Bonus Sample: US v. Liberation Theology (Part 2)
Podcast: ConspiritualityPublished On: Mon Nov 03 2025
Description: Listen to the full episode on Patreon Part 2 follows the money flowing from US agencies and interests to anti-Liberation Theology figures in Latin America. We meet Jesuit operator Roger Vekemans, who in the 1960s drew funding from the CIA, USAID, West German bishops, and U.S. conservative foundations to undermine Liberation and Christian socialism in Chile and beyond. Nelson Rockefeller used Protestant missions as a model for soft power in the region, including the Summer Institute of Linguistics and their aviation-radio infrastructure (JAARS) that doubled as state and military logistics in Amazon frontiers. That infrastructure was part of a project to rewire communal lifeways into an individualism compatible with capitalism. But what about the “reverse boomerang”? Pope Leo XIV’s Dilexi te: On Love for the Poor, is a pastoral yet pointed retrieval of Liberation Theology’s moral center, in which inequality is posited as the root of social ills. Leo rejects trickle-down myths, insists on solidarity with migrants, and quietly sidelines the old Marxism panic. By grounding church mission in the lived poverty of Jesus himself, Leo offers a calm but withering rebuke to Christofascism and the politics of exclusion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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