> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://aontachtmedia.ie/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Liberation Theology: A Real Alternative to ‘Evangelical’ Influence in Ireland?
- URL: https://aontachtmedia.ie/liberation-theology-a-real-alternative-to-evangelical-influence-in-ireland/
- Published: 2026-11-06T15:43:21.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-06T15:43:21.000Z
- Description: Ireland’s contemporary crises - housing precarity, the unfinished reckoning with institutional abuse, climate injustice, and the systematic neglect of the most vulnerable - demand precisely the analysis and commitment that liberation theology provides.
- Author: Tadgh Ó Cuill-Maonlaí
- Tags: Critical Analysis

In contemporary Ireland, still reckoning with the [long shadow of institutional Catholicism](https://www.google.ie/books/edition/The%5FBest%5FCatholics%5Fin%5Fthe%5FWorld/wAqREAAAQBAJ?hl=en&ref=aontachtmedia.ie) \- its collusion with the state, its failures on abuse, and its historical role in social control (and for republicans, their repeated [excommunication and marginalisation](https://www.irishtimes.com/history/2022/09/11/catholic-church-should-apologise-for-treatment-of-irish-republicans-during-civil-war-event-hears/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) \- with Liam Mellows, simultaneously an [ardent Catholic](https://historyireland.com/bookworm-84/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) and [revolutionary socialist](https://www.dib.ie/biography/mellows-william-joseph-liam-a5795?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), attacking [the Irish hierarchy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS%5FhK49eE8A&ref=aontachtmedia.ie) for their attitudes) - a US-influenced Catholic-right continues to mobilise around a narrow set of culture-war priorities, often backed by external funding networks (they do so in a way that, ironically, doesn’t really feel Catholic at all - their strategy and language [seemingly replicates](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-law-in-context/article/us-conservative-advocacy-organizations-and-rightwing-legal-mobilization-in-europe/42683FAE1162BCC6C30D59BAC3264DE2?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) American Evangelical Protestantism). 

Against this stands a far more radical and historically grounded current within the Catholic tradition: [liberation theology](https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/08/17/theology-liberation-gustavo-gutierrez-245850/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie). Born from the concrete struggles of the poor and working-class in Latin America, this theology insists that authentic Christian faith demands a “preferential option for the poor” and active commitment to structural transformation. It’s a [class-based theology](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41603-021-00137-3?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) of social justice and revolution in the deepest sense - revolution understood as the dismantling of systems that produce poverty, violence and exclusion (labelled in such theology as “[structural violence](https://scispace.com/pdf/ending-structural-violence-a-rawlsian-approach-to-liberation-9jsm0uvyi5.pdf?ref=aontachtmedia.ie)”).

Liberation theology took systematic form in the work of the Peruvian Dominican, Fr. Gustavo Gutiérrez. His 1971 book ‘[*A Theology of Liberation*](https://archive.org/details/theologyoflibera0000guti/mode/2up)’ declared that theology must begin from the reality of the oppressed, not from abstract speculation. Poverty isn’t a natural condition or a spiritual ideal; it’s a scandal produced by unjust structures that Christians are obligated to transform. Gutiérrez distinguished between [the “scandalous state” of material poverty](https://www.wsls.com/news/world/2024/10/23/peruvian-theologian-the-rev-gustavo-gutierrez-father-of-influential-liberation-theology-has-died/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), which God rejects, and a spiritual posture that places the poor at the centre of history. The [1968 Medellín conference of Latin American bishops](https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/a-new-pentecost-medellin?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) formally adopted this orientation, committing the Church to stand with the poor against systems of exploitation. The 1979 Puebla conference further [crystallised the preferential option for the poor as official teaching](https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/roman-catholic-ethics-and-preferential-option-poor/2007-05?ref=aontachtmedia.ie). Drawing on the [Exodus narrative](https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/dissertations/43/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), the prophetic tradition, and critical social analysis, liberation theology fused faith with the demand for historical liberation. Class analysis is also an [important part](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2633712?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) of the concept.

