The post-Second Vatican Council period in Latin America was marked by profound instability that affected both the institutional structures and the ideological frameworks of the Church. Within this context, Liberation Theology emerged as the most representative and contentious expression of the 1970s, consolidating itself through networks of intellectuals who gained notable recognition in both public opinion and the non-confessional academic sphere. This paper argues that such figures were not merely circumstantial actors in a crisis of power, but rather fundamental agents of an internal process of secularization. The central hypothesis maintains that these Catholic intellectuals—particularly those linked to liberationist currents—incorporated practices and principles that rendered the institution permeable to the logics of modernity, challenging traditional vertical authority. In this framework, secularization is not understood as the disappearance of the sacred, but as a mutation in power relations and a reduction of hierarchical control over the resources and discourses of the religious sphere. The study focuses on the period between the CELAM conferences in Puebla (1979) and Santo Domingo (1992), critically examining the impact of the "Instruction" issued by the Holy See in 1984. It contends that, through the constitution of a modern public sphere within Latin American Catholicism, these actors succeeded in autonomizing their role, positioning themselves as a magistracy of thought that compelled the hierarchy to engage in an open discursive field. Finally, it concludes that this dynamic enabled the introjection of modern logics—such as the recognition of the autonomy of the social sciences and the legitimization of dissent—permanently reshaping the economy of religious debate in the region.