Gustavo Gutiérrez Merino (born 8 June 1928) is a Peruvian philosopher, Catholic theologian, and Dominican priest, regarded as one of the founders of Latin American liberation theology. He currently holds the John Cardinal O'Hara Professorship of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, and has previously been a visiting professor at many major universities in North America and Europe.
He studied medicine and literature at the National University of San Marcos, where he also became involved with Catholic Action, which greatly influenced his theological arguments. At the Theology Faculty of Leuven in Belgium and Lyon, France, he began studying theology. He has taught at the University of Michigan, Harvard, Cambridge, Berkeley, and Montréal, among other schools.
His theological focus aims to connect salvation and liberation through the preferential option for the poor, or the emphasis on improving the material conditions of the impoverished. Gutierrez proposes that revelation and eschatology have been excessively idealized at the expense of efforts to bring about the Kingdom of God on Earth. In this way, his methodology is often critical of the social and economic injustice he believes to be responsible for poverty in Latin America and the clergy within the Catholic Church. The central pastoral question of his work is: "How do we convey to the poor that God loves them?”
In 1974, Gutiérrez founded the Lima branch of the Bartolomé de Las Casas Institute. The Institute, in its mission statement, aims to use theology as a means of addressing contemporary social issues and educating through research, engagement with lawmakers, and collaboration with grassroots organizations.
Gutiérrez is a member of the Peruvian Academy of Language. In 1993, he was awarded the Legion of Honor by the French government for his tireless work. In 2002 Gutiérrez was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2003 he received the Príncipe de Asturias award. In 2016, he received the Pacem in Terris Award from St. Ambrose University.
Early life and education
On 8 June 1928, Gustavo Gutierrez was born to mestizo parentage, being half-Hispanic and half-Indigenous.
Gutiérrez was afflicted with osteomyelitis as an adolescent and was frequently bed-ridden. He had to use a wheelchair from age 12 to 18. However, he describes this time as a formative experience, claiming it instilled the value of hope through prayer and the love of family in friends. As he describes it, this experience had a profound impact on his interest in theology.
He initially studied medicine at the National University of San Marcos in Peru in order to become a psychiatrist, then he realized he wanted to become a priest. He completed his theological studies in the Theology Faculty of Leuven in Belgium and in Lyon in France, where he studied under Henri de Lubac, Yves Congar, Marie Dominique Chenu, Christian Ducoq, and several others. It was also here where Gutiérrez was introduced to the Dominican and Jesuit ideologies, and was influenced by the work of Edward Schillebeeckx, Karl Rahner, Hans Küng, and Johann Baptist Metz. His time in Europe influenced Gutiérrez to discuss the openness of the Church to the contemporary world. He was also influenced by Protestant theologians such as Karl Barth and social scientists such as François Perroux and his idea of development. In 1959, Gutiérrez was ordained a priest.
While studying in Europe, Gutiérrez was exposed to other, non-religious thinkers who had a profound impact on his ideology and the eventual formation of Latin American liberation theology. At the Faculty of Theology in Lyons, France he studied Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud - who he did a philosophy licentiate on at the University of Louvrain - and evolutionary theorists traditionally opposed or discouraged by the church. Marx's discussion of class struggle and the material conditions of poverty provided Gutiérrez a framework for understanding socio-economic inequality.
Gutiérrez was at one time a parish priest of the Iglesia Cristo Redentor (Church of the Holy Redeemer) in Rimac, Peru.