Could someone please explain what liberation theology is?
liberation theology in late 20th-century Roman Catholicism, a movement centred in Latin America that sought to apply religious faith by aiding the poor and oppressed through involvement in political and civic affairs. It stressed both heightened awareness of the socioeconomic structures that caused social inequities and active participation in changing those structures. Liberation theologians believed that God speaks particularly through the poor and that the Bible can be understood only when seen from the perspective of the poor. They perceived that the Roman Catholic church in Latin America was fundamentally different from the church in Europe—i.e., that the church in Latin America was a church for and of the poor. In order to build this church, they established communidades de base, or base communities, local Christian groups composed of 10 to 30 members each, that both studied the Bible and attempted to meet their parishioners’ immediate needs for food, water, sewage disposal, and
