The phrase "a preferential option for" is correct and usable in written English.
It is typically used in discussions about social justice, ethics, or theology to indicate a deliberate choice to prioritize the needs of marginalized or disadvantaged groups.
Example: "The organization advocates for a preferential option for the poor, emphasizing the importance of addressing their needs first."
Alternatives: "a priority for" or "a focus on".
"He always, always has a preferential option for the poor".
In Scotland, they echoed many of ours – a love of diversity and a preferential option for those fleeing persecution.
They were particularly taken with the Peruvian philosopher and priest Gustavo Gutiérrez's conception of a "preferential option for the poor".
Liberation theology has its roots in Latin America and understands Christianity to operate with a "preferential option for the poor".
The conclusion is an obvious one: we are all leaders of a church that has taken a preferential option for the rich".
At their second regional conference, held at Medellín, Colombia, in 1968, the bishops declared a "preferential option for the poor" and embraced many of the tenets of "liberation theology" (a kind of Christian socialism).
Regrettably, we seem to have lost that "mystical element" because the root of our decision to work for development or justice or peace no longer grows from a preferential option to identify with the poor and incarnate ourselves amongst their reality.
His adoption of a Franciscan-style "preferential option for the poor" badly disrupted his family's nightly table, seating every stray member of the walking wounded from Edinburgh's unforgiving streets.
It is impossible to justify this as a serious exercise of the preferential option for the poor.
Liberation theology, developed by priests like Gutiérrez, of Peru, and Leonardo Boff, of Brazil, held up Jesus Christ as a critic of unjust social and economic structures and articulated a Gospel mandate for "the preferential option for the poor".
The Vatican opposed it, fearing that Marxists were using liberation theology's "preferential option for the poor" as a call for armed revolution against oppressive rightwing regimes that were in power in much of Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s.
