From 1970 to 1979, articles written by Catholic students questioned the very bases of success of Singapore society, namely industrialisation, meritocracy and capitalism, and declared it evil and inherently exploitative. The possession of private property and the maximisation of profits were thought to have given rise to great disparities in the distribution of wealth which led to grave social and economic injustices. Articles decried the education system as insufferably elitist⁷, declared that to be a Christian meant resisting capitalism⁸, and concluded that Singapore society consisted of oppressive structures which were inherently dehumanising.

However, the articles were only haphazard attempts at expressing such views. It was only in 1979, with the change of chaplain from the Jesuit Fr. Liam Egan to Fr. Patrick Goh, that an organised and systematic attempt was made to critique the various policies of the state that were considered dehumanising and contrary to its dignity. Instead of a collection of thoughts from various students, the issues of the Aquinas attempted to provide a trenchant analysis complete with an impressive marshalling both of statistics and interviews with workers and students on what was wrong with Singapore society with entire issues devoted to a particular theme⁹.

One may of course take issue with liberation theology’s over-simplistic ascription of the ills of the poor to capitalism and its perhaps naive confidence in Marxist-socialist forms of organising the economy; as students raged against Singapore’s inherently exploitative capitalist system, incomes and wages began to be fairly distributed in Singapore and many lower income families enjoyed ever rising standards of living¹⁰. Moreover, while some students claimed to be conceiving a plan to radically change society, they nevertheless engaged actively in “non-transformative” work like the reviving of the St. Vincent De Paul society to visit the poor and the providing of free tuition at Church-run centres¹¹.