From Class to Existence: The Evolution of Liberation Theology Toward the Theology of the Margins

 

 

Paolo Cugini

 

Liberation Theology and the subsequent Theology of the Margins share the same generative methodological core: the conviction that reflection on God cannot ignore the historical practice and geopolitical condition of the oppressed. While Liberation Theology, formally born in Latin America in the late 1960s and early 1970s, identified its primary locus theologicus in the socioeconomic vulnerability of the proletariat and peasantry, today's Theology of the Margins represents a radical epistemological expansion of this locus. The latter transcends mere economic reductionism to embrace the multiple peripheries of existence: gender, sexual orientation, migration, and cultural diversity.

1. The Foundation of Liberation: Gustavo Gutiérrez's Orthopraxy

The methodological turning point of the entire liberationist approach is found in the seminal text by Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez, Liberation Theology: Perspectives . Gutiérrez overturns the primacy of abstract orthodoxy in favor of orthopraxy, redefining the very task of the theologian: "Theology as a critical reflection on historical praxis in the light of faith does not replace the other functions of theology... but situates them in a new perspective." Gustavo Gutiérrez , Liberation Theology: Perspectives , p. 21.

Gutiérrez shifts the theological focus from Europe to the peripheries of Latin America, arguing that salvation is not a purely eschatological or spiritualized reality, but a comprehensive process that requires the transformation of the unjust structures of the present world.

2. The Theology of the People: The Argentine Way to Liberation

Within the broad umbrella of Liberation Theology, Argentina developed a distinctive current known as the Theology of the People ( Teología del Pueblo ). Its leading exponents, among whom Lucio Gera and Juan Carlos Scannone stand out, distanced themselves from the Marxist-based class analysis typical of the Gutiérrez school. They preferred to adopt a historical-cultural category: the people , understood as a collective subject united by a common culture and, in particular, by popular religiosity.

For this school, the faith of the poor is not an ideology to be reawakened, but an already existing wisdom that holds an intrinsic potential for liberation and resistance. Juan Carlos Scannone highlights how the culture of the marginalized and the subjugated possesses its own logic, an alternative to the technocratic and hegemonic logic of the center: "The people of the poor are not simply objects of economic oppression or evangelization, but are a historical-cultural subject that evangelizes itself and the Church through its vital wisdom and its practices of solidarity." Juan Carlos Scannone , Theology of the People. Theological Roots of Pope Francis , p. 84.

The Theology of the People enriches the relationship between liberation and the margins through three fundamental insights:

• Unity in Diversity: The concept of people rejects the logic of class struggle that divides, seeking instead a communion that begins with the least and integrates differences into a common historical path.
• Popular Religiosity: Popular mysticism (pilgrimages, patronal festivals, devotions) is not seen as alienation or superstition, but as the place where the poor express their dignity and their silent protest against injustice.
• Impact on the global magisterium: This vision has redefined the category of "margin" in Pope Francis's pontificate. The concept of the Church reaching out to the existential peripheries has its theological roots directly in this Argentine school.

3. The Shift to the Margin and Queer Epistemologies: Marcella Althaus-Reid

While the first generation of Liberation Theology focused on the analysis of social classes, Argentine theologian Marcella Althaus-Reid led the crucial shift towards a true Theology of the Margins, integrating demands for liberation with post-colonial and gender theories. In her most famous and groundbreaking text, Indecent Theology , the author harshly criticizes the hegemonic center of traditional theology—European, masculine, and bourgeois—which has anesthetized the prophetic thrust of the Gospel:  "Theology needs to redefine itself no longer starting from the center of ecclesial or dogmatic power, but from the crossroads of lived marginality, where excluded bodies question transcendence." Marcella Althaus-Reid , Indecent Theology. Sexual Perversions and Theological Fulfillments , p. 45.

Althaus-Reid introduces the criterion of the margin as the preferred hermeneutic space. From this perspective, God's truth is not discovered within the closed confines of dogma, but is experienced and earned in the embodied and often uncomfortable encounter with the stories of the forgotten and marginalized.

4. The Concept of Existential Periphery in Magisterial Documents

The concept of the existential periphery represents the most mature magisterial development of the convergence between Liberation Theology and the Theology of the Margins. Systematically introduced by Pope Francis, this paradigm transposes the historical insights of Latin America into the official doctrine of the global Catholic Church.

Evangelii Gaudium (2013): The epistemological manifesto

In the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium , the periphery ceases to be a simple place of marginalization to become the starting point for understanding reality and faith itself. The Church is called to a centrifugal dynamism: "Today and always, 'the poor are the privileged recipients of the Gospel'... We must state bluntly that there is an inseparable bond between our faith and the poor. Let us never abandon them." Pope Francis , Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium , n. 48.

The text specifies that reaching out to the peripheries is not a simple philanthropic impulse, but a theological necessity: the center (institutional structures, academic theology) can only be understood and converted by looking at itself from the margins.

Laudato si' (2015): The Intersection between Ecology and Marginality

The Encyclical Laudato si' expands the boundaries of the existential periphery by uniting human suffering with environmental suffering. The document applies an intersectional approach in which social margins coincide with ecological margins:  "Today we cannot fail to recognize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice into debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor." Pope Francis , Encyclical Letter Laudato si' , n. 49.

