User:Western2023/Latin American liberation theology

Colombia:
Colombia is generally known for the presence for Liberation Theology. However, Liberation Theology in Colombia focused on the broader radical movements of human rights and issues of racial inequality. While it is less significant today, it has not disappeared.

Camilo Torres Restrepo
Camilo Torres Restrepo (1929–1966) was a priest, a guerrilla, and a sociologist. Torres was convinced that Marxism and Christianity were the only two movements that could bring political change, he concluded that violence was crucial for the change of the Colombian poor. Even though he is often associated with the liberation theology approach, he cannot be properly considered a theologian of liberation since this Christian theological approach fully developed at the end of the 1960s, shortly after his death. He resigned from his university position and joined the guerillas. He was killed fighting for the National Liberation Army (ELN).

Gerardo Valencia Cano
Bishop Geraldo Valencia Cano was born on August 26, 1917, in Santo Domingo, Antioquia. He was an Apostolic Prefect of Vaupés (1949-1953), Apostolic Vicar of Buenaventura (1953-1972), participated in the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council (1962-1965), was the first President of the Department of Missions of CELAM (1966), and the director of the Colombian Anthropology Center of the Missions and Ethnia magazine. He organized the First Continental Meeting of the Latin American Missions in Melgar (Tolima) in 1966.

Bishop Valencia Cano devoted his career to missionary work with the Afro-Colombians and the Indigenous in Vaupés and Buenaventura. Over time, Bishop Cano became increasingly involved with social issues and the justice for Afro-Colombians. He argued for the use of the term "moreno" instead of "negro" as a more sincere way of associating people with darker skin color. Addressing the social and radical changes he used a weekly radio broadcast. As he became more involved with social justice, he hosted the second meeting of the Golconda Priest movement. Critics labeled him the "Red Bishop" and called him communist. After his death in a mysterious plane crash on January 21, 1972, he is remembered as the bishop of the blacks for his work with Afro-Colombians. Before his death, he was considered the highest institutional support for liberation theology in the Colombian Catholic Church.

The Golconda Statement by Colombian Priests
In 1968, a group of Colombian priests saw the revolution as the only way to overcome "underdevelopment" and become more modernized. The document was prepared by the second meeting of an association which is known as "The Golconda Priest Group." The priests came up with the name "Golconda" during their first meeting in July 1968 held in Voit, Cundinamarca. The second meeting was held in Buenaventura, hosted by Bishop Valencia Cano. The coordination of the priests was designed for study of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Populorum Progressio and for discussion on the conditions of the Second Episcopal Conference. Golconda intended to: "employ a scientific method for analysis and action; condemn the dominant nature of imperialism; confront the power of the traditional parties; end the relationships with the conservative structures of the state; and start a revolution for modernizing Colombia." Reaction to the Golconda statement was strongly negative from both the Church and the Colombian government.

The Church and Colombia's Civil War
During the low-intensity civil war between the guerillas and the Colombian government, progressive Catholics were some of the most powerful advocates for human rights. However, church members were targeted by the Colombian military for their human rights works. One Colombian newspaper calculated, "between 1984 and September of 2011, two bishops, 79 priests, eight men and women religious, and three seminarians have been killed in Colombia alone.  And, for the most part, these victims have been advocates for the poor and have been killed by right-wing paramilitaries aligned with the Colombian state and military."