This was never solely theoretical. Across Latin America, Christian [base communities](https://academic.oup.com/book/27857/chapter-abstract/198184177?redirectedFrom=fulltext&ref=aontachtmedia.ie) became [schools of consciousness and organisation](https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10125268/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie). Peasants, workers and the urban poor read scripture through the lens of their own oppression and translated that reading into collective action. The theology also intersected directly with [revolutionary movements](https://www.jstor.org/stable/45331229?ref=aontachtmedia.ie). Colombian priest Camilo Torres [joined the ELN guerrilla organisation and was killed in combat in 1966](https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/ap-top-news/2026/02/17/a-60-year-mystery-ends-as-colombian-officials-identify-the-remains-of-guerrilla-priest-camilo-torres?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), declaring that if Jesus was physically present, [he would be a ‘guerrillero.’](https://books.google.ie/books?id=0I3HtwAACAAJ&redir%5Fesc=y&ref=aontachtmedia.ie) In Nicaragua, [the Cardenal brothers - both priests - actively supported the Sandinista struggle](https://www.americamagazine.org/news/2016/02/23/nicaragua-jesuit-fernando-cardenal-dies-82/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) and [recruited young Catholics into the movement](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/father-fernando-cardenal-priest-who-was-expelled-by-the-jesuits-for-joining-the-sandinista-regime-following-the-nicaraguan-revolution-a6896706.html?ref=aontachtmedia.ie). Liberation theology provided moral legitimacy, organisational networks and a language of justice that radicalised a generation. Historical accounts of Latin American guerrilla movements identify it, [alongside](https://www.theweek.in/review/books/2020/06/18/lockdown-reading-origins-latin-american-guerrilla-movements.html?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) Dependency Theory, Che Guevara and broader [anti-imperialism](https://research-portal.uu.nl/ws/files/233995401/10.4324%5F9780429244063-2%5Fchapterpdf.pdf?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), as one of the principal intellectual and ethical forces driving popular resistance.

In Chiapas, Mexico, the [Zapatista autonomous zones](https://www.jstor.org/stable/25676074?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) established after [the 1994 uprising of the EZLN guerrillas](https://workersliberty.org/story/2024-02-20/zapatistas-after-30-years?language%5Fcontent%5Fentity=en&ref=aontachtmedia.ie) offer one of the [clearest examples of how liberation theology](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-91642-8%5F8?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) shaped real-world struggles for indigenous self-determination. Bishop Samuel Ruiz and the progressive pastoral work of the Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas, grounded in liberation theology’s preferential option for the poor, [helped raise political consciousness and organise many of the indigenous communities](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/28/samuel-ruiz-indians-mexico-zapatista?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) that later built these de facto autonomous territories.

Óscar Romero became its most powerful embodiment. Initially cautious, he [underwent a decisive conversion](https://cruxnow.com/church/2015/02/my-doubts-about-archbishop-romero?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) after the murder of his friend Father Rutilio Grande and the escalating slaughter of the poor. In his [February 1980 address at the University of Louvain](https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/oscar-romero-and-the-poor-5793?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), Romero argued that the Church enters history through the [preferential option for the poor](https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvx077gb?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), and that this option gives faith its true political dimension. The world of the poor, he insisted, is the key to understanding Christian faith and the Church’s public responsibility. His [pastoral letters and homilies](https://www.christiancentury.org/books/scar-romero-s-political-theology?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) applied Medellín and Puebla directly to El Salvador’s land concentration, the state’s [right-wing death squads](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-31115837?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) and [US-backed military repression](https://www.reuters.com/article/world/el-salvador-issues-arrest-order-for-archbishop-romeros-killer-idUSKCN1MY03O/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie). [Assassinated while celebrating Mass in March 1980](https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-americas/2020/03/in-choosing-the-poor-st-romero-followed-church-teaching-not-ideology?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) (by a [US-supported](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/14/el-salvador-oscar-romero-civil-war-saint-justice?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) military death squad), Romero, since [elevated to Sainthood](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45853434?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), remains the pre-eminent martyr of a faith that takes sides against imperialism and structural violence.