At number 139, the Encyclical formalizes the break with fragmented analysis: "We are not faced with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather a single complex crisis that is both socio-environmental ." The existential periphery thus includes those who suffer desertification, pollution, and the loss of their native lands without having a voice in global decision-making processes.

Fratelli tutti (2020): Citizenship of the Margins

In the encyclical Fratelli tutti , the concept evolves to challenge the illusion of a globalized world that professes to be united but actually produces human "waste." The existential margin is defined through the figure of "members and non-citizens":

"There are peripheries that are close to us, in the center of a city, or in one's own family. There is also an aspect of the universal openness of love that is not geographical but existential. It is the daily capacity to broaden my circle." Pope Francis , Encyclical Letter Fratelli tutti , n. 97.

The document (especially numbers 115-117) denounces the vulnerability of migrants, people with disabilities, and isolated elderly people, redefining the existential periphery as the space in which human rights are emptied of concrete meaning.

5. From theory to practice: The Synod on synodality

The Synod on Synodality marked the decisive shift from theory to institutional practice, translating the theology of the margins into concrete reforms of ecclesial governance . The breakdown of the rigidity of the pyramid was manifested primarily in the extension of voting rights in the Synodal Assembly to lay people, young people, and women, reconfiguring the criteria for representation and redefining the framework of ecclesial co-responsibility.

At the level of local structures, the Synod has made the method of shared discernment and conversation in the Spirit a structural one. This approach requires listening to the existential peripheries before any pastoral or administrative decision. Furthermore, the document emphasizes the reform and strengthening of parish and diocesan pastoral councils, understood as spaces where the voice of the marginalized, historically excluded from clerical decision-making centers, becomes an integral part of the institutional governance of the Church.

The integration of migratory realities and cultural minorities

The paradigm shift promoted by synodal governance finds one of its most radical applications in the Church's relationship with migrants, refugees, and cultural minorities. Traditionally considered mere recipients of charitable assistance, these groups are now being repositioned as truly active agents and bearers of a prophetic theological voice within local communities.  This institutional impact is expressed on three main levels:

• Inclusion in decision-making processes: The Synod's Final Document calls for the structural integration of representatives of migrant communities and ethnic minorities within Pastoral Councils. This presence prevents ecclesial decisions from being made according to a monocultural and hegemonic logic, forcing local Churches to rethink their identity based on the contributions of newcomers.
• Overcoming the assimilation model: The new governance promotes a shift from a pastoral approach based on assimilation (in which migrants must adapt to the customs of the host culture) to a pastoral approach based on interculturality. Cultural minorities are no longer relegated to isolated celebrations within the temporal and spatial confines of parishes, but become co-responsible for liturgy, catechesis, and community administration.
• The Peripheries as Centers of Evangelization: Reversing the historical flows of mission, synodal governance recognizes that migrants from the global South are not subjects to be culturally colonized, but often the main re-evangelizers of secularized societies. Their experience of vulnerability and uprootedness becomes the hermeneutic lens through which the entire Church rediscovers the original character of Christianity as a pilgrim and hospitable community.

Conclusion

The Theology of the Margins does not deny its roots in Liberation Theology. On the contrary, it embraces its methodological legacy and purifies it of any dogmatic rigidity. Finally, it demonstrates that Christian revelation never speaks from a position of neutrality, but always manifests itself from and for the peripheries of history. Through recent structural reforms, the existential margin embodied by the stranger and the different ceases to be a social problem to be managed, becoming the resource with which the Church purifies its institutions to make them a reflection of a truly universal and multifaceted catholicity.

 

Bibliography

Althaus-Reid, Marcella , Indecent Theology: Sexual Perversions and Theological Fulfillments , London: Routledge, 2000 [Original edition: Indecent Theology , London: Routledge, 2000]. Citation on p. 45 .

Gutiérrez, Gustavo , Liberation Theology. Perspectives , Brescia, Queriniana, 1972 [Original edition: Teología de la liberación. Perspectivas , Lima, CEP, 1971]. Quote on p. 21 .

Pope Francis , Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium , Rome, Vatican Press, 24 November 2013. Reference to n. 48 .

Pope Francis , Encyclical Letter Laudato si'. On Care for Our Common Home , Rome, Vatican Press, 24 May 2015. References to nn. 49, 139 .

Pope Francis , Encyclical Letter Fratelli tutti. On Fraternity and Social Friendship , Rome, Vatican Press, 3 October 2020. References to nn. 97, 115-117 .

Scannone, Juan Carlos , Theology of the People: The Theological Roots of Pope Francis , Bologna, EMI, 2019 [Original edition: La teología del pueblo , Madrid, BAC, 2017]. Citation on p. 84 .

General Secretariat of the Synod , Final Document of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops: For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission , Vatican City, 2024.

 

THEOLOGY CONFRONT OF THE PROVOCATIONS OF PAUL FEYERABEND'S ANARCHIST EPISTEMOLOGY

 

 

 

Paolo Cugini

 

Paul Feyerabend's anarchic epistemology, epitomized in his famous motto "Anything goes," offers valuable tools for contemporary theology, allowing it to assert its intellectual legitimacy in a world dominated by scientism. Feyerabend argues that science possesses no universal method superior to other forms of knowledge. In theology, this method is used to legitimize religious discourse. While science does not have a monopoly on truth, theology can be seen as an equally valid approach for exploring the complexity of reality. Furthermore, Feyerabend's critique of science as an ideology allows theology to denounce when the scientific method is used as an indisputable dogma that a priori excludes the transcendent.

Methodological pluralism suggests that advancing knowledge requires the use of diverse tools, including those considered irrational or unorthodox. From this perspective, theology can apply this principle by combining rigorous textual analysis (exegesis) with aesthetic, mystical, or poetic insights, considering them all valid contributions to truth. Pluralism itself allows for a more inclusive and context-sensitive religious study, integrating historical and sociological analyses without diminishing the normative role of sacred texts. Feyerabend (along with Kuhn) argues that different theories can be incommensurable, meaning they cannot be compared according to a single logical standard. Thus, rather than seeking to prove faith with science, theology uses incommensurability to explain that religion and science operate within different conceptual frameworks, each with its own internal coherence that cannot be fully translated into the other's terms.

For Feyerabend, truth is not a fixed objective fact, but often the result of historical and rhetorical processes. This approach helps theologians see doctrine not as a closed and static system, but as a harmonious endeavor in progress, subject to constant revision and deepening through dialogue between different eras. Feyerabend does not suggest that everything is true, but that no methodological rule should limit the pursuit of knowledge. For theology, this means the freedom to explore the divine without apologizing for failing to employ the empirical-experimental method. The application of Feyerabend's epistemological anarchism transforms exegesis and interreligious dialogue into open and creative processes, rejecting the idea that a single correct method can exhaust the search for truth.

Traditionally, exegesis relies on the historical-critical method, that is, the analysis of sources, contexts, and philology. Feyerabend's approach introduces counterinduction: there is no single way to read a text. Alongside historical criticism, psychological, aesthetic, sociological, or purely spiritual interpretations become legitimate, without one necessarily invalidating the others. If a sacred text presents contradictions, anarchic exegesis does not seek to forcefully resolve them to preserve logical coherence, but accepts them as expressions of the complexity of reality and human experience. Exegesis is no longer an activity reserved solely for academic specialists; even the intuition of the believer or the perspective of the artist can reveal meanings in the text that rigid methods tend to obscure.

In interreligious dialogue, the thesis of incommensurability plays a crucial role in overcoming conflict and intolerance. Recognizing that religions are incommensurable systems means accepting that there is no external yardstick (such as universal reason or neutral science) to decide which is best. Rather than seeking the lowest common denominator (which often empties religions of their specific meaning), Feyerabendian dialogue encourages each tradition to express its radical diversity. Truth emerges from proliferation and comparison, not from uniformity. The principle of "Anything Goes" serves to prevent one religion (or secular vision) from imposing itself as the only rational path, promoting a free society in which each individual can choose the conceptual framework within which to live. Feyerabend's anarchism in these areas is not chaos, but an invitation not to be imprisoned by methodological dogmas, allowing texts and traditions to speak with all their original richness.

Feyerabend's critique of scientism provides modern theology with an intellectual weapon to denounce what he called "blind faith" in science as the sole source of truth. Feyerabend argued that modern science had assumed the dogmatic role that the Church had in the Middle Ages. Theology uses this critique to show how scientism has become a state ideology that imposes a spiritual monolithism. Theologians draw on Feyerabend's call for a free society where science is separated from the state just as religion is, allowing citizens to choose their own path to knowledge without institutional pressure. Feyerabend debunks the idea that science is neutral and purely rational. If science is also influenced by subjective desires, metaphysical prejudices, and aesthetic judgments, then the accusation of theology being merely subjective loses force. Theology claims that all knowledge, including scientific knowledge, arises from an act of faith or an existential decision. In his later works, such as The Tyranny of Science , Feyerabend highlighted how scientism impoverishes human experience. Modern theology uses Feyerabend to argue that the reduction of reality to the measurable (reductionism) is a form of intellectual laziness. Feyerabend began to reevaluate the role of mysticism and religion as tools that satisfy fundamental human needs, such as love, reverence, and a sense of mystery, which scientific materialism ignores or suppresses. Feyerabend levels the playing field: he doesn't say that theology is science, but he demonstrates that science, when it claims to be the only Truth, is merely a myth more powerful than others.

 

IS A THEOLOGY INSPIRED BY THE THOUGHT OF KARL POPPER POSSIBLE?

 

Palo Cugini

 

 

Karl Popper's epistemology, centered on the principle of falsifiability, is usually considered the clear boundary between science and metaphysics. For Popper, a theory is scientific only if "it can be disproved by experience." At first glance, theology—which deals with absolute and transcendent truths—would seem the exact opposite of this model. However, applying Popper to theology doesn't necessarily mean demolishing it, but rather attempting to transform it into an intellectually honest discipline open to revision. This is what a Popperian theology might look like.

