Martin Luther King, Jr., (1929-1968), a Baptist minister, first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the most prominent of public activists in the Civil Rights movement in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, wrote this letter when he was imprisoned in connection with a non-violent direct action to put pressure on … More Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)

Ernesto Cardenal (1925-2020), a Catholic priest, Latin American poet, and Nicaraguan minister of culture (1979-1990) was best known for his work of founding and ministering (1965-1977) to a community of peasants and artists on the Solentiname Islands, an archipelago in Lake Nicaragua. The experience of this community fed into what Latin American liberation theologians called … More Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname (1975-1977)

The Second Vatican Council’s liturgical reforms emphasized a greater degree of lay access and participation. In practice this meant not only liturgies in the language of the people, the vernacular, but liturgical connections to the everyday experience of lay worshippers. In Nicaragua, popular musician and performer Carlos Mejía Godoy (1945- ) utilized his experience traveling … More Carlos Mejía Godoy, Misa Campesina Nicaragüense (1975)

In the early 1980s, the German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (1927-2022; later Pope Benedict XVI) was appointed prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF: the organ of the Vatican responsible for maintaining theological integrity, formerly known as the Office of the Inquisition). Ratzinger was concerned about and brought energy to examining and … More Alfonso López Trujillo, Declaration of Los Andes (1985)

Theologian, ethicist, theological educator, missionary and pastor Ada María Isasi-Díaz (1943-2012) founded the Hispanic Institute of Theology at Drew University where she served on the faculty of the School of Theology. Born in Havana, Cuba, she migrated to the USA as a political refugee in 1960. Serving for a time as a member of the … More Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Identifícate con Nosotras: A Mujerista Christological Understanding (2004)