto their faith, although Catholicism is at great risk in South America, due to the push by the Economic Elite for people to turn to Protestantism, in particular Evangelism and Pentecostalism which are incredibly individualist ideologies that support capitalist/consumerist ideals but also but also atheism, which takes out the idea of the objective morality of the universe in favour of individualist morality of the universe for individualist morality, which always works to let whatever is most socially convenient, or what has been taught to them through facets of the Elite's media machine to replace morality. Despite everything, the Church's push to liberate the Latin American people, combined with their unique position of having faced oppression throughout their history, has forged a spiritually rich culture — one that will endure only if Catholics continue to actively resist the Elite and resist the spiritual impoverishment posed by rising consumerism and materialist identity. Mother Teresa once said- 'You in the West have the spiritually poorest of the poor much more than you have the physically poor. Often among the rich are very spiritually poor people. I find it is easy to give a plate of rice to a hungry person, to furnish a bed to a person who has no bed, but to console or to remove the bitterness, anger, and loneliness that comes from being spiritually deprived, that takes a long time.', which further complements this idea. And surely the efforts of the Catholic Latin Americans will one day be paid off and they will be free of the shackles put on them by the Elite.
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