At the heart of Popper's thought is the rejection of inductivism: no matter how much evidence we accumulate in favor of a thesis, we can never be certain of its absolute truth.
In theology, this approach would attack rigid dogmatism. A Popperian theology would not consider its assertions as immutable truths handed down from above, but as bold conjectures about the meaning of existence. The believer would not be someone in possession of the truth, but a researcher who proposes an explanation of the world, aware of his own human fallibility.

The critical point is: is there an event that could disprove the existence of God? The philosopher Antony Flew, applying Popper, observed that theologians often die of a thousand qualifications: if something bad happens, they say God is mysterious; if something good happens, it is thanks to God. If nothing can disprove God's love, then the statement "God loves us" has no real informative content, since it is compatible with any state of affairs.

To be Popperian, theology must accept the challenge: what would have to happen for me to stop believing? A faith that doesn't accept the risk of contradiction (God's silence, extreme evil, the absence of signs) risks becoming an empty suit of armor. Just as the scientist doesn't observe nature with a virgin eye, the theologian doesn't read sacred texts or reality without presuppositions. To affirm that observation isn't neutral means recognizing that there is no interpretation of the Bible or dogma without a "pre-understanding" (hermeneutics). Every believer interprets the divine through specific cultural, linguistic, and philosophical lenses.

In theology, Truth (often identified with God) would become a horizon toward which to journey, rather than an object possessed once and for all. Theology would no longer be a system of static certainties, but a dynamic quest. As with Popper's scientist, it is the striving toward this absolute Truth that gives meaning to study, even if the fullness of knowledge remains metaphysically beyond human reach. The most radical aspect concerns the process of approaching truth through the elimination of error: It proceeds by falsifying inadequate images of God. Theology progresses when it recognizes that a past interpretation was erroneous or limited (think of the overcoming of certain theocratic or discriminatory visions). Dogma does not change Truth, but corrects previously misinterpreted facts, refining human understanding in an infinite evolutionary process. From this perspective, the distinction between revealed data (fact) and theology (opinion) blurs. Every religious fact is already mediated by human experience. This does not lead to relativism, but to epistemological humility: no one can claim a monopoly on objective truth, since we are all immersed in conjectures that must constantly be tested by dialogue and history.

Popper applied his epistemology to politics in The Open Society and Its Enemies . A theology inspired by him would be an open theology. Doctrines should be subjected to public and rational discussion, not protected by the enclosure of the "sacred." Just as science progresses through the clash of different theories, so the understanding of the divine would benefit from the confrontation of different faiths and visions, seen as alternative attempts to answer the same ultimate question.

Applying Popper to theology means stripping it of its claim to be an exact science of the spirit. The result is a theology of hope and risk, where faith is not a dogmatic endpoint, but a series of conjectures submitted to the tribunal of human experience and suffering. In this sense, the Popperian theologian is very similar to the scientist: both seek the truth, knowing that each of their conclusions is merely a not-yet-disproved proposition in the long journey of knowledge.

 

THEOLOGY FROM THE MARGINS: HERMENEUTIC DEVELOPMENTS

 

Paolo Cugini

 

The hermeneutics of theology of the margins represents one of the most vibrant currents in contemporary reflection, shifting the center of theological truth from the center (academic, Eurocentric, institutional) to the "periphery" as a place of revelation. The fundamental assumption is that God reveals himself not in power, but in vulnerability. The margin is not only a place of exclusion, but a privileged hermeneutical space. Gustavo Gutiérrez, considered the father of liberation theology, introduced the idea that theology is a secondary act. The primary act is the practice of solidarity with the poor. For Gutiérrez, the margin is the necessary starting point for a correct reading of Scripture. In the United States, theology of the margins has taken on specific cultural connotations, analyzing the condition of those who live between two worlds. In his seminal work,  Galilee and the Mexican-American Promise , Elizondo reinterprets the figure of Jesus starting from his identity as a Galilean, a frontier region and a mixed race. The margin thus becomes the place where the new people of God is born.

Ada María Isasi-Díaz, founder of women's theology, emphasized how Hispanic women live on a triple margin (gender, class, and ethnicity). Her hermeneutics draws on the concept of lo cotidiano  (everyday life) as a theological source. A radical evolution of the hermeneutics of the margins involves questioning sexual and social norms.

Marcella Althaus-Reid, with her Indecent Theology, challenged clean, bourgeois interpretations of Christianity. Althaus-Reid proposes a hermeneutic that draws on the experiences of marginalized bodies (sex workers, LGBTQ+ people), arguing that God manifests himself precisely where official theology feels shame. The most recent development today concerns the "decolonization" of the mind and faith. Kwok Pui-lan is an Asian theologian who uses postcolonial hermeneutics to analyze how the Bible has been used as an instrument of power. She proposes a diagonal reading, giving voice to those silenced by great religious empires. The application of these hermeneutics to specific biblical passages radically transforms the perception of the text, transforming stories of subjugation into narratives of liberation and resistance. Mujerista theology (from Hispanic women in the US) does not seek grand dogmas, but the presence of God in everyday survival. The reference passage is Hagar (Genesis 16 and 21). Traditionally, Hagar is seen as Sarah's problematic slave. Ada María Isasi-Díaz and other women's theologians interpret Hagar as the true protagonist: she is the first person in the Bible to give a name to God (El-roi, "the God who sees me"). The margin here is the solitude of the desert. For marginalized women, Hagar represents God, who is not in Abraham's palace (the center), but who encounters the woman fleeing violence in the desert (the periphery). Salvation is not an abstract promise, but the water that allows one to survive another day.

