Concórdia (Brazil), 1938

By Carlos Eduardo Martins

Leonardo Boff, author of approximately sixty books and a former Franciscan, studied philosophy and theology, obtaining a doctorate in these areas from the University of Munich (Germany) in 1970.

As one of the founders of Liberation Theology, he published several key works that shaped this doctrine: Jesus Christ, Liberator (1972), Liberation and Captivity Theology (1976), The Church’s Walk with the Oppressed (1980), and Church, Charisma, and Power (1981). Due to the arguments presented in this last book, he was summoned in 1984 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the former Tribunal of the Holy Office, to face charges.

In 1985, Boff was sentenced to a year of silence and removed from his teaching and editorial duties, a penalty that was lifted in 1986 under global pressure on the Vatican. In 1992, facing the threat of a second punishment, he resigned from the priesthood. He then married Marcia Maria Monteiro de Miranda.

In 1993, he was hired as a professor of ethics, philosophy of religion, and ecology at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ).