Aquino, NCR, October 2015, 1of17

Theology and Liberation: Deep Voices from the South

Mara Pilar Aquino*

This conference is taking place after a long process of careful preparation.

Throughout this process, both the organizers and speakers engaged in fruitful
conversation about the thematic content to be addressed. From the outset, we
learned that the NCR was interested in exploring the future of the U.S. Catholic
Church from different perspectives. The theme New Faces, New Voices, New
Ways of Being Church seeks to encompass such interest. As a Latin American
Feminist Catholic Theologian, of Mexican origin, I immediately thought about the
contributions that religious actors and theologies from the global South1 are
making to a desired future, one in which we all can flourish and live-well together.
In my intervention, the expression deep voices from the South makes reference

* The content presented in this text is an abbreviated version, adapted to the NCR
50th Anniversary Conference, of a forthcoming publication on the World Forum on
Theology and Liberation (WFTL). This publication will be released in early Spring
2016. Please see: Mara Pilar Aquino, Justice, Knowledge, and Gratitude:
Embracing the World Forum on Theology and Liberation, in Religion, Human
Dignity and Liberation, ed. Gerald M. Boodoo (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock
Publishers, forthcoming Spring 2016).

Aquino, NCR, October 2015, 2of17

to perspectives which have been, and continue to be ignored, or left out of the
conversation by the dominant Western European global North.
That expression also seeks to retrieve and keep alive the concerns of the
Second Vatican Council about the deeper longings of humanity for a life of
fullness, justice, and freedom. The kind of Church envisioned by Gaudium et Spes
is that of a universal religious body actively engaged in collaboration with other
social and religious actors for the promotion of solidarity, peace, and international
social justice. This is a Church committed to dialogue and respect of differences, a
global community of faith that meets the aspirations of peoples in their joys and
hopes, griefs and anxieties, particularly of those who are poor or in any way
afflicted.2
The title and description of my reflection this morning wish to honor both,
the thematic focus of this conference and the insights of Gaudium et Spes in terms
of contribution to shaping the future of the Catholic Church. To this end, rather
than pessimism or hopelessness, I declare to you that the deep voices from the
South are active and alive in todays world, and that there are reasons for hope. In
the current century, new transformative processes have emerged encompassing
social and religious actors, mobilization initiatives, and theological epistemologies,
strengthening together the affirmation that Another World is Possible. From my

Aquino, NCR, October 2015, 3of17

experience and perspective, contribution to a better future can be illustrated by

taking a look at the activities of the World Forum on Theology and Liberation,
which takes place at the heart of the World Social Forum. I believe that the work of
this Forum is crucial for continuing creative imagination and practice in the
interest of building a future of justice together. The images and text displayed in
the PowerPoint are intended to share with you a bit of this experience.
What is the importance of the World Social Forum? Founded in the year
two-thousand-one (2001) in Brazil, this is the largest space in the world that
gathers every year thousands of organizations of civil society from all continents.
Motivated by the shared conviction that Another World is Possible, intellectuals,
students, activists, and non-governmental organizations come together to
deliberate, exchange, and devise strategies for constructive transformation.
Participants at the Forum share in common the values and goals of social justice,
human dignity, human rights, and sustainable communities. The very existence of
the World Social Forum in a context where unjust societal systems obliterate the
hopes of the excluded humanity for dignity and justice is, in itself a statement of
hope.
In todays context, where the global capitalist markets have configured
cultures and societies that admit no alternatives,3 the collective work for just social

Aquino, NCR, October 2015, 4of17

systems and relationships becomes more important than ever. When a myriad of
social and religious actors declare by thought and action that Another World is
Possible, this declaration becomes the organizing platform of lived experiences
open to meet the novelties that the world delivers in the form of hopeful
alternatives. It also reveals that a desired world of justice and peace is not a
chimera produced by deceived minds but the certainty that historical realities have
still more to give of themselves, and that humanity has still to unfold fully its
potentialities. For involved actors motivated by religious faith, hope displays
credibility precisely in the very process of shaping alternatives for better conditions
of life for all. By the historical dynamics of Gods revelation, that process becomes
the revelatory site of Gods living presence in the world.
The World Forum on Theology and Liberation (WFTL) was born at the core
of the World Social Forum as a space for theological reflection on the
transformative practices of the global justice movement that populates the World
Social Forum. It develops concept and understanding from the reflected practices
of the social and religious actors who, confronting the challenges of fragmentation
and relativism, they seek coordination for the purpose of shifting from a position of
systemic subordination to another of socio-political intervention focused on
collaboration in alternatives for constructive social transformation. The World

