Liberation Theologies | Bibliography | Europe
Chapter 4: Liberating the First World. Liberation Theologies in Europe
Theological Foundations
128. Burnham, Frederic B., Charles S. McCoy and M. Douglas Meeks, eds. Love. The Foundation of Hope. The Theology of Jürgen Moltmann and Elisabeth Moltmann Wendel. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988.
This collection of essays offers an excellent introduction to the thought of these two ground-breaking theologians, whose thought and lives have been profoundly influenced by their experience as young Germans in World War II. Moltmann’s work was born out of the despair of war service and defeat. In a prison camp he was moved to begin to think about answers and discovered the self-sacrificing love of Christ and a way of hope. His “theology of love” thus became a means of transporting the emptiness of the self into a positive force that would transform society. Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel grew from a similar experience of despair and powerlessness over the destruction of her world. Her feminist theology has emerged as a means of empowering women’s, and men’s, personal and societal lives to recognize the divinity in us all.
The organization of this book is a masterful guide, from the personal dynamics of the theology of love to a realization of its key role in liberating and rebuilding society. It includes essays by Moltmann, Moltmann-Wendel, Meeks, José Míguez Bonino, Letty M. Russell, and Susan B. Thistlewaite. Míguez Bonino demonstrates how the personal love of individuals for one another sets the tone of the household and family, which in turn is the model of love that binds together the base Christian community. Like the early church, these “households” based on love thus become models of societal justice. Russell then emphasizes that communities empowered by love are the hope for the future as they overcome a Christianity and society in which the partnership taught by Christ has been overcome by Caesar and his patriarchy. The communal characteristics of love are therefore justice, liberation, and authority that are based on covenant, not compulsion. Thistlewaite adds a new dimension to this process by stressing that black women must first love themselves in a profound way that goes beyond self-acceptance. The love that these individuals then give in community is the foundation of hope for a new, just society.
129. Metz, Johann Baptist. The Emergent Church. The Future of Christianity in a Postbourgeois World. Peter Mann, trans. New York: Crossroad, 1981.
Metz was a leading figure at Vatican II and is considered by most to be one of the most influential European theologians on the development of liberation theology. This book is a series of lectures around the themes of Christianity’s need to free itself from “bourgeois” religion. By this he means that in the relatively prosperous industrial democracies religion does not claim our lives but is itself the creature of our materialistic middle-class values. This is the phenomenon that he calls “bourgeois unapproachability.” Our religion therefore must once again become a creation of the Gospels, not of the Western bourgeoisie. Metz insists that the only way to save our valid “middle class” freedoms is to realize our solidarity with the poor, the miserable and the oppressed and to overcome the political and moral challenges of our age. We therefore cannot continue a Christianity isolated from the prophetic calls to justice and liberation and must instead undergo a conversion of our hearts and lives.
Catholicism itself, Metz insists, must move beyond a paternalistic, authoritarian model to a church inspired by the “base community,” that is, a church made up of, and responsible to, ourselves, not to a remote hierarchy. At the same time, change cannot come from above but must come from the people as the Third World errupts into our historical and social situation.
There are several obstacles to this process of becoming a “base community” church, Metz contends. These include Pope John Paul II, the hierarchical structure of the church, and progressive bourgeois theology, which seeks to fit religion to the conditions of our time and place.
130. —. Faith in History and Society. Toward a Practical Fundamental Theology. David Smith, trans. New York: Seabury Press, 1980.
This is an extended analysis of the basis for a new political theology that first attempts to clear the air from the misconception that Christianity has never had a political theology and to chart a middle way between the extreme “privatization” of religion and its strict secularization. Metz’ concept of “privatization,” the turning of Christianity’s piety, sacramental life, theological reflection and ethics away from the life of community and society and toward the dynamics of an inner salvation, has been of tremendous influence on later forms of liberation theology. His notion of a political theology as a critique of middle-class religion, a political theology that seeks to uphold the values and structures of our present society, has also been fundamental. Metz stresses that Christianity needs to return to a faith in history and society through an emphasis on praxis.
The major elements of this fundamental theology therefore include the freedom of Jesus Christ, the memory of suffering, the dialectics of progress, redemption and emancipation. Thus the realities of suffering and liberation must once again become fundamental to Christian thought. Metz insists that a return to “narrative” and memory, an insistence that theology is talking about real events, real suffering, and real people – and the solidarity that this implies – is basic to our faith.