Unsurprisingly, the USA’s security apparatus would take a strongly disapproving view of the movement. A [CIA report on liberation theology](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP97R00694R000600050001-9.pdf?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) from 1986 would assert that it “posed a major threat to US interests by providing a fertile ground for Communist exploitation” and that “the collaboration of some nuns, missionaries, and members of the clergy with the Marxist revolutionaries has given and will continue to lend legitimacy to guerrilla movements, while hampering government efforts to contain them.” It also characterised liberation theology as “openly anti-Western.” However, the CIA also believed that its practitioners displayed “political naivety” and would be unwittingly exploited by the USSR and Cuba.

The same impulse could be found through expression in deeply-Catholic Italy. During the 1960s, liberation theology would serve as [a bridge](https://www.jstor.org/stable/45331229?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) between Catholics and the Italian revolutionary-left. After Vatican II, “[Christians for Socialism](https://rivisteweb.it/doi/10.7375/91036?ref=aontachtmedia.ie)” (Cristiani per il Socialismo) emerged as a significant force. Founded at a [national meeting in Bologna in September 1973](https://www.difesapopolo.it/cristiani-per-il-socialismo-1973-1984-un-movimento-fra-fede-e-politica/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), the movement drew from the left of the ACLI, the CISL trade unions, base communities and Catholic contestation groups. Its dual aim was explicit: to transform society in a socialist direction and to renew the Church. Participants engaged in referendums, electoral campaigns, and struggles over the Concordat, demonstrating that progressive Catholic politics could operate outside the right-of-centre leaning, Christian Democratic control. The movement formed part of a broader transnational culture of liberation, linking European and Latin American progressive Catholics.

In twentieth-century Italy, contrary to the assumption that they would be a bastion of conservatism, substantial numbers of rural Catholic peasants - particularly the sharecroppers (mezzadri) of the central regions that formed [the so-called “Red Belt”](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14782804.2025.2514847?ref=aontachtmedia.ie#d1e166) of Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany, Umbria and the Marche - voted for the Socialist Party (PSI) and later the Communist Party (PCI) in their droves. Mattei Dogan famously termed them “[red peasants](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242324100%5FWhatever%5Fhappened%5Fto%5FItaly's%5Fred%5Fpeasant%5FGeographic%5Freflections%5Fupon%5Fla%5Fzona%5Frossa?ref=aontachtmedia.ie),” noting that the rural areas of Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna ranked among the most left-wing in Western Europe; the pattern was rooted in [the long-standing tensions of the sharecropping system](https://archive.org/details/peasantcommunism0000sidn) and the [left’s organisational success in agrarian struggles](https://amsacta.unibo.it/id/eprint/8584/1/WP1214.pdf?ref=aontachtmedia.ie). The practical demands of the ‘[movimento mezzadrile](https://rivista.clionet.it/vol2/bartolini-movimento-mezzadrile-nella-toscana-del-900/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie)’ - better contracts, security of tenure, and land - translated into lasting electoral allegiance to the left, making the rural Catholic peasantry in poor, southern Italy a decisive component of Italy’s communist and socialist electoral base (its significance can be seen in the Hollywood film ‘The Godfather,’ which [depicts PCI activity in Sicily](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7HjHWYbyEQ&ref=aontachtmedia.ie)). The [explicit connection](https://www.jstor.org/stable/26282985?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) between liberation theology and this particular demographic was foreshadowed in Ignazio Silone’s novel ‘*Bread and Wine*.’