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Forum on Theology and Liberation seeks to both support in theological terms the
processes of the contemporary global justice movement4 and contribute to the
vision, values, goals, of the World Social Forum. From the perspective of the
Forum, action, reflection, transformation for justice, spirituality, and liberation,
belong together.
The intervention of religious actors in the processes of the global justice
movement brings to light how ones resolve to build a world fashioned by justice
and peace, properly emulates the very being of God as a God of life, justice,
freedom, and liberation. Theological reflection grounded on such intervention
produces ways of understanding infused by a deep hope in humanity and a deep
trust in Gods promises. Intervention for the advancement of human dignity,
human rights, social justice, sustainable communities, and solidarity undertaken by
a pluralism of religious actors is taking place around the world, and this is a
powerful reason for hope.
The deep voices from the South are contributing to fashion a different future
through constructive intervention, and invite everyone to do the same.
Contextualized within the broader panorama of the Forums as embodying the
contemporary global justice movement, this conference convened by the NCR,
acquires greater relevance. That is why, informed by the thought and work of the

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Forums, I am highlighting next ten dimensions that I consider to be crucial for a

lucid intervention of religious actors in fashioning a more hopeful and liberating
future for theology and Church. As I have learned from the Forums, these are
intersecting, mutually enriching dimensions of thought and practice to effect
positive change from diverse global locations.

Liberation. In connection to the World Social Forum, the World Forum on

Theology and Liberation is an open space for the concurrence of contemporary
theologies from diverse religious traditions that commit themselves to theological
reflection on alternatives and possibilities in the world.5 Participants in the Forum
affirm commitment to justice and the option for poor and the marginalized as base
principles of theological practice. The Forum does not seek to represent Liberation
Theology in any contextual modality. Rather, it brings together diverse theologies
concerned about the relationship of theology and liberation for the purpose of
providing support to social and religious actors who seek contribution to building
together a different future. The Forum gives primacy to constructive intervention
a religiously motivated, ethical-political interventionfor structural, communal,
and personal change.

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Justice. From a theological perspective, because justice belongs to the very being
of God, it emanates from God to fashion both human relationships and the morality
of the social order. Palestinian liberation theologian Naim Stifan Ateek speaks about
justice as the most basic cornerstone for life in ones community, nation, and the
world.6 More than an individual option, an illusionary virtue, or an abstract notion,
justice is understood theologically as a life giving reality, as an envisioned and
desired world that sustains the flourishing of humans and creation, and actualizes
the very being of God as a God of life and liberation. The practice of justice belongs
to the core of religions as a way of being in the world to enable the wholeness, wellbeing, and flourishing of all. Todays global context of struggle for human dignity
and social justice benefits from, and welcomes religious actors to insert oneself in
those struggles in proactive ways. The activities and works of the World Forum on
Theology and Liberation seek to facilitate resources for this.

Hospitality. For faith-based actors, hospitality emulates the relationship of God to

the human, receiving everyone into Gods own company for the fullness of life.
Hospitality is guided by dialogue as a principle of humanization. While
understandings of hospitality may include taking it as a virtue, or as a quality of the
human, its relevance for theology is that hospitality has to do primarily with

Aquino, NCR, October 2015, 8of17

relationships characterized by friendship, care, graciousness, compassion, and

welcoming of neighbors and strangers. The religions of the world value and promote
this type of relationships, as opposed to relationships characterized by dominance,
arrogance, and violence. The World Forum on Theology and Liberation has made
an explicit commitment to fostering hospitality not only for strengthening
relationships of care but also for overcoming together relationships of hostility,
resentment, violence, and hate. This is true particularly in contexts of social, cultural,
and religious pluralism.