131. —. Theology of the World. William Glen-Doepel, trans. London: Burns & Oates; New York: Herder & Herder, 1969.
This is a collection of essays written between 1961 and 1967 around the theme of the secular responsibility of the believer. Part 1 examines how the Christian views the world and how the believer in the historical Jesus and the Jesus event lives in today’s world. Part 2 examines the eschatological view, how we as Christians and Westerners are fascinated by the new to the diminution of tradition. Any competent theology, Metz argues, must face this fact and must discover how to fit an other-world eschaton to the social gospel to create an eschatology that is demanded by our biblical faith.
This faith must contain a creative and militant eschatology that eschews false distinctions between the sacred and the profane. In this light Metz calls for a new asceticism that does not turn a hateful eye away from the world but that springs from a hope for the world in its elimination of egotism and individualism. Thus asceticism also becomes part of a mysticism that is realigned with social activism.
132. —, as ed. Christianity and the Bourgeois. Concilium 125. New York: Seabury Press, 1979.
Essays by Baum, Schüssler Fiorenza, Castillo, Metz, Waskow, Schiffers and others on the meaning of “bourgeois,” on bourgeois religion, on its cultural history in early Christianity, and in Judaism and Christianity, the U.S. and Europe today.
133. — and Jean Pierre Jossua, eds. Christianity and Socialism. Concilium 105. New York: Seabury Press, 1977.
Essays by Ruggieri, Baum, Muru, Warnien, Garcia-Gomet, Weiler, Füssel, Traber, Lesbaupin, Ellacuria and others on Christianity and socialism in Europe, Africa, and Latin America.
134. Moltmann, Jürgen. The Crucified God. The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Theology. R. A. Wilson and John Bowden, trans. New York: Harper & Row, 1974.
A deeply focused examination of the meaning of the cross and of Christocentric theology that grows out of Moltmann’s experience of the disaster and despair of Germany after World War II. He examines all aspects of the cross as a symbol and sacrament of our time and condition that will liberate us and our religion from the lies and vanity of our situation and from the struggle for power and from the fear that dominates our lives.
The Christology of the Cross is essentially that of the human abandoned by God. While Moltmann has been criticized for abandoning his “theology of hope” in favor of this view, he emphasizes that it is essentially the same theology: one cannot have the cross without the resurrection, and vice-versa.
Moltmann examines two forms of liberation: the psychological one that follows Freud’s analysis and categories; and the political, which attempts, as did Freud on the personal level, to free us from the ideologies of political religions that have always been part of Western tradition from Greco-Roman and Judaic time on. Moltmann calls for a rejection of the Constantinian tradition of Christian political thought and calls on the church to take a critical stance toward power. In so doing Christians will be able to free themselves from a series of vicious political cycles: of poverty, of force, of racial and cultural alienation, of the industrial pollution of nature, of senselessness and godforsakenness.
He rejects both capitalist and Marxist forms of salvation, but insists that socialism is impossible without democracy and vice-versa. Elite dictatorships and technocracies do not work in establishing social justice, since both forms ignore the fact that liberation cannot succeed without an understanding and the participation of the particular and the historical.
Moltmann’s forms of liberation thus look forward to, and help form, the various forms of liberation theology today.
135. —. The Gospel of Liberation. H. Wayne Pipkin, trans. Waco, TX: Word Books, 1973.
Not seen.
136. —. The Power of the Powerless. The Word of Liberation for Today. Margaret Kohl, trans. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1983.
This is a collection of sermons on biblical texts in the Old and New Testament relating to the history of the powerless and the hope and power that faith in God and community bring. Neither anger nor resignation are answers for the oppressed, but action in the light of faith and hope is. Texts range from Genesis, the Prophets, and the Gospels, many of them key for liberation theology. The book concludes with essays on solidarity, the birth of hope, Easter as a protest against death, Pentecost as a feast of sharing, liberation and acceptance for the handicapped, and the ministry of the church.
Ultimately Moltmann calls for a church that will be the subject of its own history, and a liberating and a prophetic community.
137. —. Theology of Hope. On the Ground and the Implications of a Christian Eschatology. James W. Leitch, trans. New York: Harper & Row; London: SCM, 1967.
This is the reverse side of the theology of the cross and sees the world through an eschatological hope. After an introductory meditation on hope the book discusses eschatology and revelation, promise and history, resurrection and the future Jesus Christ, eschatology and history, and the “exodus church,” the concrete form of eschatological hope, the church as a community of salvation. These are topics that were to become major themes of liberation theology.
