Photo of the Week

Bergoglio & Boff: Old Acquaintances

Leonardo Boff, well-known leader of Liberation Theology, posted the following message on his Twitter on August 5, 2019:

"Exchanging correspondence with me, Pope Francis recalled a meeting we had in San Miguel, Argentina, from February 23-29, 1972, and sent me this photo. He is the fourth from the right."

Above is the mentioned photo; we marked both the future Pope and the theologian with a red arrow: Boff is sitting in the first row, Bergoglio standing in the second. A snapshot of Boff's posting can be seen below.

Actually, both Bergoglio and Boff met in a conference of professors from the Faculty of Philosophy and Theology at the Jesuit University of San Miguel in Argentina. Fr. Jorge Bergoglio – he had been ordained a priest in 1969 – was a professor there.

Shortly after Medellin (1968) where Paul VI gave free rein to Liberation Theology, meetings like the one shown above were taking place to put it in effect. Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez was launching his first book and Fr. Leonardo Boff also wrote his first work that same year.

Jesuit Fr. Juan Carlos Scannone, then-rector of the Faculty and the mentor of Fr. Bergoglio, was preparing "Theology of the Oppressed People," which is an Argentine version of Liberation Theology. Fr. Bergoglio was a strong partisan of it.

Thus we see that the leftist position of Pope Francis was present from the very beginning of his career.

Photo from Boff Twitter, first seen in Fraters in Unum

Share

Follow us

Posted August 11, 2019

___________________________