01-06-2007 - Traces, n. 6 INSIDE america Overcoming the Dualism between Faith and Life It is an experience of liberation in Christ that allows me to recognize the need for liberation in the particular situations of life. The experience of liberation in Christ is the experience of the Church By Lorenzo Albacete When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope Benedict XVI, the reaction in Latin America was somewhat guarded. I remember the “false” claims that he didn’t speak Spanish, or that he had purposely failed to address Spanish-speakers in one of his initial audiences in order to “send a message.” Pope John Paul II, on the other hand, had studied Spanish literature in order to read St. John of the Cross in the original classical Spanish. His countless trips to Latin America were an astounding success, and it was evident that he enjoyed every second of it. Beyond doubt, his response to the situation of Latin American Catholicism was one of the most important aspects of the “new evangelization” that was to become the theme of his pontificate around the world. Cardinal Ratzinger, on the other hand, was considered to be the number one enemy of the “theology of liberation.” This theological school had become, in one form or another, the hope of many in Latin America for overcoming the dualism between faith and the struggle for social justice. According to liberation theology, only by embracing the experience of this struggle together with the poor can we hope to understand the real meaning of the Gospel. Some of the schools of liberation theology used a Marxist analysis of society to understand the experience of the poor, and this was indeed one of the reasons for the Vatican’s rejection of their views. But the question went beyond the Marxist issue. Is any purely sociological analysis, Marxist or not, an adequate means to grasp reality? The Magisterium’s answer was that it is not. The experience which the Gospel articulates is the experience of belonging to Christ in the Church. As Pope Benedict asked the Latin American bishops, “What is real? Are only material goods, social, and political problems reality?” Both Marxism and capitalism make this same mistake. “They falsify the notion of reality by detaching it from the foundational and decisive reality which is God.” But who can know God? Only God can know God. For us, “only His Son who is God from God, true God, knows Him.” Only Jesus Christ knows God perfectly. That is why, without Christ, the mystery of what a human person is cannot be fully known. But how do we know Christ? This has been the question at the heart of the problem of liberation theology. It is a question of experience. That is how the dualism between faith and life is overcome. Liberation theology is followed because it is based on the analysis of experience, and, as Fr. Giussani reminds us, “the journey to truth is an experience.” But what experience allows us to recognize Christ? It is not an experience of injustice that allows me to recognize justice; it is an experience of justice that allows me to recognize injustice. It is an experience of liberation in Christ that allows me to recognize the need for liberation in the particular situations of life. The experience of liberation in Christ is the experience of the Church. As Pope Benedict told the bishops, the first fruit of faith is the experience of a family, of belonging to the Church. The doctrines of the Church are grounded on these experiences of the Church; they cannot be fully understood without living the life of the Church. It is this experience that broadens reason and allows us to perceive reality in all its dimensions.