At the same time, a [radical strand](https://www.alphavillejournal.com/Issue5/HTML/ReviewPhillips.html?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) of Spaghetti Westerns (though, the genre itself is believed to have [left-wing origins](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2026/great-directors/corbucci-sergio/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie)), especially the films of Damiano Damiani, Sergio Sollima and Sergio Corbucci, carried these themes into mass culture. Films such as ‘A Bullet for the General,’ ‘The Big Gundown,’ ‘Face to Face’ and ‘Compañeros’ inverted the traditional Western’s moral geography. They sometimes presented peasant revolt as a legitimate response to systemic violence. Scholarly analysis has shown how these films [inscribed ‘Far Left’ doctrines of the late 1960s into the genre](https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/radical-frontiers-in-the-spaghetti-western-9781848855786/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), reflecting [the wider Third-Worldist](https://www.academia.edu/17319553/When%5FCultures%5FCollide%5FThird%5FCinema%5FMeets%5Fthe%5FSpaghetti%5FWestern?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) imagination. [Marxism](https://offscreen.com/view/great%5Fsilence?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), revolutionary solidarity, anti-imperial critique and the legitimacy of resistance entered popular cinema through these works. ‘A Bullet for the General’ (directed by [the devoutly Catholic Damiani](https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/when-the-bible-comes-to-the-screen-6050?ref=aontachtmedia.ie)) portrays a bandit who [gains class consciousness](https://mondediplo.com/2015/10/12western?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), and the people’s struggle becomes more important to him than money. Sergio Corbucci’s [politically charged Westerns](https://www.proquest.com/docview/2065266523?sourcetype=Trade%20Journals&ref=aontachtmedia.ie) (including ‘[Django](https://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/spaghetti-communism.html?ref=aontachtmedia.ie),’ and ‘[The Great Silence](https://www.indiependent.co.uk/ten-great-westerns-to-scratch-that-frontier-itch/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie)’) incorporated [left-wing revolutionary ideas](https://dokumen.pub/radical-frontiers-in-the-spaghetti-western-politics-violence-and-popular-italian-cinema-9780755694761-9781848855786.html?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), [Catholic symbolism](https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/546741/django?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) and critiques of class oppression. Although Corbucci [vocalised disapproval](https://collider.com/the-great-silence-us-release/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) for what he regarded as the “hippie culture” of the '60s, he was nonetheless a blatantly [leftist Catholic](https://pureadmin.qub.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/686079913/LDFC%5FCQAF%5FIntro%5Fto%5FThe%5FGreat%5FSilence.pdf?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) and anti-authoritarian. Carlo Lizzani’s film ‘Requiescant,’ released in 1967, [features](https://periodicos.ufac.br/index.php/mui/article/download/1569/989/3635?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) a revolutionary, liberation theology-espousing priest (played by the well-known leftist, Pier Paolo Pasolini). The film also concerns the oppression of poor Mexicans [by wealthy Anglos](https://www.the-old-west.com/articles/spaghetti-western?ref=aontachtmedia.ie). Some characters in these movies were popular due to their [perceived similarities](https://repositorio.unican.es/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10902/34917/NationalIdentityItalian.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y&ref=aontachtmedia.ie) with southern Italian peasants.