Pluralism. The variety and complexity of todays global interactions have

established pluralism as an indisputable social and intellectual terrain. The World
Social Forum embraces this terrain as an opportunity for promoting an ethic of
interconnectedness, interdependence, and collaboration. This approach clearly
rejects modes of knowing and doing that serve the interests of ideological
totalitarianism and cognitive imperialism. The Forum fosters a political culture of
inclusiveness and common action based on compatibility of interests and goals for
constructive transformation. Adoption of pluralism does not mean the absence of
conflict. Pluralism challenges everyone to embrace conflict creatively. In the context
of the Forum, reflection on pluralism has given rise to a theology of liberating

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religious pluralism,7 which is a new theological paradigm that opens new paths for
the future of theology.

Interreligious dialogue. In response to destructive conflict situations that have

emerged in the contemporary world, some scholars of the social and political
sciences, diplomats and policy makerslargely based in the U.S. have promoted
interreligious dialogue as a strategy to manage, reduce, dissolve, or prevent those
conflicts, particularly when religious beliefs appear to motivate or instigate them.
From this perspective, religion has become a matter of national security that cannot
be absent from the policymakers calculus. 8 Hegemonic politics have addressed
interreligious dialogue as a mere strategy for social appeasement at the expense of
effective response to the demands of human dignity and structural justice. From the
perspective of the World Forum on Theology and Liberation, the most appropriate
conceptual frame for any approach to interreligious dialogue is an emancipatory
practice grounded on solidarity. The work of theologians in interreligious dialogue
emphasize the practical implications of solidarity in terms of contributing together
to practices of resistance, transformation, and liberation among the many religious
traditions. Interreligious dialogue must be useful for the struggles of the global

Aquino, NCR, October 2015, 10of17

justice movement rather than serving the national security interests of the militaristic
hegemonic powers.

Intercultural Dialogue. The World Social Forum generates conditions of

possibility for intercultural dialogue by making possible a social reality in which a
multiplicity of actors from a pluralism of cultural environments and worldviews
mobilize in the name of another world is possible, seeking its actualization. The
shared embracement of liberation, justice, hospitality, pluralism, and interreligious
dialogue presupposes a way of thinking that, in the name of alternatives for justice
and solidarity, one moves away from homogenizing singularity, such as the one
represented by the current neoliberal capitalist globalization model. While this
model pretends to be the single route to the future, by its own structuring it is
incapable of building a common future of justice and living-well, together.
Intercultural thought and practice, ultimately, keep fostering in its practitioners an
option for hope because, in the words of Ral Fornet-Betancourt, a pioneer of
intercultural philosophy and theology of liberation, intercultural dialogue proposes
to be an alternative to articulate the concrete hopes of everyone who dare to imagine
and to rehearse today, another possible worlds.9

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Convivencia, living together. The interplay of theological, ethical-political

directions that I present here is crucial to the aim of building societies, cultures, and
religions based on convivencia. This is a word in the Spanish language that refers to
living-together in peace and concord, in solidarity and mutual support. In the context
of the Forum, convivencia refers to both, an intellective process lived across
pluralism and diversity that compels one to promote human flourishing, and a set of
relationships lived as positive interactions grounded on commonly accepted values,
such as human dignity, community, hospitality, collaboration, gratitude,
compassion, and solidarity. While ethical values derive from human consciousness
and wisdom, faith practitioners inform them with the symbols and contents of ones
own, or from one or more religious traditions because not one single tradition
possesses the entire key to convivencia. For everyone, however, convivencia is the
outcome of a loving heart.

Peacebuilding. Todays reality of U.S. society and culture demands, perhaps more
than ever before, a strong commitment to educational endeavors by which everyone
gains skills and capacities to address conflict situations constructively, not through
guns and weapons. While this month opened in Oregon with the 45th school
shooting, the Mass Shooting Tracker reports that this year alone 296 mass shootings

Aquino, NCR, October 2015, 12of17

have taken place in the U.S.10 At world level, the Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute reports that in early 2015 there were more wars in 2014 than any
other year since the year 2000. Led by the United States, Russia, China, Germany,
and France continued to be the largest supplier of weapons, accounting for 74 per
cent of the total global volume of arms exports.11 Countries of the geopolitical
South continued to be the recipients of weapons, in which deadly conflict, tension,
anxiety, and insecurity persist. This tragic reality forces religious actors to devise
better responses to the question about: What kind of a future are we seeking to build?
Neither the weapons industry nor inaction by religious actors will bring peace to our
schools and world. On its part, the World Forum on Theology and Liberation affirms
commitment to religious peacebuilding for conflict transformation. It understands
that alternatives for a just world entail strategic responses to overcome destructive
conflict, to reinforce links of solidarity against hateful interaction, and to overcome
political cultures that declare guns and weapons as means for human security.
Religious institutions can and should promote the reduction and eventual elimination
of the U.S.-based weapons industry if a peaceful world is to be sustained.

