Gustavo Gutiérrez, Father of Liberation Theology, Dies at 96

On 22th Oct the Dominican Province of St. John the Baptist of Peru announced the death of Gustavo Gutiérrez Merino, the Peruvian Dominican priest considered the ”father of  liberation theology”

Gutiérrez’s liberation theology put the poor as its priority and exerted great influence on doctrine and the history of the church in Latin America. His 1971 book “A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation” had a profound impact by proposing a faith based on social justice focused on the poor and positing that poverty “is a scandalous state, an attack on human dignity, and therefore, contrary to the will of God.”

We thank God for having had a faithful theologian priest who never thought about money, or luxuries, or anything that seemed to make him superior,Cardinal and Archbishop of Lima Carlos Castillo said in a statement following Gutiérrez’s death. “Small as he was, he knew how to announce the Gospel to us with strength and courage in his smallness.

Pope Francis sent a video message to the Archdioceses of Lima for the funeral of Fr Gustavo Gutiérrez, calling him ‘a great man, a man of the Church’.

Born on June 8, 1928 in Lima, Gutiérrez had previously earned a degree in medicine from the National University of Peru in Lima (1950) and than was ordained a priest (1959). He also studied philosophy and psychology at the Catholic University of Leuven (Louvain [Belgium]) and theology at the Catholic University of Lyon (France) and at the Gregorian University in Rome.

He earned a doctorate in theology at Lyon in 1985. Gutiérrez served as parish priest in the Iglesia Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer church) in Rimac, Peru, and in 1974 he founded and directed the Bartolomé de Las Casas Institute in Lima to minister to the poor. He also taught at many colleges and universities in Peru, Europe and North America, including the University of Notre Dame in Indiana (USA).

 

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