In Ireland, such ideas would find a similar, albeit limited expression. Irish Republican thought has linked the Church teaching and practices with socialism. James Connolly, writing in ‘[*Labour, Nationality and Religion*](https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1910/lnr/02.htm?ref=aontachtmedia.ie),’ appealed to the Church Fathers, Clement, Basil and Ambrose, on the common use of wealth, to argue that socialist critiques of capitalist society were consistent with Christian tradition. This association was reaffirmed in the 1924 ‘Irish Worker' article “[James Connolly and His Epoch](https://www.marxists.org/subject/ireland/irish-worker/irish-worker-feb-1924.pdf?ref=aontachtmedia.ie)” which described “Communism and the absence of property monopoly” as the ideal of the “Christian pioneers.” It claimed that Connolly had “denied the master-classes the right to monopolise and exploit Catholicity.” Writing in ‘[*The Murder Machine*](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/79022/pg79022-images.html?ref=aontachtmedia.ie#link-the-murder-machine),’ Pádraig Pearse praised early Irish Christian egalitarian communities (naming figures such as Enda of Aran, Ciarán of Clonard and Colmcille) for combining Irish Gaelic communal traditions with Christian ideals of humility and democratic learning. These examples demonstrate that the connection between Christian communal ideals and socialistic platforms was well-established in Irish Republican thought. In the latter half of the twentieth-century, it [wasn’t a widespread](https://pure.ulster.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/just-war-in-context-irish-liberation-theology-1968-1998/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) school of thought, finding relevance with a handful of activist priests and members of the IRA. Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, [who served as IRA ‘chief-of-staff’](https://www.dib.ie/biography/o-bradaigh-ruairi-a10082?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) at the turn of the 1960s, [declared](https://republicanarchive.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/an-phoblacht-august-1970.pdf?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) in a statement as head of the (Provisional) Sinn Fein executive that their outlook constituted “a Socialism based on the native Irish tradition of Comhar na gComharsan, which is founded on the right of worker-ownership and on our Irish and Christian values.” Figures such as Bobby Sands had [also been influenced](https://www.dib.ie/biography/sands-robert-bobby-a7918?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) by liberation theology, as were the ‘[Officials](https://republican-news.org/current/news/2009/10/talking%5Fabout%5Fa%5Flost%5Frevolutio.html?ref=aontachtmedia.ie).’ Michael D. Higgins would also emerge as a figure who was sympathetic to liberation theology. In 1982, [he travelled to El Salvador](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/emotional-return-to-el-salvador-for-president-higgins-1.1571154?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) with Trócaire’s Sally O’Neill to [investigate](https://www.irishcatholic.com/president-praises-trocaires-human-rights-record/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) the El Mozote massacre, in which the Salvadoran army killed at least 800 civilians, over half of them children. Deported at gunpoint on his first attempt, he later returned, interviewed the sole known survivor, documented the machinery of state terror, and helped force the atrocities into international view [through major US newspapers and diplomatic channels](https://www.trocaire.org/news/president-is-dear-friend-of-this-once-war-torn-country-2/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie). His work contributed to the campaign that constrained formal US military intervention and supported initiatives such as the Franco-Mexican resolution at the United Nations. In 2015, as President, he referred to Romero’s beatification as “[a vindication of the best insights of liberation theology](https://www.catholicireland.net/romero-dublin-mass/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie).” Higgins [has described Romero](https://www.irishcatholic.com/romero-illuminating-icon-for-the-church-president-higgins/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) as “an illuminating icon” for the oppressed. His 2013 state visit to El Salvador [returned to the themes](https://issuu.com/arasanuachtarain/docs/president%5Flatin%5Famerica%5Fspeeches%5F2013/52?e=63&o=1&ref=aontachtmedia.ie) of testimony, memory and the refusal of amnesia about state violence. In 2021, in paying tributes to the deceased theologian Fr. Enda McDonagh, the President [eulogised him](https://www.con-telegraph.ie/2021/02/25/tributes-paid-to-mayo-born-theologian-on-his-passing/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) for viewing “the significance of the work of the Liberation Theology Movement as not only emancipatory, but also as a walking in the spirit of Christ with the excluded, the oppressed, and the unjustly treated.” The emancipatory politics that have marked his public life draw directly from the same sources that animated liberation theology. Liberation theology has also been [depicted as a link](https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315108995-15/ireland-latin-america-atlantic-liberation-theology-patrick-mcdevitt?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) between Latin America and Ireland.

Ireland’s contemporary crises - housing precarity, the unfinished reckoning with institutional abuse, climate injustice, and the systematic neglect of the most vulnerable - demand precisely the analysis and commitment that liberation theology provides. Its measure of any social order is how it treats those on the margins of society. In contrast to this exists a [US-influenced](https://newrepublic.com/article/148518/american-christians-swaying-irelands-abortion-referendum?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) and [heavily bankrolled](https://the-beacon.ie/2022/03/19/irish-branch-of-us-anti-abortion-catholic-group-has-income-of-nearly-e1m-per-year-and-runs-rogue-crisis-pregnancy-agency/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) Catholic-right that channels resources into narrow culture-war campaigns. These networks prioritise imported culture-war agendas over the structural questions of poverty, land, housing and power (which are largely addressed [in the encyclicals](https://www.jcfj.ie/article/catholic-social-teaching-and-housing/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) themselves) that define Ireland’s social emergency. Fr. Joe McVeigh, who is [well-known](https://www.anphoblacht.com/contents/20558?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) as a [republican](https://www.independent.ie/county/cork/fr-mcveigh-calls-for-end-to-creeping-partitionism/a/148414120.html?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), social justice and [civil rights](https://www.irishnews.com/news/northern-ireland/fr-joe-mcveigh-last-line-of-defence-KKNX3X5ECJHGZP2ZRADHGNQ6GE/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) activist, hailing from Co. Fermanagh, believes that [adopting liberation theology](https://www.irishnews.com/news/northern-ireland/fr-joe-mcveigh-if-our-church-in-ireland-is-to-have-a-future-it-must-adopt-liberation-theology-3SXABPJ6UZEZXKPSYXCHCPVMEU/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) is the only way in which Catholicism in Ireland will survive. He is the author of ‘[*Renewing the Irish Church: Towards An Irish Liberation Theology*](https://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000010130?ref=aontachtmedia.ie),’ published by Mercier Press in 1993\. In [an interview](https://www.anphoblacht.com/contents/21375?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) with ‘An Phoblacht,’ Fr. McVeigh said that liberation theology is concerned with “putting the social Gospel of Jesus Christ into practice in situations of oppression and taking the side of the poor. You have to make a choice, you can’t stand neutral. You’re either on the side of the rich or the side of the poor.”