A Revolutionary Spirituality. Luiz Carlos Susin, a Capuchin Franciscan Friar, a

theology professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, and

Aquino, NCR, October 2015, 13of17

the General Secretary of the World Forum on Theology and Liberation, says as
follows: An ardent spirituality for this time of transformation can only be
revolutionary: the mystic and the prophet require each other.12 Accordingly, the
Forum encourages one to understand that ultimately, thought and practice for
liberation are the expression of a spirituality lived with a prophetic sense as a way
to correspond to Gods gift of grace and hope. Clearly and directly, Christians can
speak of a revolutionary spirituality because it seeks to effect the radical conversion
of peoples consciences, values, hearts, and behaviors. This type of spirituality is
relevant particularly in contexts where society and religion attempt to close the space
for prophecy, hide the martyrs, bury the struggles of people for justice and human
rights, and deny the claims of radical transformation for the flourishing of all humans
and creation. Christians know that the Gospel aims at producing deep, radical
transformations to make possible the coming of Gods Reign. Yes, Another World is
Possible.

Feminism. As the social base of feminist theory and theology, the womens
movement and feminist organizations populate the World Social Forum in
significant ways. From plural social locations and from many religious traditions,
women gather at the Forum to support one another in our commitment to advancing

Aquino, NCR, October 2015, 14of17

womens rights around the world. Struggling together against patterns of social,
cultural, and religious kyriarchy, women are moving from subordination to
intervention for constructive change. Many of us no longer accept societal models
which are insensitive to, or unwilling to meet the fundamental needs of women and
children. Many of us no longer tolerate the pattern of womens exclusion from
sacramental ministry. We continue to devise alternatives of global justice for women
because we believe that Another Religion and Church Are Possible.

Finally, cultivation of gratitude is also crucial for strengthening recognition and

appreciation for those individual and institutional actors whose dedicated work for
human dignity, social justice, and inclusiveness continues to make possible New
Ways of Being Church. Clearly, the NCR has become a source of inspiration, a
trusted source of information for the global communities engaged in shaping
alternatives for society, theology, and Church. I see the NCR as a living force within
the global justice movement, concerned with valuing positively the voice of the
disadvantaged and the marginalized. Much like the World Forum on Theology and
Liberation, the contributions of the NCR are demonstrating both, that the statusquo no-longer stands undisputed, and that in the name of religion, no one has
permission to neglect work for peace, justice, and solidarity. Because of its

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dedication to promote intervention together for an alternative world of justice, the

NCR generates gratefulness and gratitude. Thank you.

Endnotes
1

A point of clarification for the readers of this paper. For the sake of the audience, I will include
in my PowerPoint slides with key definitions, such as the one that I underline below in this note:
The Construction of an Epistemology of the South. By epistemology of the South I mean the
retrieval of new processes of production and valorisation of valid knowledges, whether scientific
or nonscientific, and of new relations among different types of knowledge on the basis of the
practices of the classes and social groups that have suffered, in a systematic way, the oppression
and discrimination caused by capitalism and colonialism. The global South is thus not a
geographical concept, even though the great majority of these populations live in countries of the
Southern hemisphere. The South is here rather a metaphor of the human suffering caused by
capitalism and colonialism at the global level, and a metaphor as well of the resistance to
overcome or minimise such suffering. It is, therefore, an anticapitalist, anti-colonialist, and antiimperialist South. It is a South that also exists in the global North, in the form of excluded,
silenced and marginalised populations, such as undocumented immigrants, the unemployed,
ethnic or religious minorities, and victims of sexism, homophobia and racism.
The two premises of an epistemology of the South are as follows. First, the understanding
of the world is much broader than the Western understanding of the world. This means that the
progressive change of the world may also occur in ways not foreseen by Western thinking,
including critical Western thinking (Marxism not excluded). Second, the diversity of the world is
infinite. It is a diversity that encompasses very distinct modes of being, thinking and feeling,
ways of conceiving of time and the relation among human beings and between humans and nonhumans, ways of facing the past and the future and of collectively organising life, the production
of goods and services, as well as leisure. This immensity of alternatives of life, conviviality and
interaction with the world is largely wasted because the theories and concepts developed in the
global North and employed in the entire academic world do not identify such alternatives. When
they do, they do not valorise them as being valid contributions towards constructing a better
society, Boaventura de Sousa Santos. Public Sphere and Epistemologies of the South, Africa
Development, Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, Vol. XXXVII,
No. 1 (2012): 51. The underline is mine. See also, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Epistemologies
of the South. Justice Against Epistemicide (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2014).
2

