History of Dialogue with the Poor (Integral liberation and

option for the poor)

1. The Pact of the Catacombs during Vatican II:

The Pact of the Catacombs (Domitilla)

A poor servant Church AS VATICAN Council II drew to a close in 1965,

40 bishops met at night in the Domitilla Catacombs outside Rome. In that
holy place of Christian dead they celebrated the Eucharist and signed a
document that expressed their personal commitments as bishops to the
ideals of the Council under the suggestive title of the Pact of the
Catacombs. The only place we have found its complete text transcribed is
in the Chronicle of Vatican II by the Franciscan bishop Boanaventura
Kloppenburg. He titled the document Pact of the Servant and Poor
Church. It is known that the bishops were led by Archbishop Helder
Camara of Recife, Brazil, one of the widely respected 20th-century
champions of justice and peace. Later on, Cardinal Roger Etchagaray,
who served as honorary president of the Pontifical Council, Justice and
Peace, also signed it.
We, bishops assembled in the Second Vatican Council, are conscious of
the deficiencies of our lifestyle in terms of evangelical poverty. Motivated
by one another in an initiative in which each of us has tried avoid
ambition and presumption, we unite with all our brothers in the
episcopacy and rely above all on the grace and strength of Our Lord
Jesus Christ and on the prayer of the faithful and the priests in our
respective dioceses. Placing ourselves in thought and in prayer before the
Trinity, the Church of Christ, and all the priests and faithful of our
dioceses, with humility and awareness of our weakness, but also with all
the determination and all the strength that God desires to grant us by his
grace, we commit ourselves to the following:
• We will try to live according to the ordinary manner of our people in all
that concerns housing, food, means of transport, and related matters. See
Matthew 5,3; 6,33ff; 8,20.
• We renounce forever the appearance and the substance of wealth,
especially in clothing (rich vestments, loud colours) and symbols made of
precious metals (these signs should certainly be evangelical). See Mark
6,9; Matthew 10,9-10; Acts 3.6 (Neither silver nor gold).
• We will not possess in our own names any properties or other goods,
nor will we have bank accounts or the like. If it is necessary to possess
something, we will place everything in the name of the diocese or of
social or charitable works. See Matthew 6,19-21; Luke 12,33-34.
• As far as possible we will entrust the financial and material running of
our diocese to a commission of competent lay persons who are aware of
their apostolic role, so that we can be less administrators and more
pastors and apostles. See Matthew 10,8; Acts 6,1-7.
• We do not want to be addressed verbally or in writing with names and
titles that express prominence and power (such as Eminence, Excellency,
Lordship). We prefer to be called by the evangelical name of “Father.”
See Matthew 20,25-28; 23,6-11; John 13,12-15).
• In our communications and social relations we will avoid everything
that may appear as a concession of privilege, prominence, or even
preference to the wealthy and the powerful (for example, in religious
services or by way of banquet invitations offered or accepted). See Luke
13,12- 14; 1 Corinthians 9,14-19.
• Likewise we will avoid favouring or fostering the vanity of anyone at the
moment of seeking or acknowledging aid or for any other reason. We will
invite our faithful to consider their donations as a normal way of
participating in worship, in the apostolate, and in social action. See
Matthew 6,2-4; Luke 15,9-13; 2 Corinthians 12,4.
• We will give whatever is needed in terms of our time, our reflection, our
heart, our means, etc., to the apostolic and pastoral service of workers
and labor groups and to those who are economically weak and
disadvantaged, without allowing that to detract from the welfare of other
persons or groups of the diocese. We will support lay people, religious,
deacons, and priests whom the Lord calls to evangelize the poor and the
workers by sharing their lives and their labors. See Luke 4,18-19; Mark
6,4; Matthew 11,4-5; Acts 18,3-4; 20,33-35; 1 Corinthians 4,12; 9,1-27.
• Conscious of the requirements of justice and charity and of their mutual
relatedness, we will seek to transform our works of welfare into social
works based on charity and justice, so that they take all persons into
account, as a humble service to the responsible public agencies. See
Matthew 25,31-46; Luke 13,12-14; 13,33-34.
• We will do everything possible so that those responsible for our
governments and our public services establish and enforce the laws,
social structures, and institutions that are necessary for justice, equality,
and the integral, harmonious development of the whole person and of all
persons, and thus for the advent of a new social order, worthy of the
children of God. See Acts 2,44-45; 4;32- 35; 5,4; 2 Corinthians 8 and 9;
1 Timothy 5,16.
• Since the collegiality of the bishops finds its supreme evangelical
realization in jointly serving the two-thirds of humanity who live in
physical, cultural, and moral misery, we commit ourselves: a) to support
as far as possible the most urgent projects of the episcopacies of the poor
nations; and b) to request jointly, at the level of international organisms,
the adoption of economic and cultural structures which, instead of
producing poor nations in an ever richer world, make it possible for the
poor majorities to free themselves from their wretchedness. We will do all
this even as we bear witness to the gospel, after the example of Pope Paul
VI at the United Nations.
• We commit ourselves to sharing our lives in pastoral charity with our
brothers and sisters in Christ, priests, religious, and laity, so that our
ministry constitutes a true service. Accordingly, we will make an effort to
“review our lives” with them; we will seek collaborators in ministry so
that we can be animators according to the Spirit rather than dominators
according to the world; we will try be make ourselves as humanly present
and welcoming as possible; and we will show ourselves to be open to all,
no matter what their beliefs. See Mark 8,34-35; Acts 6,1-7; 1 Timothy 3,8-
10.
• When we return to our dioceses, we will make these resolutions known
to our diocesan priests and ask them to assist us with their
comprehension, their collaboration, and their prayers. May God help us
to be faithful.

