Sacraments of Liberation

How Sacrament and Ritual can become a site of resistance and ecological renewal.Sacraments of Liberation argues that the sacraments are central to addressing the intertwined crises of poverty and ecological degradation. Grounded in the “preferential option for the poor”—a phrase popularized by the Liberation Theologists and echoed by Pope Francis—this book presents sacraments as transformative practices that move the Church from abstract theological spaces to the embodied realities of particular places where justice and restoration occur. Responding to economic and ecological crises, this work integrates theological insights from aforementioned liberation theology, early church monk and theologian Maxim the Confessor, and the Orthodox theologian Sergei Bulgakov with Edward Casey’s philosophical critique of modernity’s abstraction of space. It presents sacramental life as an alternative to the commodification of land, labor, and life under global capitalism. Rather than reducing the sacraments to mere symbols, it insists that their embodied practice restores community and creation. Through theological reflection and practical application, Sacraments of Liberation demonstrates how the Church’s sacramental life reclaims sacred places of justice and care, offering hope and tangible pathways for healing humanity and the earth.