On this paragraph, see Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes, Pastoral Constitution on

Aquino, NCR, October 2015, 16of17

the Church in the Modern Word, nn. 1, 9, 28, 40, 90-91, Accessed October 4, 2015,
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/.
Franz J. Hinkelammert, Determinismo y autoconstitucin del sujeto: Las leyes que se
imponen a espaldas de los actores y el orden por el desorden, Revista Pasos 64 (March-April
1996): 20.
3

From the theories of social movements and new social movements, and in connection to the
World Social Forum, V.M. Moghadam describes this term as follows: The global justice
movement (GJM) has been in formation since at least the late 1990s and has become the subject
of many new studies. It is being analyzed as a reaction to neoliberal globalization, an expression
of globalization-from-below, a key element of global civil society, and an exemplar of the
transnationalization of collective action. Comprised of NGOs, social movement and civil society
organizations, transnational advocacy networks, unions, religious groups, and individual activists
opposed to neoliberalism and war, the global justice movement exists, to varying degrees of
coordination and activism, across regions, see Valentine M. Moghadam, Globalization and
Social Movements: Islamism, Feminism, and the Global Justice Movement, Second edition
(Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2013), 171.
World Forum on Theology and Liberation, Charter of Principles of the World Forum on
Theology and Liberation, n. 8, Accessed October 5, 2015, http://wftlofficial.org/quemsomos.html.
5

Naim Stifan Ateek, A Palestinian Christian Cry for Reconciliation, Third printing (Maryknoll,
N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2010), 16.
Jos Mara Vigil, Epilogue. Pluralistic Theology: Data, Tasks, Spirituality, in Intercontinental
Liberation Theology of Religious Pluralism, ed., Jos Mara Vigil, Luiza Tomita, and Marcelo
Barros, vol. IV of Series Along the Many Paths of God, Ecumenical Association Third World
Theologians (Digital edition: Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians, 2010), 240,
241, accessed October 5, 2015, http://tiempoaxial.org/AlongTheManyPaths/.
7

Douglas Johnston, Introduction. Realpolitik Expanded, in Faith-Based Diplomacy Trumping

Realpolitik, ed. Douglas Johnston (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 4-5.
8

Ral Fornet-Betancourt, Trasformacin Intercultural de la Filosofa: Ejercicios Tericos y

Prcticos de la Filosofa Intercultural desde Latinoamrica en el Contexto de la Globalizacin
(Bilbao: Descle de Brouwer, 2001), 209. My translation from Spanish.
Definition of mass shooting: The old FBI definition of Mass Murder (not even the most
recent one) is four or more people murdered in one event. It is only logical that a Mass Shooting
is four or more people shot in one event, Mass Shooting Tracker, Main Page, Accessed October
2, 2015, http://shootingtracker.com/wiki/Main_Page.
10

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Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Summary. The SIPRI Yearbook 2015.
Armaments, Disarmament and International Security, SIPRI Yearbook Online, Accessed October
2, 2015, http://www.sipri.org/yearbook/main.
11

Luiz Carlos Susin, Introductory Remarks and Welcome, in Spirituality for Another Possible
World, ed. Mary N. Getui, Luiz Carlos Susin, Beatrice W. Churu (Nairobi: Twaweza
Communications Ltd and World Forum on Theology and Liberation, 2008), 14.
12