Queer theology doesn't simply include LGBTQ+ people, but uses queering as a method to destabilize fixed and binary interpretations. The reference passage is Acts 8:26-40. The eunuch is a boundary figure: he is a foreigner (Ethiopian) but devout, and he is sexually non-conforming, according to the criteria of the time (excluded from the temple according to Deuteronomy). Marcella Althaus-Reid and Patrick Cheng interpret this episode as a radical breaking down of margins. The eunuch asks, " What prevents me from being baptized?" Philip's response is the elimination of the bodily barrier. The queer body, previously marked as lacking or impure, becomes the site of a new belonging that transcends biology and social norms. In both cases, the method follows these steps:

a.        Suspicion: Ask yourself why the classical interpretation ignores the bodies or the suffering of those on the margins.

b.       Identification: The marginalized reader recognizes himself in the excluded biblical character.

c.        Claim: The margin is declared a sacred place of revelation, often more authentic than the religious "center."

The exploration of the figure of Jesus as a marginal subject and its translation into liturgical practice represent the beating heart of mujerista and queer theologies, where the body and everyday experience become the center of worship. From these perspectives, Jesus is not a dogmatic abstraction, but an individual historically and socially situated on the margins. Virgilio Elizondo reinterprets Jesus as a cultural mestizo. Being from Galilee, Jesus lived in a frontier area, despised by the religious center of Jerusalem. This geographical marginality is what allows him to speak a language of universal inclusion. Marcella Althaus-Reid proposes a Jesus who breaks the mold of bourgeois decency and heteropatriarchal norms. Jesus is the one who touches the impure, eats with sinners, and challenges the laws of the traditional nuclear family. His body on the cross is the marginalized body par excellence: naked, vulnerable, and nonconformist. Ada María Isasi-Díaz emphasizes how Jesus consistently validated the authority of marginalized women (such as the Samaritan woman or the woman with the hemorrhage), making them integral partners in his mission. 

Liturgy is no longer seen as a rigid ceremony, but as a communal action that celebrates resistance and life. Liturgies of Healing and Relationship: Feminist and queer theologies have developed grassroots forms of worship, grounded in a community of equals. This gives space to gestures of mutual care, blessings of non-traditional couples, or rituals that honor bodies that have suffered violence. For mujerista theology, simple everyday acts—cooking, caring for others, resisting injustice—acquire sacramental value. Liturgy transcends the church to sanctify the struggle for survival of oppressed peoples. A queer liturgy celebrates a fluid and unstable God who disrupts religious expectations. Songs and prayers serve not to control morality, but to liberate desire and divine grace from totalitarian theologies.

 

THEOLOGY FROM BELOW: WHEN THE MARGIN REGENERATES THE CENTER

 

 

Paolo Cugini

 

The proposal for a theology from below does not arise from a desire for rupture, but from an urgent need for fidelity. If Truth is not an archaeological find to be kept in a shrine, but the living Person of Christ, then theological reflection must accept the very movement of the Incarnation: a God who dispossesses the center to become the periphery.

Power, even when inspired by the best religious intentions, inevitably creates blind spots. Institutional structures tend toward stability, codification, and uniformity; processes necessary for survival, but which often end up numbing the ability to listen. The margins, inhabited by the poor, the excluded, and restless seekers who find no home in pre-established languages, offer tradition the "glasses" needed to see what the center has ceased to perceive. They are not a threat to order, but a critical resource: they point to where the flesh suffers and where questions of meaning today are most acute. A theology that ignores the margins ends up speaking only to itself.

In the Gospel, the Kingdom of God does not radiate outward from a temple or a palace. On the contrary, it blossoms precisely in the gap. To affirm that the periphery is the center is not a sociological paradox, but a fundamental theological fact: in the Incarnation, in fact, the Mystery did not choose the magnificence of Rome or the ritual purity of the Temple, but a manger and a cross outside the walls. An integral theology ceases to be a science from above, seeking to be heard. It becomes a more humble discipline and, paradoxically, more authoritative because more human.

Dissent or the push for change is often mistaken for an attack on faith. On the contrary, challenging tradition to enable it to integrate the diversity of human experiences is an act of extreme love. We love the Church not when we mummify her, but when we desire her to remain alive. As Pope Francis has often emphasized, the risk is that of becoming a "museum piece," beautiful but cold. The goal of integral theology is instead to foster a "field hospital," where truth is sought in encounters, in the wounds of others, and in the symphony of voices that make up the people of God.

The integration proposed by theology from below does not mean syncretism, but harmonious pluralism. An integral theology is capable of recognizing the seeds of the Word wherever they manifest; integrating the demands of social justice with metaphysical speculation; abandoning the obsession with control in favor of an open "spiritual conversation." This is our path, which requires a willingness to renew ourselves and the ability to see the new things the Spirit is inspiring.

