Development theology or liberation theology? Theological-political tensions in the Chilean Jesuit network (1957-1968)

Abstract

This article explores the theological-political tensions that arose within the Bellarmine Centre, a kind of Jesuit think tank which, that since their foundation in 1957, was an important catalyst for developmentalist devices and socio-religious studies in Chile and Latin America. During this foundational period, the Belgian Jesuit Rogers Vekemans emerges as a prominent figure due to his significant and active engagement in the political and academic domains. The institutions and networks of Bellarmino Centre were to serve -even if some of its members did not explicitly seek it out- as a preparatory platform for an increasingly intense dialogue between Christianity and Marxism. The tensions reached their peak in the crisis of ILADES (Instituto Lationamericano de Estudios Sociales, founded in 1965), where two groups, grouped in the figures of the French Jesuit Pierre Bigó and the Chilean Jesuit Gonzalo Arroyo, confronted each other. The question Development theology or liberation theology? synthesizes in a dense and lucid way the theological-political currents in dispute, which are at the same time local symptoms of the global context of the Cold War.