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in the political arena under the influence of a commitment to the defence of human dignity. 7 At the same time Pope John Paul II was an astute political actor and, as we shall see, once democracy had been achieved in his own country and elsewhere, was more than capable of standing up for the interests of the institutional Church as well as pursuing his broader concern with human dignity as understood by that Church. In this sense Weigel reinforced an explanatory framework that stressed both theological change and the role of a religious leadership now convinced
institutional Church did not just have a responsibility to condemn but also quite explicitly to take the side of the poor and the marginalised, even if on occasions this might necessitate supporting the use of violence against oppressors. Of course, in this context we cannot do the complexities of liberation theology full justice, but whilst critics clearly exaggerated the role of Marxism and the ambiguity about violence in order to undermine the wider critique, with hindsight it is clear that at least parts of the liberationist critique were inadequate. In particular it
they were joined by a handful of priests and lay activists, with some support from public intellectuals who dressed their support in terms of campaigns on behalf of national culture, but the institutional Church remained silent, especially when religious dissenters began to link up with other human rights activists during the 1970s. 24 Similar situations prevailed in Bulgaria and Romania, where if anything the Orthodox churches were even more quiescent. In both countries a few individual priests and laymen occasionally launched protests on behalf of the Church or