Leonardo Boff Quotes

The core of liberation theology is profoundly "theologal" - that is, rooted in the very nature of God. You see, there's an immediate relationship between God, oppression, liberation: God is in the poor who cry out. And God is the one who listens to the cry and liberates, so that the poor no longer need to cry out. ( Leonardo Boff, p. 166)

People say that God is a masculine adult who thinks. This is a machista view! A child says, "God plays." God is in the child. (Leonardo Boff, p. 167)

The process of liberation brings with it a profound conflict. Having the project be clear is not enough. What is necessary is a spirituality of resistance and of renewed hope to turn ever back to the struggle in the face of the defeats of the oppressed.

...the oppressor is truly repressed. Their poverty is existential, often surrounded by an abundance of material goods. (Leonardo Boff, p. 179)

Hoy el papa actual vive repitiendo la sentencia medieval, superada por el Vaticano II, de que «fuera de la Iglesia no hay salvación»... Pensar así es tener poca fe e imaginar que Dios tiene el tamaño de nuestra cabeza.

Theology alone doesn't convine anyone. Only those words which are pregnant with action, theology that is born of suffering, of struggles, of the poor--this theology is a testimony. This theology leads to conversion. (Leonardo Boff, p. 169)

. . . anyone who wants to elaborate relevant liberation theology must be prepared to go into the 'examination hall' of the poor. Only after sitting on the benches of he humble will he or she be entitled to enter a school of 'higher learning.

...the church lives in a regime of ecclesial authoritarian security and the military elites live in a regime of national authoritarian security. These structures produce the same kind of authoritarian people, with a super defensive stance in their strategies and argumentation. This is why they understand each other! (Leonardo Boff, p. 178)

dramatic. God speaks no more. He ceased to be transparent to us. Nevertheless we have God's lieutenant—Jesus Christ. In Jesus, God made himself weak and impotent in the world.43 In this manner he resolved the problem of pain and evil, the permanent stumbling block and basis of argument for atheism. The God questioned by atheism in the name of the evils of the world was the omnipotent, infinite God, creator of heaven and earth, cosmic Father and Lord. In Jesus Christ, God took upon himself the evil and the absurd. By identifying with the problem he resolved it, not theoretically but through life and love. Consequently, this God alone is the God of the Christian experience. He is no longer the eternal and infinite loner but one with us, in solidarity with our pain and anguish caused by the absence and latency of God in the world.

The evangelically poor are those who make themselves available to God in the realization of God's project in this world, and thereby make themselves into instruments and signs of the kingdom of God. The evangelically poor will establish solidarity with the economically poor and even identify with them, just as the historical Jesus did.

Initially, Jesus preached neither himself nor the church, but the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is the realization of a fundamental utopia of the human heart, the total transfiguration of this world, free from all that alienates human beings, free from pain, sin, divisions, and death. He came and announced: “The time has come, the kingdom of God is close at hand!” He not only promised this new reality but already began to realize it, showing that it is possible in the world. He therefore did not come to alienate human beings and carry them off to another world. He came to confirm the good news: This sinister world has a final destiny that is good, human, and divine.

In liberation theology, Marxism is never treated as a subject on its own but always from and in relation to the poor. Placing themselves firmly on the side of the poor, liberation theologians ask Marx: 'What can you tell us about the situation of poverty and ways of overcoming it?' Here Marxists are submitted to the judgment of the poor and their cause, and not the other way around.

Being a theologian is not a matter of skillfully using methods but of being imbued with the theological spirit. . . liberation theology is a new way of being a theologian. . . Theology (not the theologian) comes afterwards; liberating practice comes first.

The arts are very much like the Spirit. They are intangible. They are ends in themselves. They have an intrinsic value…. Art, music, and poetry in themselves are priceless. They are unique creations, not serial productions. They are like a gift we give to a loved one, valuable for its own sake. Somehow they escape the limits of time and bring us a foretaste of eternity.  

Setiap generasi perlu merumuskan kembali teologi mereka agar tetap relevan dengan tantangan zaman

More important than awareness of the good is doing good. More important than knowing how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God is living the communion that is the essence of the Trinity.

We are convinced that believing in God is worthwhile. We thereby want to express the conviction that it is not death that has the last word but life; it is not the absurd but the full meaning in life that wins the day.

Believing in the Trinity means that at the root of everything that exists and subsists there is movement; there is an eternal process of life, of outward movement, of love. Believing in the Trinity means that truth is on the side of communion rather than exclusion; consensus translates truth better than imposition; the participation of many is better than the dictate of a single one. Believing in the Trinity means accepting that everything is related to everything and so makes up one great whole, and that unity comes from a thousand convergences rather than from one factor alone. We never simply live, we always live together.

The poor can break out of their situation of oppression only by working out a strategy better able to change social conditions: the strategy of liberation. In liberation, the oppressed come together, come to understand their situation through the process of conscientization,3 discover the causes of their oppression, organize themselves into movements, and act in a coordinated fashion.