La teología de la liberación en prospectiva - Noticias más vistas

without Nostra Aetate. However, they were also facilitated by the pluralisticenvironment offered by the United States, which was based ona long-standing tradition that fostered religious freedom and demandedseparation between church and state. The situation in Latin America wasvery different. The 15 th -century papal concessions to the Spanish and Portuguesemonarchs of the lands of the New World resulted in the developmentor a regime of Christendom in the newly conquered territories, analliance between the throne and the altar, between the sword and thecross. Catholicism was imposed as the only true faith while aboriginal religionswere condemned as diabolic and their temples erased or smashed byCatholic churches built on top of them. Theological innovation or dissentwere met by the Holy Inquisition. 32 And in the midst of all this, there werethose in the Church who praised God and the Crown for bringing eternalsalvation to the otherwise doomed souls of the Aboriginals and those whoraised their voices to denounce the atrocities committed by the colonizersagainst the Indians. 33The Independence movement for freedom of the colonies from theIberian dominion was met with the same division in Church ranks betweenthose supporting the monarchy, including two popes, 34 and those joiningthe revolutionary forces for the cause of emancipation. The victory of thelatter gave rise to the newly established republics whose liberal constitutions,while granting the Catholic Church the privileged status of officialstate religion, adopted religious freedom among their tenets. This openedthe door to the entry of Protestant Christianity in Latin America, which alsomarked a milestone in the increasing religious diversification of the continent,already diverse with the survival of Aboriginal and African religioustraditions, despite colonial decimation and suppression. 35 The twentiethcentury saw the exponential growth of old and new forms of evangelicalChristianity and the impact of global migrations was felt on Latin Americansoil with the arrival of other religions. Christian Orthodox churches,synagogues and mosques began to dot some capital cities and globaliza-32 For a history of the Church in Latin America, see Enrique Dussel, Historia de la Iglesia enAmerican Latina (Bogotá: Universidad Santo Tomás de Aquino, 1991).33 See Gustavo Gutiérrez, Las Casas: In Search of the Poor of Jesus Christ (Maryknoll, ny:Orbis, 1993).34 Papal briefs Etsi longissimo (1816) by Pius VII and Etsi iam diu (1824) by Leo XII exhortedCatholics to support the restoration of the colonial order in the newly created republics ofthe Americas. See Josep-Ignasi Saranyana, Breve historia de la teología en América Latina(Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Christianos, 2009), 154-159.35 For a history of Christianity in Latin America with a Protestant focus, see Hans-Jurgen Prien,La Historia del Cristianismo en América Latina (Salamanca: Ediciones Sígueme, 1985).714 x Carlos Hugo Parra-Pirela