138. —. and others. Communities of Faith and Radical Discipleship. G. McLeod Bryan, ed. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1986.
Not seen.
139. Pannenberg, Wolfhart. Theology and the Kingdom of God. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969.
A collection of four essays on the theology of the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God and the church, the kingdom of God as the foundation of ethics, and a study of the ministry of Jesus according to the theology of “appearance,” the immanence of the kingdom in the here and now as revealed in the life and words of Jesus. Includes a lengthy portrait of Pannenberg by Richard John Neuhaus.
Pannenberg stresses that the church is not the kingdom, and that the kingdom demands an involvement with the world in the here and now, as the world is also part of the kingdom. The church, on the other hand, exists to serve the kingdom: to allow humans to build the kingdom and not to throw itself up as a substitute for it. A fundamental thinker for an emerging political theology.
140. Schillebeeckx, Edward. God Among Us. The Gospel Proclaimed. New York: Crossroad, 1983.
A series of biblical reflections on the way to freedom, a Christocentric spirituality, and the unity of inner spirituality and a life in the world.
141. Verkuyl, Johannes. Break Down the Walls. A Christian Cry for Racial Justice. Leis B. Smedes, trans. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1973.
Not seen.
142. —. The Message of Liberation in Our Age. Dale Cooper, trans. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1970.
Liberation, far from being tied solely to Third-World concerns, is a universal theme. Verkuyl, a Dutch theologian, discusses liberation in the context of the Bible, in our own age, as liberation from sin, the “powers of this age,” and from death. He then focuses on Christ as liberator, the role of mission in proclaiming the message of the liberator, and the themes of liberation in contemporary religion and ideology. Final chapters deal with the role of the church in God’s plan for liberation and the process of changing the church to meet this role.
Political Theology and Liberation
143. Ambler, Rex, and David Haslam, eds. Agenda for Prophets. Towards a Political Theology for Britain. London: Bowerdean Press, 1980.
This collection of essays seeks to promote a “British theology” that will take the insights of Third-World theologies, especially as applied to liberation situations in the U.S., for an “engagement of Christian thought with Christian praxis [to] create a new vision of kingdom.” This view must, almost of necessity, be that of the left, since the tradition of religious thought on politics has almost exclusively been from the right. It must also be a theology from the prophetic tradition to inspire action for badly needed social change.
Essays are grouped around the themes of action, history, perspective and styles. Míguez Bonino gives “a view from Latin America” on pp. 102-9. In the words of Johann Baptist Metz, this is also an attempt to “deprivatize theology.”
144. Casalis, Georges. Correct Ideas Don’t Fall from the Skies. Elements for an Inductive Theology. Jeanne Marie Lyons and Michael John, trans. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1984.
A series of essays that insist that all theory must derive from praxis (inductive) rather than from the traditional methods of theology that attempt to apply maxims to real life (deductive). His aim is not to debate the validity of revolutionary militancy but to reflect on its spiritual consequences. The theologian and theology in general cannot be neutral toward politics. Casalis relates how life under Hitler, the French wars in Vietnam and in Algeria brought home to him the modern choice: suicide in the face of overwhelming injustice and complicity or conversion of life.
Themes include the awareness of the role and function of the dominant theology, the rediscovery and rereading of scripture, a reshaping of hermeneutics, reshaping our identities in relation to that of Jesus of Nazareth, the political interpretation of events and personal life.
Casalis’ outlook is frankly leftist, aimed against “capitalist domination, exploitation, oppression, and alienation.” Only revolution will overcome these structures to bring economic justice (collectivity of means of production), a grass-roots political constitution to society, and the liberation of creativity to form a new human being. No hope remains in European capitalism.
One wonders how Casalis might respond to recent changes and revelations on the appeal among peoples of the alternative systems and “correct” ideas and what theological deductions he might draw. A stark contrast to the people-based theologies of Latin America that attempt to eschew any ideology.
145. Forrester, Duncan. Theology and Politics. Oxford and New York: Basil Blackwell, 1988.
“Political theology” is not an invention of twentieth-century European elites but has been with the Western tradition since antiquity and has always played a key role in Christianity, though its almost universal support of existing structures and power have given it a transparency that has only now begun to be analyzed.
