"the overthrow by means of revolutionary violence of structures which generate violence is not ipso facto the beginning of a just regime. A major fact of our time ought to evoke the reflection of all those who would sincerely work for the true liberation of their brothers: millions of our own contemporaries legitimately yearn to recover those basic freedoms of which they were deprived by totalitarian and atheistic regimes which came to power by violent and revolutionary means, precisely in the name of the liberation of the people. This shame of our time cannot be ignored: while claiming to bring them freedom, these regimes keep whole nations in conditions of servitude which are unworthy of mankind. Those who, perhaps inadvertently, make themselves accomplices of similar enslavements betray the very poor they mean to help [(Ii qui, fortasse inscii, consortes se reddunt eiusmodi subiugationum, pauperes decipiunt quibus inservire volunt)]."
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect, and Alberto Bovone, Secretary, for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Libertatis nuntius, or Instructio de quibusdam rationibus «Theologiae Liberationis» (Instruction on certain aspects of the "theology of liberation") XI.10, 6 August 1984 (AAS 76 (1984): 876-909), italics mine. I was put onto this by Edward Feser, All one in Christ: a Catholic critique of racism and Critical Race Theory (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2022), 141.
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