Rhetoric Race and Religion
Pope Francis is a Charismatic Liberationist. While the Argentine pontiff weighs in on diverse issues in his groundbreaking interview, he clearly emerges as a pastor who is profoundly influenced by what have been two competing tendencies in the Latin American church. In his native Argentina Francis was not a follower of Liberation Theology, which calls for the Church to adopt a preferential option for the poor and strive to build the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth. However, in his first six months as pope, he has adopted liberationist discourse in his condemnations of what he regards as an exploitative global economic system that worships “the God of money.”
His liberationist colors are most apparent in the interview in his conceptualization of the church as “the people of God,” a phrase he utters eight times during the interview. “The image of the church I like is that of the holy, faithful people of God. This is the definition I often use, and then there is that image from the Second Vatican Council’s ‘Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.” Developed at the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and championed by Latin American and other Catholic liberationists, the idea is that the Church is first and foremost a community of Christian brethren. The church as ecclesial institution governed by a clerical hierarchy is not jettisoned but becomes secondary. Such definition of the church necessarily leads to a focus on the Global South, where some 70 percent of the Catholic “people of God” live.
Another significant liberationist reference is the Magnificat. Francis states, “Mary loved Jesus with the heart of the people, as we read in the Magnificat.” One of the most popular biblical passages among liberationists, also known as the Song of Mary, it exalts the humble and rebukes the powerful.
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