This is an excellent introduction to political theology and its ties to other liberation theologies traced through certain key themes. Chapter 1 surveys historical forms of political theology in the ancient world; chapter 2 deals with the church-state dichotomy of the private and political since the Reformation and Enlightenment; chapter 3 with the “promise of liberation theology,” which contains a succinct comparison between the Latin American theology and European political theology; 4 treats the political exegesis of the Bible and its critics; 5 the question of a political Christ in Marxism, popular piety, and the imitation of Christ; 6 the church, theology and the poor, including a discussion of a new ecclesiology based on the base Christian communities and the “bourgeois captivity” of the Northern churches. The concluding chapter treats the responsibilities of political theology and various forms of political theology, including the Eusebian, church, and prophetic theologies.
146. Garaudy, Roger. The Alternative Future. A Vision of Christian Marxism. Leonard Mayhew, trans. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974.
An optimistic prophesy that 1970s youth will opt for a future neither capitalist nor Stalinist and that the Christian image will inform and infuse the new form of social and economic life that emerges: a socialism of self-management.
147. Kee, Alistair. Marx and the Failure of Liberation Theology. London: SCM; Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990.
Not seen.
148. —. A Reader in Political Theology. Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1974.
A collection of readings from the varieties of European and North American thought that sees the varieties of liberation as a form of political theology.
149. —. The Scope of Political Theology. London: SCM, 1978.
Not seen.
150. —. Seeds of Liberation. Spiritual Dimensions to Political Struggle. London: SCM, 1973.
Essays and interviews with and by Kee, Daniel Berrigan, Colin Winter, Jim Forest, Basil Moore, Mary Condren, Viv Broughton and Thomas Cullinan on social and political signs, a new community of spirit and resistance, keeping sanity in the face of the beast, on materialism, the sacramental life, liberation and resistance for both men and women.
151. Lakeland, Paul. Freedom in Christ. An Introduction to Political Theology. 2d ed. New York: Fordham University Press, 1986.
Surveys political theology in the Old and New Testament and their worlds, in Christian history and in today’s “real” world. Chapter 7, “A Political Theology,” discusses freedom from ideology, indignation, people as subjects or objects of their history, the cross, and base communities. Chapter 8, “Political theology and the Vatican,” sees liberation theology as a form of political theology, along with German political theology, black theology, and feminist theology.
152. McDonagh, Enda. Church and Politics. From Theology to a Case History of Zimbabwe. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980.
McDonagh writes about the explicit meeting of theology and the new realities of the Third World and its revolutionary situation, yet her reflections are, ultimately and openly, about the situation in Ireland and the condition of the marginalized of the First World as well. See also 227.
153. Petulla, Joseph M. Christian Political Theology. A Marxian Guide. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1972.
This is an attempt to use Marxist analytic tools to examine the political implications of the faith. Despite the author’s obvious slant, he critiques elements of both Marxist and liberal capitalist systems.
Petulla surveys the roots of political theology, Marx’ criticism of religion, the thought of Bloch, Moltmann, and Metz. He then examines the Marxist theory of alienation from Marx through Castro and Guevara, liberation in Marxist theory, ethical praxis in the early church, and the contemporary relevance of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Mao. Remarkable, recent events have made the foundation of this theory – the appeal of Marxism among peoples – a praxis of fantasy as Marx, Lenin and Mao seem to slide into oblivion.
154. Sölle, Dorothee. Political Theology. John Shelley, trans. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974.
The author traces a growth from the existentialism of Bultmann to the engagement of freeing the gospel kerygma from ideological fixations, from the “death of God” to the “God of the oppressed.” John Shelley provides an excellent introduction to both Sölle’s work and the tradition of political theology. Key themes include a new interest in the Jesus of history and the ministry of liberation, a new understanding of sin and of forgiveness that steps beyond
the individualistic piety of the enlightenment church to the liberation of all: the oppressed, the poor, those who mourn.
155. Stockwood, Mervyn. The Cross and the Sickle. London: Sheldon Press, 1978.
The bishop of Southwark, then a London working-class district just opposite the affluence of the City’s stock exchange, reflects on the relationship of Marxism and Christianity. His book is born out of the experience of his parishioners’ poverty and alienation and his despair over Christianity’s failure. His conclusions are a form of liberation theology for the First World: the Bible is not about inner tranquillity and pastoral care but about society. The Old Testament prophets and Jesus’ preaching of the kingdom are its main focus. The church is the instrument of the kingdom, not the kingdom itself, and in this Christianity can offer an alternative to Marxist vision.
