Medellín Fifty Years Later: From Development to Liberation

Development or Revolution?

In these years of revolution, it was not long before this theory of development came under fire. The model was criticized as creating dependency on colonial forces external to the countries themselves and as hampering the causes of the popular forces that were struggling for justice. This led to talk in ecclesiastical circles, especially in Europe, of a theology which contemplated revolution as a way of escaping from the existing state of dependency. Belgian theologian Joseph Comblin wrote that “to arrive at a theology of revolution, we need only extend the line already traced by Gaudium et Spes and Populorum Progressio, but paying attention now not so much to the concerns of the dominating society as to those of the Christians of the dominated society.” ¹³ Comblin argued, however, that revolution does not take place just within a particular nation; it also requires a change in global relations. ¹⁴

Attempting to adapt this stance to the Latin American context, Brazilian theologian Hugo Assmann lamented that “most countries are being kept undeveloped; they are not in reality ‘developing’ countries but rather countries that find themselves on a path that is not at all progressive; rather, it is increasingly regressive. We must not let ourselves be deceived by phony progress.” ¹⁵ According to Assmann, Latin American reality required a liberation process that would lead to radical change in the system’s orientation: “By the term ‘liberation process’ I mean the new revolutionary path that Latin American countries have to follow if they really want to escape from their situation of dependency.” ¹⁶ He warned, however, that “it would be an error to require the official Church to espouse the revolutionary process publicly. The temptation to form a left-wing Catholicism must be avoided at all costs.” ¹⁷ His main goal was to show that the prevailing development theories were based on models borrowed from the so-called first world, that they were being imposed unilaterally from outside, and that they were keeping the poor countries perpetually dependent on the wealthy ones. For such theories, concepts like freedom and national sovereignty were utopian.

Overcoming “Installed Violence”

In the search for viable responses to the Latin American situation, a valuable contribution was made by Dom Hélder Câmara during the Tenth Conference of CELAM, held in Mar de Plata in 1966. He began his exposition by alluding to the First Conference of Latin American Bishops, in 1955, which had identified the lack of priestly vocations as the church’s major problem on the continent. Câmara urged the bishops of CELAM to “revise their thinking about the so-called ‘number one problem’ of Latin America: contrary to what we have thought and stated, it is not the problem of priestly vocations but the problem of underdevelopment.” ¹⁸ Facing this problem required the church to find new ways of relating to reality since its identity and mission were intimately interwoven with all aspects of the continent’s sociocultural, economic, and political transformation.

In a conference he gave in Paris on April 25, 1968, Câmara warned of the need for change and not simply revision or reform. Real change, such as that proposed by McGrath at Medellín, would be the first sign of the times that a new epoch was dawning in Latin America. Câmara insisted, “If we view the underdeveloped world from any angle—economic, scientific, political, social, religious—we come to understand that a superficial, perfunctory reform will simply not be sufficient. . . . What is needed is a structural revolution.” ¹⁹ He believed that this revolution demanded the commitment of all to the integral development and full flourishing of every human being. Distancing himself from the theory of dependence, Câmara criticized not only the external factors creating and sustaining underdevelopment, but the internal ones as well:

Who is not aware that there is internal colonialism in the underdeveloped countries? Who does not know that there exists in each country a small privileged elite, whose wealth is maintained at the expense of the misery of millions of their fellow citizens? Semi-feudal, seemingly patriarchal regimes still exist, but in reality people have no rights, and they are living in a state of truly subhuman slavery. ²⁰

While acknowledging that underdevelopment was the direct result of “systematic violence,” ²¹ Dom Câmara always insisted that the response to such violence could never be ruthless or cruel. At the Sixth World Congress of the International Secretariat of Pax Romana Jurists, held in Dakar, Senegal, December 5–10, 1968, he stated clearly that the path of nonviolence required people to exercise “a liberating moral pressure” which would bring about a change of mental structures: “This is the conversion of which the Gospel speaks.” ²² Like Paul VI, he believed that “peace without economic and social development is only a truce; it can easily be undone, either by a just rebellion of the starving masses or by the infiltration of negative, alienating ideologies.” ²³

Paul VI himself, in denouncing the situation of dependency in which most of humankind was living (PP 30), referred to the possible use of violence, seeming to justify the path of “just insurrection” and revolution in certain cases (PP 31). This text gave rise to much discussion prior to Medellín. In the next paragraph of the encyclical, however, he affirmed that the primary way to achieve the changes required should be reforms, which should be undertaken with urgency (PP 32).

