La teología de la liberación en el pensamiento político-filosófico y acción pastoral de monseñor Alberto Luna Tobar

Abstract

Liberation theology, founded by the Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez, is a social and theological movement that emerged in Latin America, presenting the Catholic Church with an innovative alternative to evangelize under the principles of justice, human dignity, solidarity, common good and equality, not only from the temple but from the socioeconomic reality in which the permanently marginalized population lives, facing inequality, poverty, violence and injustice. This degree work, briefly addresses the history and postulates of liberation theology and reflects its influence in Ecuador, specifically in the province of Azuay where monsignor Luis Alberto Luna Tobar, while he served as archbishop of the Archdiocese’s Cuenca, a university professor, writer and columnist for some newspapers in the country, applied the principles of this theological movement to his pastoral action and combined them with his political-philosophical thought. The preferential option for the poor became the main axis of his work, he worked incessantly for the vindication of human rights that had been unjustly taken away from them and, from all the spaces in which he was involved, he promoted the recovery and strengthening of the human dignity. Luna's work and thought are summarized in social justice, democracy and service to society, since he was the promoter of the change from the traditional Church to the community Church in which all are participants of the gospel and they are protagonists of its materialization in the social context.