Reflections of Liberation
156. Anderson, Gerald H., and Thomas F. Stransky, eds. Liberation Theologies in North America and Europe. Mission Trends 4. New York: Paulist Press, 1979.
This collection of essays includes an introductory section by McAfee Brown, Herzog, Richard A. McCormick, S.J., Jim Wallis, Moltmann, Paul VI and others.
157. Baltazar, Eulalio. Liberation Theology and Teilhard de Chardin. Chambersberg, PA: ANIMA Books, 1989.
Not seen.
158. Caudron, Marc, ed. Faith and Society. Acta Congressus Internationalis Theologica Lovaniensis 1976. Paris: Duculot, 1978.
Essays on God and society, man-woman relations, the theology of liberation (pp. 157-207), and the community phenomenon. The European theologians who examine liberation theology include Ponthot, van Nieuwenhove, De Graeve, Asveld, and Borrat.
159. Chapman, G. Clarke, Jr. Bonhoeffer and Liberation Theology. St. Louis, MO: Chapman, 1980.
Not seen.
160. Clark, David B. Basic Communities. Towards an Alternative Society. London: SPCK, n.d.
An excellent account of the movement in the U.K. Attempts to demonstrate their importance for both the church and the wider world.
161. Dickinson, Richard D. N. To Set at Liberty the Oppressed. Towards an Understanding of Christian Responsibilities for Development/Liberation. Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1975.
The Protestant response to the Catholic encyclicals, bishops’ synods and theology of the Vatican II era.
162. Elliott, C. Is There a Liberation Theology for the U.K.? York: University of York, 1985.
Not seen.
163. Gatti, Vincenzo. Rich Church – Poor Church. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1974.
Not seen.
164. Greinacher, Norbert, and Alois Müller, eds. The Poor and the Church. Concilium 104. New York: Seabury, 1977.
Essays by Gutiérrez, Bockmann, Michel Mollat (on the historical development of the notion of the poor and poverty in Christian thought), Marie Dominique Chenu (on Vatican II and the church of the poor), Lukács, Post, Muñoz, Ives Congar, Conzemius and others on the church and the poor in the Bible, in history, in Latin America, and in Europe. An excellent survey that brings together some of the best theologians and historians of Europe and Latin America.
165. Jossua, Jean-Pierre, and Johann-Baptist Metz, eds. Doing Theology in New Places. Concilium 115. New York: Seabury Press, 1979.
Essays on new contexts and cultural factors in theology. Includes essays by Schüssler Fiorenza (“Towards a Liberating and Liberated Theology. Women Theologians and Feminism in the U.S.A.,” on pp. 22-32) and by Alfredo Fierro Bardaji and Fumio Tabuchi (on Kim Chi Ha).
166. Lane, Dermot A., ed. Liberation Theology. An Irish Dialogue. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1977; published in the U.S. as Ireland, Liberation and Theology. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1978.
Essays by Enda McDonagh, Francisco Claver, and Garrett FitzGerald, including McDonagh’s “An Irish Theology of Liberation?” pp. 87-102. The authors examine the possibility of developing an Irish theology of liberation that will address the issues of dependency, marginalization, alienation, poverty, religious hatred and violence in both the north and south, among both Catholics and Protestants. The situations in Latin America and the Philippines are used not as rigid models but as keys to the application of theology and religious values to social and economic problems. McDonagh stresses that an Irish liberation theology must grow out of the Irish experience and must enable the Irish once again to become subjects, not objects, of their history. Irish economics, history, sexuality and spirituality are all areas that must be addressed by a revived theology.
167. Laurentin, René. Liberation, Development and Salvation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1972.
Not seen.
168. Metz, Johann-Baptist, and Edward Schillebeeckx, eds. The Teaching Authority of Believers. Concilium 180. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1985.
Essays by Vorgrimler, Schillebeeckx, Waldenfel, Schüssler Fiorenza, Sobrino, and others on the legacy of Vatican II, new structures in the church, the change from “sensus fidei” (reasserted by John Paul II) to “consensus fidelium,” the people claiming authority and power, the people of God in Latin America, and the role of the people in defining Christian faith.
169. —. Martyrdom Today. Concilium 163. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark; New York: Seabury Press, 1983.
