People are also more keenly and painfully aware that a large part of the Church is in one way or another linked to those who wield economic and polit… - Gustavo Gutiérrez

Is the Church fulfilling a purely religious role when by its silence or friendly relationships it lends legitimacy to dictatorial and oppressive government?

The liberation of our continent means more than overcoming economic, social, and political dependence. It means, in a deeper sense, to see the becoming of mankind as a process of the emancipation of man in history. It is to see man in search of a qualitatively different society in which he will be free from all servitude, in which he will be the artisan of his own destiny.

Hence we speak of social revolution, not reform; of liberation, not development; of socialism, not the modernization of the prevailing system. ‘Realists’ call these statements romantic and utopian. And they should, for the rationality of these statements is of a kind quite unfamiliar to them. [https://archive.ph/5miDC<nowiki>]</nowiki>

Liberation from every form of exploitation, the possibility of a more human and dignified life, the creation of a new humankind - all pass through this struggle.