“To make an option for the poor, is to make an option for Jesus.”
–Gustavo Gutierrez
The Association of Theologically Trained Women of India – ATTWI mourns the passing of Gustavo Gutierrez, the seminal voice of liberation theology. Gustavo Gutierrez, Peruvian theologian and Dominican priest, considered the “father of liberation theology” breathed his last on 22 October 2024 at the age of 96.
Gutierrez was ordained a priest in 1959, earned a degree in medicine, studied philosophy, psychology, and theology – in which he earned a doctorate in 1985. Among the many books and articles he authored he came to be known as the father of liberation theology for the groundbreaking book A Theology of Liberation (1971), which became the foundational text of liberation theology and remains relevant even today.
Gustavo Gutierrez was one of the earliest voices to affirm that the proper starting place for theological reflection was “lived experience, reality, (and) what is going on.” He followed it up with the necessary question on what God’s word had to say about these lived realities.
Gutierrez crystalised what the church of that time was reluctant to elucidate by declaring that “what the Scriptures have to say to ‘non-human beings,’ impoverished people living in a world where they are considered useless, nameless, even non-existent?” was central to doing theology. Guitierrez placed ‘non-persons’ and their experiences at the center of theological reflection, and thus changed the trajectory of how theology would henceforth be done. Gutierrez’s A Theology of Liberation changed the course of the church and theologising not just in Latin America but the world over.
A significant contribution of Gutierrez was the emphasis on the structural nature of sin rather than focussing only on personalised sin. He named the sin for what it is and dared to categorically say that material poverty was never good but an evil to be opposed. He refused to buy into the lie that poverty was “simply an occasion for charity,” and declared it “a degrading force that denigrates human dignity and ought to be opposed and rejected.” He emphasised that poverty was not a result of laziness but a product of structural injustices that privileges some while marginalising others. Moving beyond the economic dimension Gutierrez pointed to the dehumanising dimension of poverty that made people ‘non-persons’ and insignificant, and meant their ‘early and unjust death.’
Gutierrez’s work enabled many faithful the world over to serve Christ in the poor, and many movements to declare a war on poverty. The seeds to “occupy” and challenge the seats of the privileged in protest against their injustices that we see in many people’s movements today, are thanks to works such as Gustavo Gutierrez’s that squarely challenged the systemic nature of poverty, and condemned a culture of greed and capitalist consumerism.
In his own words that summed up his life in an interview, Gutierrez said: “I hope my life tries to give testimony to the message of the Gospel, above all that God loves the world and loves those who are poorest within it.”
Along with the “father of liberation theology” Gustavo Gutierrez, may we as women theologians in India, strive to live lives that uplift his message by our accompaniment with the poor in concrete ways.
Sources:
Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Gustavo Gutiérrez.” Encyclopedia Britannica, June 4, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gustavo-Gutierrez.
John Dear SJ, “Gustavo Gutierrez and the Preferential Option for the Poor,” National Catholic Reporter (Kansas: The National Catholic Reporter Publishing Company, 2011) http://ncronline.org/blogs/road-peace/gustavo-gutierrez-and-preferential-option-poor
Joseph Nangle, OFM, “Gustavo Gutierrez and the life-changing theology of liberation,” Pax Christi USA, 28 September 2024. https://paxchristiusa.org/2024/09/28/gustavo-gutierrez-and-the-life-changing-theology-of-liberation/