The New York City mayoral race has experienced a resurgence in liberation theology, at least in the history of one of the candidates. The New York Times discovered that Democratic hopeful Bill de Blasio was quite active in Latin American leftist circles in his youth. According to the revealing article by Javier Hernandez, de Blasio studied Latin American politics at Columbia University and “grew to be an admirer of Nicaragua’s ruling Sandinista party, thrusting himself into one of the most polarizing issues in American politics at the time.” Moreover, Hernandez notes, “He helped raise funds for the Sandinistas in New York and subscribed to the party’s newspaper, Barricada, or Barricade. When he was asked at a meeting in 1990 about his goals for society, he said he was an advocate of ‘democratic socialism.’”
De Blasio even spent 10 days in Nicaragua with Sandinista sympathizers and, after finishing graduate studies, “oversaw efforts to solicit and ship millions of dollars in food, clothing and supplies to Nicaragua.” In short, the mayoral candidate comes out looking like quite the ideologue. He finally abandoned his active ties to pro-Marxist advocacy in 1991. None of these details could be found on his campaign website and materials.
Republican candidate Joe Lhota and others have harshly criticized de Blasio for his activities, which more than smack of radical Marxism. In a radio interview, the Democratic nominee defended his convictions. While de Blasio admitted that he did in fact employ the term “democratic socialism” in one of his papers, he also thought the Times article lacked nuance. He complained,
I think that article didn’t fully represent what I feel except for one passage that very accurately noted that one part of me is a New Deal Democrat–just an updated version of it–one part of me is probably similar to a European Social Democrat, and I’m also very deeply influenced by liberation theology, which I learned a lot about in the years I worked on Latin America.
Liberation theology indeed.
As the Times article observed, some of de Blasio’s first employers were “Catholic leaders” with ties to Latin America. For those familiar with the history of theology, this should not be surprising. Liberation theology was first formulated by Latin American Roman Catholic theologians. They quickly gained power in ecclesiastical structures (much to the dismay of an orthodox clergyman named Jorge Bergoglio) and remained entrenched until the election of Pope John Paul II. John Paul II (no friend of Communism) and his successor, Benedict XVI, both worked to combat what they considered the many doctrinal and practical errors of the Marxist-infused liberation theology. This new way of doing theology simply made religion a servant to popular political attitudes of the day and particularly oppressive ones at that.
In addition, the adoption of liberation theology by the National Council of Church and mainline Protestant denominations led to active financial assistance to violent revolutionaries. The blatant disregard for the complaints of laity and clergy by official denominational leadership inspired the very inception of the IRD. Thanks to pressure by concerned church members, lobbying arms finally met accountability for their use of offering-plate funds.
This brings de Blasio’s explanation into question. He presented his loyalty to FDR, Western European leftist politics, and liberation theology as a way to alleviate any worries of potential voters. Of course, religious outlooks only relieve fears of extremism and Communist radicalism if those outlooks are not themselves extremist and ideological. Sadly, as history indicates, liberation theology is far from a moderate position (putting concerns for orthodoxy aside). More often than not, it fueled harmful partisan activism among clergy in favor of Communism.
The more important question will be if anyone in New York City will know or care. Whereas de Blasio’s résumé and current theological convictions would have brought much consternation in the 1980s, it may be unlikely that these factors will play heavily in the voting public’s considerations.
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