Liberation theology originated in Catholic Latin America at the end of the 1960s in response to prevalent conditions of poverty and oppression. Its basic tenet was that it is the primary duty of the church to seek to promote social and economic justice. Since that time it has grown in influence, spreading to other areas of the Third World, along with bitter controversy about its ties to Marxist ideology and violent revolution. Drawing on both English and Spanish sources, this critical study examines the history, method, and doctrines of liberation theology. Sigmund considers the movement's...

"Backgrounds and Sources" follows the text, with selections from the writings of Aristotle, St. Augustine, and Dionysius the Areopagite "Interpretations" traces Aquinas's influence on medieval thought, on Roman Catholicism during the Renaissance, on early modern political thought (Richard Hooker and Francisco Suarez), on nineteenth-and twentieth-century papal social thought, and on contemporary Christian Democratic political parties in Europe and Latin America The volume concludes with "Contemporary Problems in Thomistic Ethics," which contains eight analyses of the influence of Aquinas's...

This is the first English translation of the most important work of political thought of the fifteenth century. The Catholic Concordance is the first major treatise to argue for consent through representative councils as a major prerequisite for legitimate law and government, and is the most learned and original work associated with the conciliar movement in the late medieval church. Cusa's arguments influenced such thinkers as Luther, Bruno and Locke, and Professor Sigmund's introduction places his work in its full historical and philosophical context.

Originally published in 1971 by Winthrop Publishers, Inc., this volume provides a discussion and analysis of the theory of natural law as it appears in contemporary political and social thought. This theory of natural law was used from the fifth century B.C. until the end of the eighteenth century to provide a universal, rational standard to determine the nature and limits of political obligation, the evaluation of competing forms of government, and the relation of law and politics to morals.