The type of [US evangelical-right influenced Catholic](https://www.ipas.org/resource/the-pro-life-pro-family-core-group/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) that has emerged should also take note of matters further afield. Evangelicals also [tend to strongly support](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/politics-and-religion/article/abs/why-do-evangelicals-support-israel/F8AB8C41F0B019FD8413A30EF218EBE4?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) Israel, and seem to have [a large blindspot](https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/23/evangelicals-side-with-israel-thats-hurting-palestinian-christians/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) regarding the treatment of Christians. There’s a long-running trend of Zionists [spitting](https://apnews.com/article/israel-christians-jews-catholic-nun-attack-98c8f0b5aa9cc462f150332c2ef60b45?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) on Catholics, such as pilgrims and clergy. The practice, which Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir referred to as an old “tradition,” [enraged](https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231006-pope-is-furious-over-anti-christian-attack-by-israeli-settlers/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) the late Pope Francis. The Holy Family Church, which is the [only](https://www.nbcnews.com/world/middle-east/pope-leo-gaza-israeli-strike-catholic-church-rcna219738?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) Catholic Church in the Gaza Strip, was attacked and [hit by a tank](https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2025-07/the-parish-priest-father-gabriel-romanelli.html?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) in 2025\. The parish priest had received phone calls from the Pope on [a daily basis](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/17/israeli-attack-on-church-in-gaza-injures-priest-pope-francis-called-daily?ref=aontachtmedia.ie). In contrast to this dichotomy, a distinct intellectual school of [Palestinian liberation theology](https://pure.psu.edu/en/publications/palestinian-liberation-theology-muslim-christian-relations-and-th/?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) emerged [during the 1960s](https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1cgf044?ref=aontachtmedia.ie). Later, the Sabeel Liberation Theology Center was also founded and [promotes a grassroots](https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1076&context=studentscholarship&ref=aontachtmedia.ie) liberation theology movement amongst Palestinians. An article in ‘Third World Quarterly’ asserts that Palestinian liberation theology [actively pursues decolonisation](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01436597.2025.2511863?ref=aontachtmedia.ie).

The field of religious language and institutional networks shouldn’t be abandoned to those who would harness them for agendas that narrowly reduce the intellectual tradition of a religion down to one or two issues, or an externally funded idea of Christianity. Liberation theology insists that the demand of the Gospel isn’t the defence of privilege, but the construction of a just common life. Its history in Latin America, its political and cultural manifestation in Italy, and its resonance in the public work of Michael D. Higgins show that this is a living tradition of critical solidarity. Even the Communist-linked Jim Larkin [would assert](https://spartacus-educational.com/IRElarkin.htm?ref=aontachtmedia.ie) that “there is no antagonism between the Cross and socialism! A man can pray to Jesus the Carpenter, and be a better socialist for it. Rightly understood, there is no conflict between the vision of Marx and the vision of Christ.”

For a society confronting deep social inequality, it remains one of the most practical tools for expressing the-then [“radical and subversive ideals” of Jesus](https://repository.up.ac.za/server/api/core/bitstreams/d17e7560-b604-405c-a39a-9467d6e13cd4/content?ref=aontachtmedia.ie), who in his time was regarded by society and the ruling class [as revolutionary and dangerous](https://www.pas.rochester.edu/~tim/study/Schneider%20ch%205.pdf?ref=aontachtmedia.ie).