 

The Intersection: The theological place as a point of breakthrough

 

 

Paolo Cugini

Traditional theology often aspires to universality, starting from abstract metaphysical or dogmatic presuppositions. On the contrary, theology from the margins insists on contextuality. Intersection occurs when the periphery questions the center about its presumed neutrality. As Gustavo Gutiérrez states in his founding text: “Theology as a critical reflection on historical praxis in the light of faith does not replace the other functions of theology... but places them in a new perspective”. . The intersection lies in the fact that both theologies use the same sources, Scripture and Tradition, but theology from the margins changes the hermeneutic perspective. If tradition reads the text to preserve orthodoxy, the margin reads it to seek the presence of the Mystery in history, in daily experiences, especially those marked by exclusion and marginality.

Intersection is not just an encounter, it is a collision that reveals how the center is actually a margin of success that has established itself as the norm. It is not just a shift in geography, from the pulpit to the street, but in method. Theology from the margins does not simply add new themes such as poverty, gender, and ethnicity, but challenges the center's claim to objectivity. While classical theology perceives itself as an often aseptic and universal view from above, intersectional theology claims a view from below. The theological place becomes a breaking point because it transforms pain and exclusion from objects of charity into subjects of revelation. If for the center, Tradition is a repository to be safeguarded, for the margins, it is a fire to be stoked. Intersection occurs in the body: the sources are not only books, but the very flesh of history. To give just one example: reading Exodus from the center means celebrating a past liberation; reading it from the margins means identifying today's pharaohs and demanding a present liberation. The intersection, therefore, reveals that no theology is neutral; in fact, what calls itself universal often reflects only the dominant culture, that is, Western, male, and affluent. The periphery, by questioning the center, forces it to look in the mirror and recognize its own contextual limitations. Traditional theology, therefore, is like a solid wall; while the experience of the margin is the crack through which, according to the intuition of many liberation theologians, the light of Grace passes more purely, unfiltered by power.

 

Mythical thinking is still within us

 

 

Paolo Cugini

Although many centuries have passed since the Greeks developed a philosophical thought based on reason and sustained by logos, it is possible to affirm that we still have a mythical approach to reality. It seems like an absurd statement, but it is not so absurd.

But what exactly is mythical thought? We think mythically whenever we resort to a narrative that abandons reasoning to rely on a sacred type of discourse foundation.

It is also important to point out that in the ancient mindset, myth is not identified with something false. The philosopher of religion Mircea Eliade reflected extensively on the mythical structure of ancient thought and arrived at conclusions worth highlighting. Unlike the modern view of "myth" as something false, Eliade argues that, for the people of traditional (or "archaic") societies, myth is absolutely true and sacred. In the origin narrative, myth always refers to a "creation," recounting how something, whether the entire cosmos or just a human behavior, came into existence. For Eliade, knowing the origin myth of an object or animal grants the individual a kind of dominion over it, allowing its ritual manipulation.

One of Eliade's most famous concepts is that of Eternal Return, which describes the religious man's desire to return to the time of origins. Through rites, man not only "remembers" the myth, but re-actualizes it, becoming contemporary with the gods or heroes in "primordial time." By living the myth, the individual leaves linear (profane) time and enters circular (sacred) time, recovering the fullness of being. Eliade uses the term hierophany to describe the act of manifestation of the sacred in the profane world. For Eliade, the sacred is the "reality par excellence," saturated with being and power. Even in desacralized and modern societies, Eliade notes that myth survives in a camouflaged form in behaviors such as cinema, literature, and certain political ideologies, which offer temporary escapes from linear history. If at the time of the birth of philosophy mythical thought had a heuristic basis, today we can clearly say that resorting to myth is a form of mental laziness, which manifests a lack of knowledge of reality.

For Paul Ricoeur, myth is not a false scientific explanation, but a symbolic narrative that reveals profound truths about the human condition, especially about fallibility and the origin of evil. He argues that philosophy must take a detour through the hermeneutics (interpretation) of myths to understand what pure, abstract reflection cannot grasp on its own. 

Ricoeur defines myth as a "symbol developed in narrative form." While a symbol is a unit of double meaning (a literal meaning that points to a latent meaning), myth sets these symbols in motion through a story. By losing its claim to physically explain the world, myth gains a function of exploring human reality, manifesting what Ricoeur calls the "language of confession" (experiences of guilt, stain, and sin). The philosopher argues that we do not have direct access to the "self" or to being; we need the mediation of cultural works, such as myths, to understand ourselves.

Taking into account the reflections of Eliade and Ricoeur, we can affirm that mythical thought still lingers in culture, not only in the West. Furthermore, the thought that develops in Christianity is not mythical, but philosophical. It is not a coincidence that the Church Fathers of the first centuries, in trying to resolve the problems that the identity of Jesus brought to the daily reflection of the first communities, used many concepts from Greek philosophy. Following Jesus demands a rational, logical choice, more than a mythical one. It is not a coincidence that the first community of John identifies Jesus not with myth, but with the logos. “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1).

