“A Christianity for Times of Revolution”: Context of the Political–Intellectual Reception and Controversy over Liberation Theology in the Chilean Path to Socialism, 1970–1973

The objective of this article is to undertake a historical analysis of the reception of liberation theology in Chile in 1970–1973. The concept of liberation in Chilean Catholicism is developed based on the analysis of documentary sources from different spaces in the Catholic world and specialized theology journals, emphasizing its relationship with political action and its insertion in a process of revolutionary change. At the same time, the expectations aroused and interpretations elicited by liberation theology — and Gustavo Gutiérrez’s text by the same name — in the area of theology are analyzed, highlighting its positive reception, the position open to criticism and use of the concept of praxis, and those openly critical due to its secularizing nature and its closeness to Marxism.