Essays by Baumeister, Rahner, Boff, Sobrino, Claver, McDonagh, Hernandez Pico, Barth, Casaldáliga, Tutu, Herzberg, Cone, Casalis and Daniel Berrigan on martyrdom in history, in ecclesiology and in theology. Their discussion of the world today includes Latin America, the Philippines, Ireland, South Africa, the Holocaust, Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, and the Plowshares in the U.S. An essential theme of liberation theology.
170. Metz, René, and John Schlick, eds. Liberation Theology and the Message of Salvation. Papers of the Fourth Cerdic Colloquium. Strasbourg, May 10-12, 1973. David G. Gelzer, trans. Pittsburgh, PA: Pickwick Press, 1978.
Essays by Merle, Valadier and Duquoc on ideologies of liberation; by van Lunen-Chenu, Guichard, Casalis, and Wieser on women’s liberation, class struggle, conscientization, and the church as a sign of liberation and salvation.
The colloquium came to several conclusions: that there are fundamental differences in approach among liberation theologians, largely grouped as inductive and deductive approaches; that the class struggle, despite church pronouncements and the condemnations of conservative critics, is a reality that liberation theology must come to grips with; and that liberation, however it is used by theologians, is not the same as salvation.
171. O’Halloran, James, SVD. Living Cells. Developing Small Christian Communities. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1984.
Written with a European audience in mind, this is less a “how to” than a “point of reference.” Replaces the term “base Christian community” with “small” Christian community to emphasize the fact that the church grows outward from such groups and that they are not at the bottom of any hierarchical structure. In another sense the author hopes to demonstrate that the “base” need not necessarily mean only the economically poor but that this form of church can be translated to every Christian church and continent.
Topics include the origin and growth of small Christian communities; their nature; how to organize such a community, the youth apostolate, and new models for an emerging church. Good, if brief, annotated bibliography on basic communities.
172. Paoli, Arturo. Freedom to Be Free. Charles Underhill, trans. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1973.
Life’s true theme is the journey toward freedom; and the constant theme of the Bible is liberation. Truth is the integralism of the person and the world; while freedom means freedom within the church. Ultimately it is difficult to determine whether Paoli’s liberation and integralism looks forward to key elements of liberation theology or whether it is a throw back to an earlier twentieth-century Catholic Action form.
173. —. Gather Together in My Name: Reflections on Christianity and Community. Robert R. Barr, trans. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1987.
Paoli’s pastoral, discursive, extremely personalist form of theology is difficult to assess, especially in the context of liberation theology’s very social and economic themes. Nevertheless, this Italian theologian’s thrust is liberation, although he comes from the same personalist, rather than structuralist, framework that seems to motivate Pope John Paul II. Paoli’s work seeks to lead the reader on a journey from alienation toward a realization of self and from self to community. This community is both personal and sacramental: reconciliation and communion have both sacramental and societal aspects. Thus poverty can have positive value when taken in this personalist sense: a Franciscan adoption of the inner and outer poverty that allows the Christian to live in solidarity with the poor and the oppressed.
Beyond this, however, Paoli stresses that the poor must build their own church, and that the hierarchical church must listen to the poor and become the church of the poor. While left-leaning analyses tend to verge on ideology, they are preferable to capitalist-inspired analyses, he contends. In any case, building community is always a revolutionary activity, Paoli reminds us; and a thorough examination of the roots of Christian piety and their honest application will demonstrate their liberating and revolutionary potential, both in the church and in society.
174. Pohier, Jacques, and Dietmar Mieth, eds. The Dignity of the Despised of the Earth. Concilium 130. New York: Seabury Press, 1979.
Essays by Bianchi, Sobrino, Eckert, Pietri, Blumenkranz, Dussel, Proaño, Claver, Dhavamony, and McDonagh on “those without dignity” in the Old and New Testaments, Palestinian Christianity, the early church of the second and third centuries, relations between Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages, the “savage” and “other” in the era of discovery, the wretched in Latin America, in India and among women, ethnics, and immigrant populations in the First World today.
175. Preiswerk, Matias. Educating in the Living Word. A Theoretical Framework for Christian Education. Robert R. Barr, trans. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1987.
The subtitle reads, “A Theoretical Framework for Christian Education.” That education takes full account of the socio-economic conditions of those being educated, their requirements and desires. A handbook for an education that liberates, this surveys the various types of educational settings, the various descriptions – philosophical, political, pastoral, pedagogical – and the principal models. It then proceeds to discuss the hermeneutic analysis in the Hebrew Bible, Jesus as teacher, how to define a liberative Christian education, and the church’s mission in theology, conscientization, and methodology.