The pulse of that epoch can be appreciated in words written by Father Arnaldo Spadaccino in 1967, a year before the meeting of Medellín. He wrote of the growing awareness of the need for “the full development of human beings in all aspects of their lives and with help from all the earth’s riches.” ²⁴ Envisioning a type of development committed to the flourishing of human beings in all their spiritual and material dimensions, he moved far beyond the prevailing reductionist, economistic ideology of human development.

The Scandal of Underdevelopment

Another important source for understanding this epoch is the Pastoral Letter of Chilean Bishop Manuel Larraín Errázuriz, “Development: Success or Failure in Latin America.” It was published on June 24, 1965, a few months after the end of the council. In 1963 Larraín was named president of CELAM, but prior to that, in 1960, during the Fifth Ordinary Meeting of Bishops in Buenos Aires, he had stressed the vital connection between pastoral ministry and religious sociology, hoping to give a new orientation to the church’s action in the world. His vision paved the way for the creation of the Latin American Pastoral Institute and the Latin American Catechetical Institute.

In his pastoral letter Larraín wrote that “underdevelopment kills millions of human beings every year.” ²⁵ In an interview given to Informations Catholiques Internationales in 1965, he explained that “hunger and sickness are the immediately observable manifestations, but we must also realize that material privation is not the only evil produced by underdevelopment. Even when the situation in this respect is very different from one region to another, there can always be said to exist an intellectual and cultural hunger.” ²⁶ From this he concluded that “development is a form of humanism. It should respond to the threefold hunger—physical, cultural, and spiritual—that torments both individual persons and modern society. It is a question not only of having more but of being more. . . . The flourishing of each and every individual is what gives development its true purpose and meaning.” ²⁷

Larraín helped to lay the foundation for the notion of structural sin in his references to models which impede the full development of the human subject. He criticized what he called the “‘vicious circles’ of misery (which) clearly demonstrate the structural defects from which our continent suffers.” ²⁸ He concluded that there was an urgent and overriding need to humanize the structures themselves so that the values of God’s Kingdom might flourish.

True Development

Later, these ideas inspired Paul VI to reaffirm the need for true development so that people could “be more” (PP 6). Populorum Progressio addressed the relationship between integral human development and the need to change social structures and living conditions. The pope was not interested in a progress external to the person, such as technological development; he understood it rather as the true fulfillment of the human vocation, which finds its deepest desires realized in God: “By the design of God, every person is called to develop toward self-fulfillment, for every human life is a vocation” (PP 15). What we need is true “development, which helps each and every person move from less human conditions to those that are more human” (PP 20). Thus, for Paul VI development clearly meant concrete action to promote human welfare and flourishing.

The pope went a step further, emphasizing that development should be integral and inclusive since “it has to promote the good of every person and the good of the whole person” (PP 14). Perhaps his most novel contribution was his wide-ranging understanding of the various aspects that make up the lives of individuals (PP 13); such a vision required putting emphasis on the development of peoples and their cultures. It is impossible to think about individuals without considering the wider ambience in which they live, and that is why Pope Paul called the church to accompany

the development of peoples, . . . particularly the development of those peoples who are striving to escape from hunger, misery, endemic diseases, and ignorance; of those who are seeking a wider share in the benefits of civilization and a more active improvement of their human qualities; of those who are aiming purposefully at their complete fulfillment. (PP 1)

The principle that inspired this discernment was that of social justice: the greater the practice of justice, the greater will be the possibilities that open up for every person and every people to participation in the structures and relationships of collaboration, productivity, growth, and flourishing. It is in this context that we should understand the pope’s statement that “development is the new name of Peace” (PP 87), an expression he borrowed from Cardinal Feltin, archbishop of Paris, in fidelity to the call of John XXIII in Pacem in Terris (1963). But Paul VI gave an even deeper meaning to the concept of peace:

To wage war on misery and to struggle against injustice is to promote, along with improved conditions, the human and spiritual progress of all men and women, and therefore the common good of humanity. Peace cannot be limited to a mere absence of war, the result of an ever-precarious balance of forces. No, peace is something that is built up day after day, in the pursuit of an order intended by God, which implies a more perfect form of justice among men. (PP 76)

Therefore peace, as the new name for development, involves practicing justice and creating a more humane social order. In this regard the encyclical is quite concrete, pointing out that “development which is good and genuine does not consist in wealth that is self-centered and sought for its own sake, but rather in an economy which is put at the service of humankind, the daily bread which is distributed to all, as a source of brotherhood and a sign of Providence” (PP 86, emphasis mine). That is why the church must contribute to helping “every nation produce more and better-quality goods so that all its inhabitants can have a truly human standard of living” (PP 48; emphasis mine).

