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Article Excerpt
THREE TENDENCIES have been evident in Latin American theology, especially Catholic theology, since Vatican II: traditionalist theology with persistent appeals to ecclesiastical documents; progressive postconciliar theology; and liberation theology. This pluralism reflects different pastoral projects, ecclesiologies, and social alliances. The three tendencies sometimes overlap, and each includes a corresponding moral theology. (1)
In this survey, we will stress where Latin American moral theology differs from moral theology elsewhere and how it has been evolving over the last several years. Concretely, this means attending chiefly to fundamental moral theology and social ethics, especially as liberation theology, broadly understood, has contributed to theological ethics.
MORAL THEOLOGY OF LIBERATION
Although liberation theology is not simply moral theology, it arose out of ethical indignation and inspires a new way of doing moral theology. (2) Until recently, however, the moral theology that is part of liberation theology, though suggestive and promising, has been fragmentary and unsystematic. (3) Texts by coauthors Antonio Moser and Bernardino Leers and by Tony Mifsud marked important advances. (4)
Recent works by two Colombians, Mauricio Garcia Duran and Carlos Novoa, summarize the main lines of this moral theology that developed throughout the 1970s and 1980s. This discourse is still widely accepted, even though few insist on the "liberation theology" label today and many recent developments have taken place.
More important than specific content is the method that "classic" liberation theology employs. (5) First, moral theology is a "second act" that presupposes practical commitment. "Orthopraxis" feeds moral reflection and vice versa. Second, moral theology assumes the perspective of the poor (as Gustavo Gutierrez has stressed for theology in general). Third, moral theology makes use of three "mediations" or theoretical instruments to illuminate reality: empirical analysis, especially social science (others would add philosophy and utopian imagination (6)), theological interpretation, and practical orientations. (7) This corresponds to the method of Catholic Action groups: see, judge, act.
Carlos Novoa has recently summarized the general theological content of moral theology from a liberation perspective. (8) According to him, Latin American moral theology affirms that the moral life is the practice of love; it is discipleship. Following Christ, however, is not simple imitation. Rather, as Jon Sobrino has emphasized, it entails becoming incarnate in our own world and responding to it creatively, as Jesus responded to his. (9)
Christian morality arises from an encounter with God in community and is rooted in a spirituality of childlike faith (see Gutierrez). It seeks to discern and to do God's will, namely that God's reign be realized among us in the form of an "integral liberation" including new persons, a new society of brother- and sisterhood, a new Church. Responding to God's gracious gift entails a practical option for the poor and a praxis aimed at social transformation. (10)
This summarizes fundamental moral theology in a liberation perspective before important social changes that began as early as the 1980s--changes such as the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the failure of Latin American revolutionary movements; the emergence of the "new economy," and the consolidation of neoliberal capitalism with its structural adjustment programs, structural unemployment, and the debt crisis; the legitimation crisis of traditional politics (governments, parties, guerrilla movements); the growth of feminism and indigenous awareness; new ecological sensitivity; conservative restoration within the Catholic Church; the challenge of postmodern thought; and, finally, increasing social disintegration, on the one hand, with the proliferation of non-government groups in civil society, on the other. All of these developments have had an impact on Latin American theology, including moral theology.
Here we will first indicate schematically what we consider the principal recent trends in Latin American moral theology and then treat a number of them to the extent that they appear deserving of attention for their novelty, their problematic nature, or the promise they hold for moral theology.
Today, virtually all moral theologians in Latin America locate solidarity at the center of their ethic. For example, without abandoning a liberation perspective, Miguel Yanez of Argentina proposes "a new model based on the category of solidarity." (11) Solidarity moves to center stage, for one thing, because it responds to the individualism and competitiveness of an increasingly pervasive liberal ethos. Secondly, it responds to social and economic exclusion: Whereas early liberation theology emphasized the economic dependency of Latin America on rich countries, today, whether or not they consider that general diagnosis valid (many do), virtually all moral theologians stress the importance of the widespread social and economic exclusion generated by the "new economy" with its neoliberal adjustment programs over the last 20 years. Thirdly, solidarity seems to many to translate love as described in the New Testament into contemporary Latin American culture. Finally, since recent ecclesiastical documents stress solidarity, even highly conservative Catholic currents now use that language. (12) However else we may characterize it, Latin American moral theology is everywhere a theology of solidarity. We return to this theme later in our article.
