Liberation theology – the community organizer sect of Christianity.

Michael Patrick Leahy of Breitbart reports.

Creator of Latin American ‘Liberation Theology’ Notre Dame Faculty Member Since 2001

Since the days of Knute Rockne, Notre Dame University has been known as the home of one of the best college football programs in America. Since 2001, it has also been the home of Father Gustavo Gutierrez, the originator of Latin American “liberation theology.” Gutierrez, 85, spent most of his life in his native Peru. He now holds the endowed Cardinal John O’Hara Professorship of Theology at Notre Dame’s School of Theology and splits his time between South Bend, Indiana and Lima, Peru.

In 1973 Gutierrez wrote A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation, which set forth a radical principle that economic and political systems should be organized so as to create “a preferential option for the poor.” That view has permeated much of the Roman Catholic clergy in Latin America, where most countries have been governed for centuries as either a dictatorship, political oligopoly, or socialist state.

In the conclusion of that book, Gutierrez summarized what “liberation theology” entails:

The theology of liberation attempts to reflect on the experience and meaning of the faith based on the commitment to abolish injustice and to build a new society; this theology must be verified by the practice of that commitment, by active, effective participation in the struggle which the exploited social classes have undertaken against their oppressors. Liberation from every form of exploitation, the possibility of a more human and dignified life, the creation of a new humankind–all pass through this struggle.

Gutierrez has a uniquely Latin American view of the causes of poverty. Poverty, he believes is “not a result of fate or laziness, but is due to structural injustices that privilege some while marginalizing others.” The solution to poverty is not economic growth promoted through stable political systems in which markets operate freely. Instead, he believes the solution lies in the collective action of the poor, who “can organize and facilitate social change.”