Toward a New Ecclesial Consciousness

It was in this vibrant context of ecclesial debates and social conflicts that the Medellín conference was held. This was one of those events that divide history into a before and an after, for it defined a new ecclesial identity on the basis of theological options and pastoral lines which are still in force fifty years later.

It was at Medellín that Latin American theology not only raised the questions, “Where is God present today?” and “Who are the ones that God favors?” It also made them key questions for Christian discernment on the continent. The criterion for responding to these questions is to be found in the principle of preferentiality, which focuses especially on Christ’s relations with the poor and his views on poverty. ³⁵ The bishops at Medellín, in embracing Gaudium et Spes and Populorum Progressio, therefore made an option for the poor, who are the majority of humanity, and they asked how the church in Latin America could contribute to that “transition from less human conditions to those which are more human,” ³⁶ in fidelity to the call of Paul VI (PP 20).

Medellín played a decisive role in the development of a prophetic consciousness and a sociocultural identity in the Latin American church. The bishops’ discussions at Medellín sought to move the church toward being less European and toward developing its own character by “drawing on and serving its people and its cultures.” ³⁷ They wanted a church that understood active evangelization as proper to its mission and its identity, and they stressed the communitarian dimensions of faith, thus resisting the temptation of privatized religion and marginal devotions. ³⁸

Two prior meetings were held to prepare the content and organize the sessions of the Medellín conference. The first meeting, held in Capilla, Colombia in May 1967, produced the “general theme—The Latin American Church Responding to the Second Vatican Council—which was to be developed in three successive moments: analysis of the socio-religious reality of the continent, theological reflection on that reality in the light of the main teachings of the Council, and proposals for applying these teachings to the Latin American reality.” ³⁹ The second meeting, held in Lima in November 1967, adopted the method of “see–judge–act,” and it defined the general theme of the conference more precisely as The Church’s Role in the Transformation of Latin America in the Light of the Council.

Also worthy of mention are three very important texts from other meetings, which developed the key themes further and improved their formulation. The first document was “The Active Presence of the Church in the Development and Integration of Latin America,” fruit of the Tenth Ordinary Assembly of CELAM, held in Mar del Plata in October 1966. The second text emerged from the First Seminar of Priests, an event sponsored by the Social Department of CELAM in Santiago de Chile in October/November 1967. The title of the document was “Communiqué of 38 Priests of Latin America on the Encyclical Populorum Progressio.” The third document, “The Social Action and Social Ministry of the Church in Latin America,” was produced at the May 1968 meeting of the presidents of the Bishops’ Social Action Commission, which took place in Itapoã, Salvador de Bahía, Brazil.

The Mar del Plata text took the initial steps toward validating human promotion as an activity proper to the church; the document gave a new accent to Latin American pastoral theology by linking it with the development processes of the continent. This document assimilated the theology of historical salvation inspired by the council, as well as the “Christian humanism” proposed by Paul VI. Its intention was to banish any possible dualism between faith and life, between relationship with God and the flourishing of human beings in the here and now. ⁴⁰ This perspective yielded three elements that eventually became integral parts of the church’s method of discernment and its work in the contemporary world: (a) “true interest in and thorough knowledge of the circumstances in which Christians work and live”; ⁴¹ (b) “solid theological reflection on the best ways to live out the fullness of the Christian vocation in the modern world”; ⁴² and (c) a new social focus in pastoral ministry. “Since ‘pastoral ministry for the community should also include an earnest effort to carry out specific social action’ (Paul VI, 1965), it would be desirable that the Bishops’ Conferences involve CARITAS in their pastoral ministry in order to promote development.” ⁴³ Thus Mar del Plata laid the foundations for a theology of the secular sphere that could be united with a historical, contextual soteriology and an integral Christian anthropology.