Several additional developments are also widespread in moral theology. Many call for consolidating the postconciliar renewal of moral theology with a greater emphasis on freedom. There have been advances in developing a philosophical grounding for theological ethics. New attention has been directed to issues such as neoliberal economics, Catholic social teaching, women, the environment, bioethics, human rights, and foreign debt. Culture and ethnicity receive more attention than in the past, in particular, African American and indigenous reality. We will review most of these topics, devoting more attention to some than to others.
CONSOLIDATING POSTCONCILIAR RENEWAL
Many moralists recognize the need to consolidate the more personalist approach of postconciliar moral theology in Latin America where authoritarian culture still marks both church and society. Brazilian Antonio Moser recently appraised the past 50 years of mainly European postconciliar renewal. (13) He celebrates the retrieval of fundamental biblical symbols: covenant, reign of God, and the following of Jesus which stresses love, mercy, and the enthusiasm of the Beatitudes over law, duty, and punitive justice. (14) Still, while his assessment is mainly positive, Moser observes that this theology deals more with the "short" social relations of friendship and sexual intimacy than with the "long" relations of institutional life or the relations of humans to the non-human environment. It takes psychology and cultural anthropology more seriously than social sciences or environmental science. Moser also regrets the absence of a "dialectical perspective of a society in conflict and, above all, the perspective of the poor." (15) This leads to a failure to call for deep social transformations. Finally, ecumenical and interreligious collaboration has been meager. (16)
Fellow Brazilian Marcio Fabri dos Anjos calls for a decisive break from legalist casuistry. He points to the gap between official morality and popular morality. Without falling into a crude pragmatism, writes Anjos, it is also necessary to avoid insisting on abstract norms "without at least asking ourselves if they `work'." (17) While moral theology speaks of limit cases, realism forces us to admit that most people in Latin America and throughout the world have been living in limit situations of poverty for many years. Theologians need to listen to the victims in "exceptional situations" such as the oppressed and homosexuals. They must listen to women who are urging that ethical argument incorporate reasons of the heart, and pursue a more holistic approach that overcomes body-soul dualisms and patriarchal modes of doing ethics. Today's pluralism demands a more participatory approach to developing ethical principles. (18)
Anjos fears that liberation theology's insistence on social commitment may have reinforced the image of a divine Taskmaster. (19) Belgian born Jose Comblin, also working in Brazil, concurs, arguing the need for a theology of personal freedom to replace overemphasis on personal sin. Comblin criticizes recent church documents and liberation theology for failing to supply this need: "The greatest reproach that can be made against liberation theology is that it has not devoted enough attention to the true drama of human persons, to their destiny, to their vocation, and consequently to the ground of the issue of freedom." (20)
In Called for Freedom Comblin sketches how he would develop this theology whose deep roots stretch back to Paul and John. He concludes that a "true liberation of the `self' lies at the very heart of all specific liberation struggles." (21)
NEOLIBERALISM AND THE MARKET
The gravest moral problem of Latin America is poverty and structural inequality. This has economic, political, social, and cultural dimensions. The new high-tech economy and the globalization of market-relations and communications are not only reshaping local economies but also reconfiguring the relationship involving the economy, the state, and civil society in Latin America.
In 1996 the major superiors of the Jesuits in Latin America issued a letter and an accompanying study document on neoliberalism in the continent. (22) These circulated widely. The study document defines neoliberalism as "a radical conception of capitalism that tends to absolutize the market and transform it into the means, the method, and the end of all intelligent and rational human behavior.... This absolute market disallows regulation in any area." (23) Often associated with the Reagan and Thatcher governments, this model of capitalism has been promoted in Latin America since 1980, especially by multilateral lending agencies such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Through them, the industrial powers imposed "structural adjustment" programs as a condition for debt relief and for loans in general. The so-called "Washington consensus" of policy principles behind this model broke down in the late 1990s in the wake of the Asian and Mexican financial crises.