176. Winter, Derek. Hope in Captivity. The Prophetic Church in Latin America. London: Epworth, 1977.
This is an attempt to write a liberation theology for a British audience based on the experiences of the author in returning to Brazil, where he had been a missionary, and realizing that he had missed the most important element of his mission: learning from the experience and inspiration of the people themselves.
177. Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Until Justice and Peace Embrace. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983.
The Kuyper Lectures delivered at the Free University of Amsterdam in 1981. Topics include the impact of Christianity upon the world and vice-versa, its place in the modern world system, the choice of liberation in the modern church and the tasks ahead of it: justice, the reconciliation of rich and poor and nations based on the true meaning of shalom, as a fullness and harmony.
178. Wren, Brian A. Education for Justice. Pedagogical Principles. London: SCM; Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1977.
Like Paolo Freire’s education for liberation in the Third World, this is an education for the First World and focuses on local redevelopment, women’s rights, and justice in international affairs. The goal of such education is to explain the meaning of social justice. Topics covered include the act of knowing, education as dialog, justice as rational thought and in Christian faith, justice, power and conflict, the marks of cultural oppression, the awakening of justice, learning the realities of power, taking political stands, and the question, “is justice possible?”
European Praxis: Danilo Dolci
179. Ammann, Walter. Danilo Dolci. Bern: Benteli, 1972.
Even before Vatican II set into motion changes that would recognize the laity as equals to the hierarchy in spreading Christ’s kingdom. Danilo Dolci was implementing the council’s hidden seeds of liberation by working among the poor and uneducated of western Sicily and attempting to conscienticize their lives and have them create cooperatives and political action groups to overcome their oppression. He was also confronting a reactionary hierarchy bent on turning back any reforms that would make the people the subjects of their own history.
This is a review of his life, with special focus on his nonviolent activities. Nicely illustrated with photos. Topics include Dolci, Sicilian life and culture, economy, history, including the Mafia. Briefly traces his career, highlighting the Partinico trial, his contest with the Mafia, and his debt to Gandhi. An excellent chronology up to July 1972.
180. Dolci, Danilo, Creature of Creatures. Selected Poems. Justin Vitiello, trans. Saratoga, CA: Anma Libri, 1980.
Dolci’s poems on the life of Sicily’s peasants, their exploitation, the need for nonviolent change. A good introduction to Dolci’s life and career.
181. —. For the Young. Antonia Cowan, trans. London: Macgibbon & Kee, 1967.
Answers letters from children who have written supporting his efforts. The letters come from all over Europe and the United States. Their constant theme is the “waste” of Sicilian lives. The points are often made through simple dialogs.
182. —. The Man Who Plays Alone. New York: Pantheon, 1968.
Two pieces of peasant wisdom typify the problem: in western Sicily chi cammina solo, si trova sempre bene (the man who walks alone always feels at ease) and chi gioca solo non perde mai (the man who plays alone never loses). Dolci’s own recollections of his struggle to raise the consciousness of the Sicilian peasants to overcome their sense of isolated self-interest and to struggle nonviolently for basic human rights. The alienation of the Sicilian poor is expressed in hostility to any loyalty other than to self and to the closed circle of the family. The opposition of the church hierarchy to his efforts is not merely personal but official policy.
183. —. A New World in the Making. R. Munroe, trans. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1965.
An attempt to go beyond the moral laws of the past to find new answers for a new age, a new ethical system for a new united world. Studies efforts in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Senegal, and Ghana to familiarize the West with different approaches.
184. —. The Outlaws of Partinico. R. Munroe, trans. New York: Orion Press, 1963.
Dolci’s account of the conditions around Partinico in western Sicily, its poverty, violence and alienation. Focuses on Dolci’s group and their struggle against violence and examines the life of violence in the region. The book’s heart is a portrait of these “outlaws,” the fishermen and the poor peasants, their living conditions, lack of education, social life and values, and their sense of exploitation.
Part V of the book turns the term “outlaw” on its head by describing the “strike in reverse” by Dolci and the region’s unemployed to begin work on a damaged section of road. They did so without government permission but in accordance with Article IV of the Italian Constitution guaranteeing the right to work to all citizens. Follows their nonviolent action, arrest, and trial, and Dolci’s apologia for nonviolent civil disobedience. While he and his group were found guilty, the judge passed light sentences in view of “the high moral value of Dolci’s action.” The book concludes with some notes from Dolci’s Study Centers.