The second text was published one year later, in 1967, during the First Seminar of Priests, a meeting promoted by CELAM. The priests attending this meeting acknowledged “the declarations of some bishops in poor countries who are committing the whole Church to the task of promoting human development and the liberation of all men and women.” ⁴⁴ The priests proposed various ideas for future church renewal that merit reflection: the theme of the poor as subjects of their own history, ⁴⁵ and the situation of dependence that impedes just development, and the existence of structural evil. ⁴⁶ Their document stated,

We feel bound to denounce this situation as the product of a society that is built on the concept of “profit as the vital motor” of the economy (Paul VI). It is a society that has subordinated basic rights and human dignity to minority-controlled economic forces that “have produced the international imperialism of money” (Pius XI) and a “disastrous economic system.” (Paul VI). ⁴⁷

The third text, also very important, emerged from the meeting at Itapoã in 1968. It delved deeply into the historical soteriology proposed by Gaudium et Spes and Populorum Progressio and made it a key element for defining the identity and the mission of Latin American ecclesiology. Salvation does not happen outside of history, nor is it unrelated to the full panoply of concrete conditions in which human beings live and labor. Salvation is always a process of humanization, personalization, and insertion into the fullness of a life that begins here and now. Consequently, “the structures of society exist to serve the human person, promoting the development of all human beings in all their dimensions.” ⁴⁸ The true challenge for Latin American development is to overcome the unequal relations between the rich, industrialized countries and the poor, underdeveloped countries of the periphery, which have depended mainly on the export of their raw materials. The document concludes that the church can make a crucial contribution in this regard because

it is the Church’s specific mission to communicate to secular society the light and the energy flowing from the global vision of humanity expressed in the Gospel. In this way the Church contributes to development in all its aspects: demographic, economic, social, civil, and cultural. Adopting a purely apolitical attitude would mean the Church was failing in its essential mission. However, its intervention should not follow political criteria but should be in accord with the light of the Gospel. ⁴⁹

Formalizing the Reception of the Council

This path of collegial and continental reflection led to what is considered the first formal preparatory meeting for Medellín, which took place in Bogota on January 19, 1968. Those attending this meeting discussed three papers prepared by periti: “Human Promotion” (Renato Poblete), “The Life of the Church as an Institution in Latin America” (Raimundo Caramurú de Barros), and “The Church’s Evangelizing Work in Latin America” (Gustavo Gutiérrez). Commissions were formed, one for each of the themes treated. Bishop Antonio Quarracino and the periti Edgar Beltrán and Jorge Mejía, among others, worked on the draft of the Documento Básico Preliminar (Basic Preliminary Document [BPD]), ⁵⁰ which had three parts: the reality of Latin America, theological reflection, and pastoral guidelines.

The DPB began by recalling the message Paul VI sent to CELAM on September 29, 1966, in which the pope spoke of continuing the conversation he had had with the Latin American bishops in Rome on November 23, 1965. At the 1996 meeting, the pope remarked, the bishops would again “take up the same theme, situating it within the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, applying it to the specific sphere of development, and decisively affirming the need for profound structural reforms and major changes in society.” ⁵¹ At this point Paul VI cited the call of Gaudium et Spes to undertake structural changes (GS 63; 26).

The DBP argued that serious commitment to changing structures was the only thing that could avoid the path of violence. The church should follow the path of human promotion because “social development means, on the one hand, improved living standards, elimination of extreme poverty, and provision of adequate social services; on the other hand, it means making social structures less rigid and providing more avenues of social mobility.” ⁵² This process of promoting change and social mobility is founded on the integral, historical soteriology that characterized the council; it is “the salvation that Jesus Christ brings to this world,” ⁵³ even though that salvation will not be “totally and definitively accomplished until the end of history and our entrance into the fullness of God’s Kingdom. . . . Even so, this same Kingdom is already present among us, shaping the march of history.” ⁵⁴ The Basic Preliminary Document insisted that salvation means fully developing and personalizing every dimension of human reality. With this document, two basic principles were established: (a) close correlation between the council and Medellín, ⁵⁵ and (b) a united collegial reception of the council, and acceptance of the challenge of analyzing the church’s new reality on the Latin American continent in the light of the signs of the times. ⁵⁶ The next development, in June 1968, was the Documento de Trabajo (Working Document [WD]) which would serve as a guiding instrument during the Medellín conference. ⁵⁷

The Working Document captured well the church’s great concern for human development and flourishing:

Given the present situation of underdevelopment, the Church must commit itself to the integral promotion of the Latin American peoples. With authentic Christian love, the Church acts in special solidarity with the poor and the marginalized. This commitment requires the Church to defend justice by denouncing the many injustices, by pointing out the need for structural reforms, and by offering its cooperation in bringing about the urgently needed changes. The Church must, in particular, courageously defend the dignity of human persons and their right to freedom as an indispensable element of their full realization. By fighting for these values, the Church will be making an effective contribution to peace on our continent. ⁵⁸

Recognizing that they would be engaging in an unprecedented process of Christian discernment, the bishops with great honesty affirmed “the grave responsibility that believers have in this task of integral development of the whole person and of all persons” (WD 20). This responsibility needed to be translated into a Christian response to the sad reality of Latin America: “the misery and ignorance experienced by the disinherited, the inertia and resistance to change on the part of the privileged, the scant participation of the great majority of people in decisions about the common good, and the violence of those who despair of finding a peaceful solution and a real change of norms and values” (WD 18). The bishops also recognized the crisis confronting traditional Christianity as it committed itself to “the struggle to overcome the conditions of underdevelopment and the social inequalities, the efforts to free people from all depersonalizing forces, including sin, and the need to find paths toward a more personal, authentic faith” (WD 18).

The soteriology of the Working Document called for overcoming the dualism between the human and the Christian, thus making clear the reciprocal relationship that exists between the Christian way of life and the development of peoples, since everything that promotes the processes of personalization and the integral improvement of living conditions finds its place in God’s plan of salvation. In this respect, the document states,

Christians who neglect their temporal obligations are failing not only in their responsibilities toward their neighbors but especially in their obligations toward God, and they are putting their eternal salvation in danger (GS 43). Human beings are not saved by acts disconnected from the particulars of their existence and their vocation in the People of God. They are saved by acts—often humble and hidden ones—which constitute a generous response and commitment to building a new world which they offer to God. Only in this way will they be able to overcome one of the worst errors of our time, the divorce between faith and life that was deplored by the Council. ⁵⁹

Salvation as Liberation and Human Promotion

During the conference several papers were presented that adumbrated the ideas of the Working Document and also brought together the conclusions of earlier meetings. The most important ideas found in the various presentations given at the conference were those spelling out the church’s commitment to integral development and human promotion. Bishop Samuel Ruiz of Chiapas, México, speaking on “Evangelization in Latin America,” clearly expressed what was at stake in this reception of the council: “We need to change our attitudes and our conception of a Church that remains outside the world and opposed to it. The Church is the People of God engaged in history: the Church is in the world.” ⁶⁰

The correlation established with the Incarnation has opened the way to understanding the church in terms of its insertion into the social, economic, political, and religious reality of its time, just as Jesus did during his earthly life in order to offer salvation through his words and deeds. The importance of the church’s salvific mission was stressed in the introduction to the published papers, written by Bishop Brandão Vilela, president of CELAM, and Bishop Eduardo F. Pironio, secretary of CELAM:

The idea of integral salvation encompasses the whole of humanity (soul and body, individual and society, time and eternity) and the whole of the world. This salvation—offered by the Church as sign and instrument—requires that human beings be totally liberated from the slavery of sin and its consequences (ignorance, oppression, poverty, hunger, and death) and incorporated into a new life by means of grace, the principle and kernel of eternity. The Kingdom of God is already present among us, and it is moving forward, intimately entwined with human progress, toward the consummate eschatological fullness. ⁶¹

It was in this same spirit that Cardinal Juan Landázuri Ricketts opened the conference. His words, echoing the discourse with which John XXIII opened the council, stressed the centrality of the Kingdom of God: “We must be thoroughly permeated with the message of Christ in order to understand that the Kingdom of God cannot reach full maturity as long as there is no integral development. In our pastoral service, therefore, we will seek how best to make the Lord’s love incarnate in the Church today.” ⁶²

The organic horizon that characterized Medellín described in great depth and with new language “the relation between the theology of creation and the theology of development, and the relation of both to the theology of redemption.” ⁶³ In his presentation, “The Signs of the Times in Latin America Today,” McGrath stated that change was the principal sign of the times of the Latin American epoch. It was therefore necessary, in line with Gaudium et Spes, to channel the disillusion that resulted from the manifest failure of modernity to bring about “well-being, freedom, justice, integral development, and inner and outer peace for all human beings (GS 4).” ⁶⁴ Consequently, all change that is the fruit of a true process of integral liberation should follow the path of human promotion:

In Latin America these attitudes are defined principally in terms of the social problem, which may be understood as “human promotion,” “development,” “revolution,” etc. We are clearly confronted with the extremely critical task of changing unjust structures, a task urged upon us by Council documents, encyclicals, and many pastoral letters. This will be seen concretely in these days, when we deal with the topic of human promotion. ⁶⁵

Pironio, speaking on “Christian Interpretation of the Signs of the Times Today in Latin America,” supported this new perspective, arguing that salvation is the full development of people’s values, which requires “complete liberation, elimination of all destitution, redemption from sin and its consequences (hunger, poverty, sickness, ignorance, etc.).” ⁶⁶ Citing Paul VI, Pironio recalled that

human beings are called to be their full selves, to “seek to do more, know more, and have more in order to be more” (PP 6). Creators of their own destiny, they have a particular mission in time, in response to a divine call. “In the design of God, all human beings are called upon to develop and fulfill themselves, for every life is a vocation.” (PP 15). ⁶⁷

Pironio recognized, however, that human flourishing is difficult to attain when “anti-human” conditions exist. When people lack access to culture, work, and basic necessities, there can be no hope for integral development. He stressed that the church should be a sign of the “Kingdom of Justice” and not of itself. The church is the “Servant of Yahweh,” with the mission of denouncing unjust inequality and working for the world’s salvation. ⁶⁸

Human development thus becomes integrated directly into ecclesiology, not only into pastoral ministry; it becomes an essential part of the church’s identity and mission, not just an accidental aspect of the church’s situation in the world. It is the way in which the church is faithful to Christ, its only Lord.

This initial presentation offered a theological foundation for the subsequent intervention of Bishop Eugênio de Araujo Sales, who spoke on “The Church in Latin America and Human Promotion.” He explained that “development is our natural vocation. Basic anthropology tells us that the social dimension is an exigency inherent to our nature. A human community in which all do not contribute to the harmonious growth of all is cruelly unjust.” ⁶⁹ It is therefore not simply a problem of situating persons and structures in a particular social location, but of understanding that justice is born of this relational character of the human being as a social being. Touching directly on the identity and the mission of the parishes, the bishop recommended that “parishes should promote authentic formation of humanly Christian communities, and should do this not only by administering the sacraments and teaching the truths of the Gospel . . . but also centers for the integral formation of the people.” ⁷⁰ This perspective helps us understand the importance of the ecclesiological inversion which Medellín accomplished by embracing the model of the church as People of God, where small basic communities of Christian living give life to the parish as a whole and make it a community of communities.

The various presentations reinforced the thesis of Samuel Ruiz in his speech on “Evangelization in Latin America” regarding the specific mission of the church in its work of human promotion: “As Christians we should feel committed to insuring not only that development brings about material well-being and culture but that it humanizes, liberates, and dignifies. When this happens, there will be a better understanding of the Gospel, which is essentially humanizing and liberating.” ⁷¹

Synodal Ecclesiality and Social Solidarity

The important ecclesial innovation of the Medellín conference was its great insistence on the need for the church to speak out strongly and to take responsibility for present-day society by engaging directly with the neediest and most marginalized sectors of society (CD, Educación 1). Accordingly, at Medellín the bishops committed themselves to “defending, according to the Gospel mandate, the rights of the poor and the oppressed” (CD, La Paz 22), and they based their actions on a holistic plan of liberation and integral development, counting on the close collaboration of generous individuals, intermediate civic associations, and important members of the political and economic sectors.

Medellín insistently affirmed an ecclesial position which viewed the people themselves as an instance of God’s revelation and which saw collaborators as sharing responsibility for creating a just future for the peoples of the earth. The process of reforming structures therefore required that the church commit its works to the service of the impoverished sectors of society. The church had to reaffirm its commitment to the fight against poverty in order to create a more humane society (CD, Justicia 3). The institution had to proceed in a way that would allow it to be “authentically poor, missionary and paschal, divorced from all temporal power, and boldly committed to the liberation of each and every human being” (CD, Juventud 15).

The People of God model, which the council had considered central for understanding the church’s identity and mission in the contemporary world, was received at Medellín and further channeled into two mutually related courses of action: (a) exercising synodal ecclesiality and (b) promoting social solidarity. Putting these two ecclesial thrusts into action required “change of structures, transformation of attitude, and conversion of hearts” (CD, La Paz 14). That was the great challenge, and it was one that had to exclude all dualism between faith and daily life, between participating in church and living in society (CD, Catequesis 4).

