Boff, Leonardo

(b. 1938)

   Theologian.

   Boff is a native of Brazil. After studying with Karl rahner at the University of Munich, he was ordained and became Professor of Theology in Petropolis, Brazil where he was also an advisor to the Brazilian Conference of Bishops. A prominent liberation theologian and champion of the poor, he is the author of Jesus Christ, Liberator and Ecclesiogenesis: The Base Communities Reinvent the Church. After the publication of his Church, Charisma and Power in 1981, he was summoned to Rome to explain himself and a year’s silence was imposed on him. During this period he produced Trinity and Society. Boff teaches that Jesus is a liberator not merely from spiritual evil, but also from the material oppression of the rich and powerful; this is based on Boff’s own experience of work among the dispossessed poor of South America. His conflict with the Roman Catholic establishment arises from his rejection of the hierarchical authoritarianism which he perceives as endemic within the Church.

   Leonardo Boff, Introducing Liberation Theology, translated by Paul Burns (1987).