Third, as Pope Francis, the Argentinian Jorge Mario Bergoglio has appropriated certain elements that are specific to liberation theology without acknowledging his intellectual debt to it.Īfter the election of the Argentinean Jorge Mario Bergoglio in 2013, questions were raised about his relation to the world famous ecclesial movement that had caused so many controversies in the church, particularly during the cold war when many in the movement allied themselves with the political left in Latin America. Second, Pope Francis has contributed to the solution of this conflict through significant symbolic gestures rather than through a shift of official positions. First, Pope Francis’ use of certain theological ideas from liberation theology has been made possible and less controversial by post-cold war contexts. Through an analysis of ecclesial documents and theological literature, his can be discerned on three levels. Although the pope remains an outsider to liberation theology, he has in a sense solved the conflict between the Vatican and the Latin American social movement.

This article argues that Pope Francis shares some of the main theological concerns as pontiff with liberation theology. The canonization of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the pope’s approximation to the public figure of Gustavo Gutiérrez signaled a new approach to the liberation theology movement in the Vatican. With the election of the Argentinean Jorge Mario Bergoglio as head of the global church in 2013, the question about the legacy of liberation theology was actualized. The battle for meaning and influence between Latin American liberations theologians and the Vatican was one of the most significant conflicts in the global Catholic church of the twentieth century.

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