The first thrust, synodal ecclesiality or the church’s synodal way of proceeding, was to emerge from within and from below (base communities and parishes), and it moved upward (hierarchical-charismatic structuring). All the while there must be “unity in mission and diversity of charisms, services, and functions” (CD, Sacerdotes 7) so that there could be a differentiated participation of the People of God. This differentiation was not hierarchical but horizontal and reciprocal, involving all church members by reason of “Christ’s triple function as prophet, priest, and king” in every baptized person (CD, Iglesia visible 8). Such an arrangement would make possible the synodal way of proceeding, by which each member contributes something to the others in complementary fashion. Thus would arise the “laity’s commitment to working for liberation and humanization in the world” (CD, Iglesia visible 9.13) and an appropriate “co-responsibility between bishops and priests” (CD, Sacerdotes 15). This way of proceeding defined the base, so that

ministries involving pastoral, episcopal, and priestly functions should always be exercised in a collegial spirit, with bishops and priests always acting as members of a body (the episcopal college and the presbyteral college, respectively) and giving good example of communion, facti gregis. (CD, Pastoral de Conjunto 7)

Acknowledging frankly that there still existed mentalities and structures that impeded synodal ecclesiality, Medellín requested that “every revision of ecclesial structures, insofar as they are reformable, should be done to satisfy the demands of concrete historical situations, but also with a view to the nature of the Church” (CD, Pastoral de Conjunto 5). Structures are meaningful when they allow for “fraternal participation in the common dignity of the children of God” (CD, Pastoral de Conjunto 6) and when they produce “harmonious action” (CD, Pastoral de Conjunto 7).

As the conference assumed that the People of God model of church would take the concrete form of Christian base communities, these communities were described as “the first and fundamental ecclesial nuclei which should take responsibility, at their level, for enriching and expanding the faith and also for celebrating the ceremonies which are the expression of that faith.” Above all, the communities constituted the “initial cells of ecclesial structure both for evangelization and for human promotion and development” (CD, Pastoral de Conjunto 10).

In this context the parish was conceived as a “pastoral complex that enlivens and unifies the base communities” (CD, Pastoral de Conjunto 13). The parish thus has meaning not in itself as a closed entity but as a community of communities—just as the universal church is one institution among others in society and contributes to their development. Moreover, “Christians should experience the communion to which they have been called in their base communities, . . . [and these] should be organized in a way that allows fraternal and personal relations among their members” (CD, Pastoral de Conjunto 10). The conference stressed that “communities should be formed in a way that allows members to have sense of belonging” (CD, Pastoral Popular 13), a quality that is lost when a parish is only a specific geographical territory.

The second ecclesial thrust, that of social solidarity, committed the church to actions in favor of a participative society made up of “personalized” people ⁷⁵ who are aware of the sociopolitical dimension of their faith. The church should “inspire, encourage, and promote, a new order of justice which engages all men and women in the running of their own communities” (CD, Justicia 16). This commitment would require “the creation of mechanisms of participation and legitimate representation of the people, or if necessary, the creation of new forms” at the level of “municipal and communal organization” (CD, Justicia 16). In this way Medellín recognized the poor as agents of their own future and as in no way as passive pawns. This vision was the fruit of an appealing theology of creation which envisioned human beings as “co-creators and co-managers with God of their own destiny” (CD Pastoral Popular 12).

The organizational model proposed by Medellín gave expression to the specifically continental reception of the church as People of God. It did not correspond to ideologies which gave “primacy to capital” or favored “totalitarian concentrations of state power” (CD, Justicia 10). Rather, it was inspired by the incarnate solidarity of Jesus with historical reality as a “theological locus and an appeal from God” (CD, Pastoral de las Élites 13). Discernment was to be done “by the light of the Gospel” (CD, Justicia 3) in order to discover the footsteps of God and witness “his presence as desirous of saving the whole human being, soul and body” (CD, Introducción 5). Following the council’s lead, Medellín recalled that “to know God, it is necessary to know humanity” and that “Christ is the one in whom the mystery of humanity is made manifest” (CD, Introducción 1; Justicia 4). Thus, anthropology, Christology, and soteriology become unified in a dynamic theology of the historical, temporal realm; this is a theology which always makes manifest

the profound unity that exists between the salvific project of God, realized in Christ, and the aspirations of humankind; between the history of salvation and human history; between the Church as People of God and the communities of secular society; between the revelatory action of God and the lived experience of human beings. (CD, Catequesis 4)