An Abiding Faith in Liberation Theology

In the Vatican, liberation theology also fell out of favor. Ratzinger, considered a liberal reformer in his younger years, became point man for Pope John Paul II on the issue after he was named chairman of the church's doctrinal watchdog agency in 1981. He called outspoken priests to Rome and censured them on grounds that they were abandoning the church's spiritual role for inappropriate socioeconomic activism.

Many bishops seen as left-wing were replaced with more conservative leaders, and outspoken advocates such as Boff were silenced. Boff, a Franciscan friar and an editor at Vozes, the major Catholic magazine and publishing house in Brazil, was ordered to undergo nearly a year of penitent silence and repeatedly banned from teaching or publishing his work.

As liberation theology fell out of favor, the charismatic Catholic movement, which infuses evangelical vigor into church services through energetic songs and advocates individual fulfillment, began to gain popularity. Today charismatic Masses attract thousands of high-spirited worshipers in Brazilian cities.

"I guess I'm a dinosaur . . . someone from the last century," said Fernando Altmeyer, an unrepentant liberation theologian who left the priesthood to marry but still works as the Catholic University ombudsman here. "Today in Brazil, the emphasis is on the charismatic priests. But maybe it's like 'Jurassic Park,' " he mused. "Maybe pterodactyls can come back again."

According to some Catholic observers, though, liberation theology has evolved to avoid going extinct.

In the post-Cold War world, proponents have shifted their focus and vocabulary away from class struggle. Boff, who left the priesthood in 1992, now devotes much of his writing and speaking about ecological concerns. Other liberation theologians champion Catholic women's rights and racial justice.

The Rev. Julio Lancelotti, 58, who works in a gritty industrial neighborhood in Sao Paulo, said he was keeping alive the "preferential option for the poor" that was the core of liberation theology by helping homeless people and running a shelter for children born with the AIDS virus.

"It is important to work with them, to let them know . . . they are also children of God," he said. "We are thinking of the church from their point of view. That principle is still alive."

In the rural provinces of the Amazon, liberation theology is also being applied through the church's activism in land conflicts, which continue to spark violence. An American nun, Dorothy Stang, was murdered earlier this year in the northern state of Para, where she fought property holders to secure land for poor peasants.

Bishop Pedro Casadaliga, 77, from the eastern state of Mato Grasso, said he had long followed the tenets of liberation theology. In the 1980s, he recounted in a telephone interview, he was called to Rome to meet with church officials who were alarmed by his support of Nicaraguan revolutionaries and his public statements that powerful countries had "sucked the blood" from Latin America.

Casadaliga survived the scolding and continued his church work until this year, when he said he was granted a request for retirement. Then he added a bitter comment about Benedict, his theological nemesis.

"I think the pope should ask for retirement as well," Casadaliga said. Still, he tempered his criticism with hope, saying it was too early to tell how the pope might respond to the new strain of liberation theology. He also noted that Benedict's first speeches have struck harmonious chords aimed at unifying the church -- even among members like himself who fell out of favor decades ago and remain at odds with the official line.

"When [Benedict] was young, he had very progressive ideas," Casadaliga said. "Maybe he will open his mind again."