The Jesuit documents articulate views that are widely held in Christian circles; all of the moral theologians we have studied on the subject share their general perspective. According to this "Latin consensus," the market is a useful, even necessary means for stimulating production and allocating resources. However, in the "new economy," overreliance on the market has aggravated social inequality, further concentrated wealth and income, and left millions mired in misery. The principal social division is now no longer between capital and industrial labor but between those who are integrated into the market and those excluded from it. Governments have abandoned functions that are necessary to protect the weak and the environment and to ensure the common good. Struggling local businesses have gone bankrupt as controls over foreign investment were lifted. Financial speculation has destabilized entire national economies. New economic relations have torn society apart, generating unemployment, crime, and corruption as well as displacing rural and indigenous populations.
Most theologians would also agree that neoliberal policies reflect "a culture founded upon a conception of the human person and society incompatible with the values of the gospel." (24) For, by aggressively marketing not only consumerism but also individualism and exaggerated competition, neoliberalism undermines spiritual, communitarian, and family values.
Latin American theologians have no simple formulas for an alternative society. However, most would agree on the goal of a society "in which no one remains excluded from work and from access to basic goods necessary to achieve personal fulfilment ... [a] society which respects [local] cultural traditions ... [a] democratic society, structured in a participatory manner." (25)
While this general diagnosis and goal constitute common ground, theologians occupy different places on it. We distinguish here between those who are more skeptical of the market, more influenced by Marx and critical social science, more sensitive to the obstacles posed by entrenched class interests, and those who are less fearful of market forces and more reliant on Catholic social teaching. The former group tends to favor transforming society, the latter reforming it.
Social Transformation: Gospel and Critical Social Theory
One of those calling for transformation is Enrique Dussel, an Argentine living in Mexico. Dussel's Etica de la liberacion en la edad de la globalizacion y de la exclusion is a 600-page foundation-argument for liberation ethics. (26) Even though it is a work of philosophy and not at all confined to the critique of the market economy, we want to indicate its importance here. For Dussel is a theologian as well as a philosopher, and this book marks a major advance in his thought. (27) It will surely have an impact on theological ethics and is directly relevant to the ethical evaluation of economic systems. (28)
Dussel bases his ethics on an initial tripod of criteria. He develops both a material and a formal foundation for ethical obligations and then adds the requirement that such obligations be practically feasible. The first criterion (the material criterion) is the obligation to seek the "production, reproduction and development" of each human life in community. (29) Fostering life, in its multifaceted richness, is the truth-criterion for ethics. (30) The second (the formal criterion) is the criterion of validity. It specifies that the intermediate ethical principles by which the material principle is applied must take into account the views of all affected parties, as the discourse ethics of thinkers such as K. O. Apel and J. Habermas requires. (31) (By affirming both a material and a formal criterion, Dussel rejects single-principle ethical systems: both materialistic reductionisms such as Nietzsche's vitalism and formal reductionisms such as Kant's ethic.) Third, ethical proposals must be feasible. It makes no sense to demand a planned economy that is technically, economically, politically, or culturally impossible. It is necessary to use "instrumental reason" to determine the adequate means to desired ends. (32) According to these three general principles, action is ethical when it seeks to produce and develop human life most adequately (in its non-human environment) and to foster social participation. (33)
However, Dussel does not consider these general criteria sufficient. In the second half of his book, he applies liberation methodology, developing three parallel "critical" principles from the perspective of history's victims. First, one recognizes the dignity of the victims whose lives are truncated or destroyed. (34) This leads to the insight that, for them, what is "good" and "valid" according to prevailing ethical standards (the reigning Sittlichkeit) is actually evil and invalid. This in turn leads to assuming coresponsibility for the victim. Second, the victims, excluded from decision making, need to unmask the dominant ethical discourse and elaborate an ethic that will address the causes of their oppression and aim toward a society without victims. (35) Finally, what this new "liberation ethics" proposes must be practically feasible. (36)
As for capitalism, Dussel concludes that it violates the three critical principles: far from defending life, it excludes the majority from the banquet table as well as from the discussion table where decisions are taken regarding who lives and who dies. Finally, it uses instrumental rationality in service of partial interests. Dussel therefore calls not for reform of the system but for its transformation into a different kind of society. This does not necessarily mean "revolution," since conditions for revolution occur only rarely,...
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