Jesus gave a definitive rational answer to our human questions. Despite this, even today, most Catholics enter the religious sphere not driven by reason, but by feeling; not through rational and philosophical reflection, but through mythical thought—not in the sense that Eliade and Ricoeur pointed out, but as an irrational approach, bringing unsustainable arguments into the debate. When mythical thought identifies with our irrational side, religion becomes a space of intolerance, because one no longer adheres to the divine through a path that involves the totality of the person, but adheres to a religious form, identifying with it and defending it tooth and nail, not participating with love and tenderness. When religion becomes a space of intolerance,  of opposition to science, God disappears from the map, and elements that only psychiatry can resolve come into play.

I WAS HUNGRY

 

Paolo Cugini

 

I was hungry and you gave me food (Mt 25 35).

Listen, O people, for the time of the superfluous has come to an end and the hour of the essential knocks at the gates of history. Let us seek no further, let us not accumulate rivers of words or treatises that weigh like stones on our consciences. It is all here, and nothing will be added that is not already written in the beating of the human heart.

The days will come, and these are already here, when the great cathedrals of thought will crumble to pieces before a single fragment of humanity. The Gospel is not a doctrine to be learned, but a path of exodus. It is the forced exit from the desert of selfishness, the mastery of that instinct that whispers to us to survive alone, enclosed within the confines of our petty problems, blind to everything else.

The Mystery of Mysteries is not hidden in impenetrable heavens, but is contained in a gesture that shakes the foundations of the world: feeding the hungry. Let us look to the Son of Man: He did not reveal His divinity in the brilliance of lightning, but in the dust of the ground, washing the feet, embracing the wounded flesh of the leper, becoming a caress for the sick. This is the prophecy we must embody: the path of humanization is the only true path to divinization. There is no God without man, without woman; there is no divine light that does not pass through our bowed hands.

Here is the great revelation that the world does not want to hear: In every hungry person who meets our gaze, in every persecuted person who knocks on our door, in the refugee who has no country and in the stranger who has no face, the Mystery dwells. Jesus cried out to the centuries: "I was hungry, I was thirsty, I was naked." Every time we bend down to the outcasts of the earth, we will not only touch human flesh, but we will encounter the Mystery. And that encounter will leave a mark that no forgetfulness can erase.

Let us abandon theologies of detachment. Let us embrace the only doctrine that saves: the experience of the Mystery occurs in welcoming the stranger. May our worship be truth, not smoke; may our liturgies be a listening ear that opens the heart. Because the truth of what we celebrate on the altar will only be seen in the way we walk alongside the least.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear: the light of the Mystery dwells within us, but it will shine only when we become bread for the hungry.

 

STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND?

 

 

Paolo Cugini

 

And he said to them, Do you still not understand? (Mk 8:21).

It must not have been easy for the first disciples, both men and women, to follow that man from Nazareth. We often imagine their "yes" as a linear path, but the reality was one of enormous psychological and spiritual toil. They followed Jesus, they had abandoned their safety nets, yet the gap between the Master's proposal and their own experience was abysmal. It wasn't just a matter of intellectual understanding; it was a matter of dismantling an entire symbolic universe constructed over centuries of history.

The legacy of a rigid cultic paradigm weighed heavily on the minds of Jesus' contemporaries. Faith was understood as a system of sacrifices, prescriptions, and duties. At its center sat the image of a demanding God, a sovereign who did not forgive transgressors and threatened eternal punishment. In this context, religion had become an instrument of social control. Religious leaders had built a wall between the sacred (relegated to the temple) and the profane (the daily life of the people). This deformed God was, in effect, an antagonist to man, an entity who served to justify the power logic of the temple lords. The risk of reducing God to a harsh judge is a constant temptation in the history of religions.

Jesus bursts into this landscape with subversive force. He defines the Pharisees' understanding of religion as bad leaven, a negative ferment capable of contaminating the entire mass. His response is not a new law, but a revelation: God is Father and infinite mercy. While the temple imposed precepts, Jesus opened paths of liberation. With Him, the separation between sacred and profane collapses definitively. In Christ, the sacred enters time and the flesh: everything is sanctified and nothing must be sacrificed. It is the victory of life over death and of love over hate.

Why did the disciples struggle to understand? The answer lies in what we might call a colonization of the imagination. For too long, they had assimilated the poison of religious leaders, mistaking human traditions for the Word of God. Exposing this mystification was Jesus's most courageous act, but it also sparked the hatred of the established powers. A God who forgives everything and everyone is not suitable for those who seek to subjugate the people through fear.

Mercy is not cheap do-goodism, but the strength that destroys the logic of power.

Entering the Gospel journey today means accepting the same suffering as the disciples: the effort to shed the old religion of fear and bargaining with the divine. The transition is radical: from the God-Tyrant to the God-Love. Only by accepting this stripping can we be clothed in the light of the Mystery of Mercy, transforming faith from a list of obligations to an experience of authentic freedom.

 

AGAINST THE SACRED SCAMMERS

 

 

 

Paolo Cugini

 

Thus you make the word of God of no effect by your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do (Mk 7:13).

