Is it time for the man known as the ‘Father of Liberation Theology’, author of one of the most influential and most vilified theological books of the last fifty years, to be added to the 38 Doctors of the Church?

If we were to ask who is the most famous liberation theologian of all, answers might be divided between Gustavo Gutiérrez – the humble Peruvian of Indigenous descent who struggled under a conservative archbishop, then found freedom in the Dominican Order, and died last year at the age of 96 – and Leonardo Boff, the Brazilian firebrand of Church: Charism and Power who was censored by the Vatican, eventually married and is still alive at the age of 87. Nothing could have been more appropriate, then, at the recent congress of liberation theologians in Lima, Peru, for the chief homage to Gustavo (customarily referred to just by his first name) to be given by Boff (often referred to just by his surname), through a live video link from Brazil.

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