The pact of the catacombs manifested the frustration of some Bishops

who wanted to incorporate as the center of Vatican II the concept of the
“Church of the poor.” This did not materialize. The most attractive
declaration of Vatican II about the poor is the opening lines of Gaudium
et Spes: “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men
of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these
are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ.”
(no. 1).

2. The Latin American Bishops’ Conference of Medellin (1968) and

Puebla (1979): Preferential option for the poor and the birth of
theology of liberation. “The concept of an option for the poor was first
articulated in the concluding document of the 1968 CELAM
conference in Medellin, which called for an “effective preference to the
needy and poorest sectors” of society. In their 1979 meeting in Puebla,
the Latin American bishops produced a document explicitly entitled “A
Preferential Option for the Poor,” and from that point the phrase has
progressively entered into official Catholic argot.” (John Allen,
CELAM Update: The Lasting Legacy of Liberation Theology,”
National Catholic Reporter (May 24, 2007): 2-3. Note here that
CELAM in Medellin went straight away to the context, or the situation
of injustice. Medellin was said to be the start of Liberation theology,
as experts pondered on the ways and means of liberating the poor. The
theologians of liberation developed a theological method based
principally on the context of injustice. Their focus was on the option
 for the poor and the struggle for justice. Integral liberation means that
the poor becomes the instrument of their own liberation. Theories of
liberation bring the liberation theologian into contact with the Marxist
praxis, seeing history as basically a class struggle. Paulo Freire in his
book The Pedagogy of the Oppressed wrote about the oppressed
becoming comfortable with their oppression that they would not want
to break it down. The first stage of liberation thus is “conscientization,”
that is to make them aware of their oppression, and they as the
instruments of their liberation. Theology of liberation was born in a
time when Latin America was in social ferment, with Marxist-led
guerrillas were leading revolts in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala,
Colombia, Bolivia. They were naturally linked with these armed
movements and several priests who espoused this theology joined
themselves in the armed struggle. The result was the document issued
by the Congregation of Doctrine on Faith (CDF) which was then
headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger: “Instruction on Several Aspects
of “Theology of Liberation” (1984). The document on its introduction
focused on a warning: “The present Instruction has a much more
limited and precise purpose: to draw the attention of pastors,
theologians, and all the faithful to the deviations, and risks of
deviation, damaging to the faith and to Christian living, that are
brought about by certain forms of liberation theology which use, in an
insufficiently critical manner, concepts borrowed from various currents
of Marxist thought.” It sees at the heart of this theology the presence of
class struggle, and the focused on the socio-economic liberation which
overshadows liberation from sin.
3. The Synod of Bishops (1971): The Document Produced: “Justice in
the World.” The most famous citation of this Synod: “The uncertainty
of history and the painful convergences in the ascending path of the
human community direct us to sacred history; there God has revealed
himself to us, and made known to us, as it is brought progressively to
realization, his plan of liberation and salvation which is once and for
all fulfilled in the Paschal Mystery of Christ. Action on behalf of
justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully
appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the
Gospel, or, in other words, of the Church's mission for the redemption
of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation.”
(no. 6) This is a milestone declaration: preaching the gospel cannot be
done without the work for justice. Thus, the development: option for
the poor cannot but trace the path of justice, a liberation from
oppression and a struggle with the poor to have their place in society
(integral liberation).
4. FABC’s dialogue with the poor: 1974 statement, along side with
dialogue with culture and world religions. This dialogue involves
 immersion with them, living with them, being evangelized by their
values. Though liberation is the ultimate goal (like liberation
theology), the Church also experiences liberation by this option,
enriched by the poor.
5. Pope Francis: the poor as a theological category. “For the Church,
the option for the poor is primarily a theological category rather than a
cultural, sociological, political or philosophical one. God shows the
poor “his first mercy”.[163] This divine preference has consequences
for the faith life of all Christians, since we are called to have “this
mind… which was in Jesus Christ” (Phil 2:5). Inspired by this, the
Church has made an option for the poor which is understood as a
“special form of primacy in the exercise of Christian charity, to which
the whole tradition of the Church bears witness”.[164] This option –
as Benedict XVI has taught – “is implicit in our Christian faith in a
God who became poor for us, so as to enrich us with his poverty”.
[165] This is why I want a Church which is poor and for the poor. They
have much to teach us. Not only do they share in the sensus fidei, but
in their difficulties they know the suffering Christ. We need to let
ourselves be evangelized by them. The new evangelization is an
invitation to acknowledge the saving power at work in their lives and
to put them at the centre of the Church’s pilgrim way. We are called to
find Christ in them, to lend our voice to their causes, but also to be
their friends, to listen to them, to speak for them and to embrace the
mysterious wisdom which God wishes to share with us through them
(Evangelii Gaudium, no. 198).
Peter Phan considers the poor as part of the magisteria. They are
teachers. They evangelize and manifest through their existence the
suffering Jesus. Without them, we will not know fully the gospel. With
them, we enter into the heart of God. Phan echoed the voice of the FABC
who in postering dialogue with the poor first desire to be evangelized by
them.