It is one of the most striking verses in the Gospel for its clarity and lucidity. It is a verse that contains a very important revelation, because it shows what has happened over time: the replacement of the Word of God with human traditions. This is the drama. Without a doubt, those who lived in search of an authentic meaning to life could not help but realize that something was wrong with Israel's religious system. The relationship with God, instead of being free and lived in an atmosphere of freedom, was conditioned by money and an unbearable network of precepts. How can one exploit the dimension of life, which has to do with personal and communal sensitivity, as well as the delicate thread that binds us to the Mystery? Yet, what was impossible even to imagine happened. This was Jesus' great discovery, which, once publicly manifested, caused his death. It is a great temptation for all those in religious power: to manipulate the sacred, by manipulating consciences. After all, it's easy to manipulate a conscience when it's in a delicate moment of life and, therefore, turns to God and his mediators. One must be truly rotten not to respect the soul of a desperate person, or one experiencing great anguish. One must have one's conscience completely shrouded in evil, to act like jackals, ready to pounce on those who are clearly in a state of weakness, incapable of defending themselves and, therefore, easily preyed upon by unscrupulous people. That all this can happen in a religious context is utterly despicable, because personal conscience is at stake. Exploiting a person who comes asking for help, who feels the full weight of their own fragility and therefore pleads for mercy, and instead receives orders, rules, and the imposition of money, is truly unforgivable. This is why Jesus uses harsh words, leaving no room for misunderstanding. Jesus knows full well the price he will have to pay for these accusations, but he also knows that his example will serve to free religion from those who defraud the sacred.  

Unfortunately, as we know, history has repeated itself, even in more serious forms than those identified by Jesus. There is no end to human misery. The religious sphere, precisely because it deals with the Mystery of God, lends itself, for those who reach the highest echelons of religious power and are people without any sense of shame, to the greatest forms of exploitation of consciences. This is the paradox: the most sacred space of the human person, namely, its religious dimension, becomes, at the same time, the most vulnerable place for every form of manipulation. How many psychological, sexual, and power abuses have occurred and continue to occur in the sacred spaces of our churches? How many exploited, massacred, and humiliated people, who, after opening their souls to the unscrupulous mediator of the sacred on duty, have felt abused? In these situations, it seems there is no remedy for evil. Instead, the hope that dwells in our Gospel-filled hearts shows us the great love manifested in the cross of Jesus, a love that conquered hatred. A hope that transcends all negative sensory perceptions. 

 

BEYOND THE BLOOD

 

Paolo Cugini

 

Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother (Mk 3:35).

Truly I say to you: do not make one flesh and one name your eternal idol. The walls of your father's house are not the boundaries of the world, nor is the blood that flows in your veins a chain that binds the spirit to immobility. Hear the voice crying out in the wilderness of the present: family relationships are not absolute.

The time will come, and this is it, when you will have to invest only in what generates life here and now. Don't be fooled by the myth of lineage: blood ties are not a destiny written in the stars. They become sacred only when cultivated in the garden of care and meaning, but what has remained barren, what has become a prison, can and must be let go. Without guilt, without looking back.

Whoever walks in search of the Mystery must wear the sandals of freedom. You cannot scale the summit of the Infinite if you are weighed down by obligations that no longer have a soul. At a certain point on the journey, the prophet within you will demand the courage to step out: abandon the hearth that no longer warms, break the seals of bonds that were necessary for your birth, but now prevent you from becoming.

Here is the new alliance: a brotherhood born not from the womb, but from the direction of your steps. You will meet brothers and sisters along the way, not because you share the same last name, but because you gaze at the same Horizon. They will be traveling companions for a season or a moment; relationships as intense as flames that will then, gently, fade away so that the journey can continue.

Don't necessarily seek truth on the path home. The Light of Mystery does not dwell in the past, but guides your steps toward the unknown. It demands radical freedom, for only those who are truly free can discern the direction.

Go, then: let the dead bury the dead, and follow the luminous trail that calls. For your true family is made up of those who, like you, have had the courage to lose themselves in order to find themselves in the Whole.

Yes, listen: the day has come when the Spirit blows where it wills, and those who have ears to hear must drop their old armor. Do not be afraid of being wayfarers without a homeland, because the Kingdom is not reserved for those who stay, but for those who dare to leave. The promised land is not found by grasping one's roots, but by spreading the wings of the heart over unknown depths.

Don't be like those who, out of fear of loneliness, build ever thicker walls around bonds that are no longer there. True blessing comes to those who, in the night, have the courage to leave safe harbor to chase a flash of lightning on the horizon. Remember: Abraham too was called to leave his father's house, and only thus did he become the father of multitudes.

Be bold in welcoming brothers and sisters born not from blood, but from the same dream. Be mothers of every gesture that generates life, fathers of every word that opens paths. In this time, when the desert seems to advance and certainties crumble like sand between the fingers, sowers of meaning will recognize their fellow men in the smile of a stranger, in an unexpected embrace, in the compassion that transcends every boundary.

And when you feel alone, remember: those who trust in the Invisible are never abandoned. In the twists and turns of the path, the echo of the Spirit will reach you, and you will understand that no chain is strong enough to restrain those called to freedom. For the true bond that binds is that of shared hope, of burning faith, of love that knows no bounds.

So be bold pilgrims, bearers of a new fire. And when all seems lost, there, beyond the blood, you will discover the family of open hearts, the communion of seekers, the house without walls, where the Mystery awaits those who recognize the voice calling from the future.