185. —. Poverty in Sicily. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1966.
The findings of a series of surveys among the poor and unemployed in and around Palermo in western Sicily. Responses to the question, “Do you think it is God’s will that you are unemployed?” show an almost pagan belief in the unbridgeable gap between God and the world of humans. God takes care of himself and leaves us to do the same. He is not concerned with “social” issues. As one informant remarked, “In my opinion God’s got nothing to do with unemployment.” A vitally important insight into the forms of informed action that both shaped and were set in motion by Vatican II and the forms of traditional spirituality that liberation theology seeks to replace.
186. —. Report from Palermo. P. D. Cummins, trans. New York: Orion Press, 1959.
In his introduction to this volume Aldous Huxley calls Dolci, “one of these modern Franciscans with-a-degree” who have attempted to apply modern sociological and other professional skills to the problems of exploitation, poverty and violence in a new age, but in the same spirit as the medieval saint.
This book is a study of the unemployed in the province of Palermo. It relies on first-hand accounts collected through questionnaires on such areas as education, trade, means of support without work, self-assessment of the situation, religious beliefs, social and political views, opinions on corruption, and ideas for action. Dolci prints the responses verbatim.
187. —. Sicilian Lives. New York: Pantheon, 1982.
Accounts of the individuals who make up the “problem” and solution of poverty and liberation in rural Sicily.
188. —. To Feed the Hungry. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1966.
Not seen.
189. —. Waste. An Eye-Witness Report on Some Aspects of Waste in Western Sicily. R. Munroe, trans. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1964.
This documents “waste” in all its forms: superstition, water pollution and waste, violence and murder, soil erosion, abject poverty and ignorance, waste of natural resources, of human labor and construction, poor housing, depopulation, infant mortality and more. The book is compellingly illustrated with photos, maps, and charts.
190. Hope, Marjorie, and James Young. The Struggle for Humanity. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1979.
Pages 73-107 treat Dolci’s life and struggle for nonviolent change in Sicily, based on interviews and first-hand observations by the authors.
191. Mangione, Jerre. A Passion for Sicilians. The World Around Danilo Dolci. New York: William Morrow, 1968.
Dolci mentions God frequently in his early writings but not in his later ones. Has he given up belief? What is the nature of his nonviolence? What are his hopes for revolution and political change? Who is the man behind the legend? Mangione sets out to find some answers.
He first gives an interesting account of Dolci in the U.S. on a speaking tour and the hostility shown him by some Italian-Americans for the bleak picture he draws of Sicily and of Italian corruption. Mangione then travels to Italy where he encounters a marked hostility or bored disinterest in the man from many of Italy’s most brilliant writers, thinkers and activists, who find that Dolci has outlived his usefulness. Even some of his former closest friends have now turned against him. Why?
Mangione travels to western Sicily, finds even Sicilians living in the region ignorant of his efforts, finds intense opposition to the man even within his
own organization. Much of the hostility stems from Dolci’s trust in native Sicilians on his staff, for his “nonprofessional” staff and methods, for the lack of drama in his work at present. Many are bewildered over his commitment: is it religious, political, naive? Dolci does seem to have trouble as an organizer and in keeping the loyalty of his associates.
Most of Mangione’s book is in the form of a journal, and this does recount several of Dolci’s group actions in Sicily and in Rome. This is important reading for any First-World analyst or activist who seeks to apply the lessons of the Third World and liberation theology to situations close to home.
192. McNeish, James. Fire Under the Ashes. The Life of Danilo Dolci. London: Holder & Stoughton, 1965.
The best and most complete biography of Dolci available in English.
193. Melville, Harcourt. Portraits of Destiny. New York: Sheed & Ward, 1966.
Dolci is covered on pages 48-97. Focuses on his life, work in Sicily, the Centro Studi, his personality. A good, brief introduction.
194. Peachment, Brian. The Defiant Ones: Dramatic Studies of Modern Social Reformers. Oxford: Religious Education Press, 1969.
Discusses Dolci.
195. Waller, Ross D. Danilo Dolci. Manchester: Manchester Library and Philosophical Society. Memoirs and Proceedings, vol. 102, 1959-1960.
Not seen.
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