At the behest of conservatives, the Vatican has imposed sanctions on the liberation theologians Gustavo Gutierrez of Peru, Leonardo Boff of Brazil and, most recently, Jon Sobrino of El Salvador, a Jesuit born in Spain. But when the Vatican admonished Sobrino in March, Pedro Casaldaliga of Brazil, one of the bishops most committed to liberation theology, wrote an open letter calling on the church to reaffirm its "real commitment to the service of God's poor" and "the link between faith and politics."

That drew a sharp rebuke from Felipe Aquino, a conservative theologian whose views are often broadcast on Catholic radio stations here. "In spite of having received the Vatican's cordial warning, you continue to be incorrigible, poisoning the people with the theology of liberation, which, as Ratzinger noted, annihilates the true faith and subverts the gospel of salvation," he wrote.

At a news conference here on April 27, the newly appointed archbishop of Sao Paulo, Odilo Scherer, 57, tried to conciliate the two opposing viewpoints. While he criticized liberation theology for using "Marxism as a tool of analysis," he also praised liberation theologians for redirecting the church's mission here to focus on issues of social injustice and poverty.

He also argued that the movement was in decline. Adherents, however, are less sure.

"The force of Latin America's harsh social reality is stronger than Rome's ideology, so the theology of liberation still has a great deal of vitality," Boff, a former Franciscan friar who left the clergy in 1992, argued in a recent interview. "It is true it doesn't have the visibility it once had and is not as controversial as it once was, but it is very much alive and well."