Vale Gustavo Gutiérrez
Gustavo Gutiérrez (8 June 1928 – 22 October 2024), Dominican theologian and priest, is one of the most eminent theologians in the recent past and pioneer in liberation theology.
In his book, A Theology of Liberation, Guttierez argued that to be church, to be a Christian is to be being immersed in the task of liberation with Jesus who chose in radical freedom to be in solidarity with those on the margins of society and who used the margins as the site of God’s visitation and revelation.
Gutierrez advocated a theology of liberation that takes seriously the perspective of the poor, their lived realities and their struggles for life, justice, freedom and identity. It is a theology done with the poor, to affirm and sustain the right of the poor “to thinkfaith from their own experience” and to discern the presence and workings of God amidst the poor. It is a theology that asserts that the God of Creation is also the God of life and liberation and invites the church to work alongside this God to eradicate poverty and violence, transform life and honor the earth.
Gutiérrez insisted that the Church “must place itself squarely within the process of revolution, amid the violence which is present in different ways. The Church’s mission is defined practically and theoretically, pastorally and theologically, in relation to the revolutionary process.” His theology is a challenge, reminding the community of faith to recognize and allow the God of History and God’s Spirit to form and transform us.
In a world that is being wrecked by systemic and systematic evil, Gutierrez’s theology and through it the encouragement to grasp the Word, to envision, to dream, to speak out, to resist and thereby to bring hope and transformation cries out to us with renewed fervor and vigor requiring our consideration, reflection and action.