The concept of a preferential option for the poor calls for a special attention to the weakest members of a particular society. Such an option is a challenge for the ethics of science as well. How can we pursue an "option for the poor" in the humanities? Can we do that without generating "ideologies"? This volume gives an account of these questions. Representatives of sociology, religious studies, law, economics, theology, history and philosophy try to answer this question. It is manifest that the discussion of an option for the poor is also a matter of intellectual integrity.
Since the publication of Gustavo Gutiérrez's 1973 groundbreaking work, A Theology of Liberation, much has been written on liberation theology and its central premise of the preferential option for the poor. Arguably, this has been one of the most important yet controversial theological themes of the twentieth century. As globalization creates greater gaps between the rich and the poor, and as the situation for many of the world’s poor worsens, there is an ever greater need to understand the gift and challenge of Christian faith from the context of the poor and marginalized of our society. This volume draws on the thought of leading international scholars and explores how the Christian tradition can help us understand the theological foundations for the option for the poor. The central focus of the book revolves around the question, How can one live a Christian life in a world of destitution? The contributors are concerned not only with a social, economic, or political understanding of poverty but above all with the option for the poor as a theological concept. While these essays are rooted in a solid grounding of our present “reality,” they look to the past to understand some of the central truths of Christian faith and to the future as a source of Christian hope. Following Gustavo Gutiérrez's essay on the multidimensionality of poverty, Elsa Tamez, Hugh Page, Jr., Brian Daley, and Jon Sobrino identify a central theological premise: poverty is contrary to the will of God. Drawing on scripture, the writings of the early fathers, the witness of Christian martyrs, and contemporary theological reflection, they argue that poverty represents the greatest challenge to Christian faith and discipleship. David Tracy and J. Matthew Ashley carry their reflection forward by examining the option for the poor in light of apocalyptic thought. Virgilio Elizondo, Patrick Kalilombe, María Pilar Aquino, M. Shawn Copeland, and Mary Catherine Hilkert examine the challenges of poverty with respect to culture, Africa, race, and gender. Casiano Floristán and Luis Maldonado explore the relationship between poverty, sacramentality, and popular religiosity. The final two essays by Aloysius Pieris and Michael Signer consider the option for the poor in relationship to other major world religions, particularly an Asian theology of religions and the meaning of care for the poor within Judaism.
Este libro constituye una solución a algo que Vaticano II denunció como el gran déficit del catolicismo actual. Ese déficit es la separación entre fe y vida. En efecto: los textos que siguen de María Luisa Oliveres, que aparecieron a lo largo de los años en uno de los diarios principales de España, no se publicaron en las páginas de opinión, sino en la página dedicada a temas religiosos. Pero en ellos se habla de la vida: de cosas como la inmigración, los palestinos, la utopía de la historia humana, el PNUD, la libertad para salir del propio cenáculo, el economista Stiglitz o los pobres, las guerras, el cuidado, el dolor del mundo o la aceptación de la diversidad... Es decir: se habla de lo que le importa a Dios, no de los que interesa a los guardianes de la institución u “oficiales” de la Iglesia, a los que parece que sólo interesa la vida intrauterina y la del más allá. Aquí la pasión creyente y el sentido de la gratuidad llevan a esta importante advertencia: no basta defender causas nobles por muy nobles que sean; además hay que defenderlas noblemente. De modo que, si la separación entre fe y vida afectaba a los creyentes, esta otra observación vale para todos, sea cual sea la cosmovisión que profesen; y ella misma ya es un acto de fe.
A tenth anniversary edition of the classic introduction to mujerista theology for Hispanic women offers an inspirational look at the everyday struggles, insights, attitudes, and lives of Hispanic women from the perspective of Hispanic identiy in North American society, with summaries of the sources, aims, goals, and tenets of mujerista theology. (Christianity)
Este libro te ayudará a: * Conocer y vivir mejor la Palabra de Dios que leemos los domingos * Conversar con Jesús sobre aspectos importantes de tu vida * Enriquecer tu Eucaristía dominical al comprender mejor la liturgia * Fortalecer tu espiritualidad, vocación y misión cristianas 34 Sesiones para jóvenes: * Centradas en las lecturas dominicales * Organizadas en momentos de oración, reflexión y acción * Animadas con el mismo espíritu que La Biblia Católica para Jóvenes * Diseñadas con un proceso de Lectio Divina apropiado para jóvenes Contienen: * Oraciones y pautas para orar personal y comunitariamente * Comentarios bíblicos y litúrgicos * Actividades comunitarias y celebraciones de fe * Reflexiones sobre la vida diaria y situaciones especiales Útiles para: * Planear retiros y sesiones de pastoral juvenil * Preparar homilías y sesiones catequéticas * Enriquecer la espiritualidad de la juventud
On March 24, 1980, a sniper shot and killed Archbishop Óscar Romero as he celebrated mass. Today, nearly four decades after his death, the world continues to wrestle with the meaning of his witness. Blood in the Fields: Óscar Romero, Catholic Social Teaching, and Land Reform treats Romero’s role in one of the central conflicts that seized El Salvador during his time as archbishop and that plunged the country into civil war immediately after his death: the conflict over the concentration of agricultural land and the exclusion of the majority from access to land to farm. Drawing extensively on historical and archival sources, Blood in the Fields examines how and why Romero advocated for justice in the distribution of land, and the cost he faced in doing so. In contrast to his critics, who understood Romero’s calls for land reform as a communist-inspired assault on private property, Blood in the Fields shows how Romero relied upon what Catholic Social Teaching calls the common destination of created goods, drawing out its implications for what property is and what possessing it entails. For Romero, the pursuit of land reform became part of a more comprehensive politics of common use, prioritizing access of all peoples to God’s gift of creation. In this way, Blood in the Fields reveals how close consideration of this conflict over land opened up into a much more expansive moral and theological landscape, in which the struggle for justice in the distribution of land also became a struggle over what it meant to be human, to live in society with others, and even to be a follower of Christ. Understanding this conflict and its theological stakes helps clarify the meaning of Romero’s witness and the way God’s work to restore creation in Christ is cruciform.
Written by prominent scholars from a wide range of disciplines, this diverse collection of essays discusses the contemporary relevance of the prophetic mode and challenges in the areas of religion, politics, and society. The contributors critically investigate the creative interaction between the religious and secular domains and explain how the prophetic mode can provide solutions to pressing problems such as war, oppression, poverty, hunger, and discrimination. The essays explore possibilities of achieving an integration of prophetic ethics, social scientific understanding, and democratic and constitutional statecraft and they describe how the prophetic mode currently manifests itself in political philosophy, history, religion, and literature.
