Father of Dead Liberation Theology Has Died

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Father of Dead Liberation Theology Has Died

gloria.tv | October 22, 2024

Peruvian Dominican Father Gustavo Gutiérrez, 96, considered as the father of the Liberation Theology of a Marxist style, died on October 23 in Lima.

The Dominicans claimed that Gustavo Gutiérrez leaves “a profound legacy in the Church and in the social movements of Latin America”.

For them, Gutierrez was “a reference in contemporary theological reflection, decisively influencing the Second Vatican Council and various pastoral currents”.

The Peruvian Episcopal Conference expressed its condolences highlighting the life of a man who allegedly “dedicated his life to the cause of the Gospel from a preferential option for the poor”.

Also expressing his condolences is the Neo-Cardinal Carlos Castillo, Pachamama-Archbishop of Lima. He was one of the closest disciples of Gutierrez.

Who was Gustavo Gutiérrez?

Gutiérrez Merino was ordained a priest in 1959. He joined the Dominicans only in 1998 to escape the jurisdiction of his bishop.

He was one of the most influential clergymen in Peru in the eighties and nineties. He was a political activist, rarely seen leading the Eucharist and considered by many as the true father of the heretical Liberation Ideology.

In his book Teología de la liberación: Perspectivas, Gutiérrez wrote like a Marxist that 'class struggle is a fact and neutrality in this matter is impossible' and that 'the rich are loved by fighting them'.

He called poverty, chosen by many saints to follow Christ, “a scandalous state, an offence to human dignity and therefore contrary to the will of God”.

Liberation Theology was a movement that has been the most destructive plague to hit the Church in Latin America, both ideologically and pastorally. For three decades this movement wiped out religious communities, killed vocations and contaminated the pastoral life of the Church, all in the name of the "poor" whom it never served.

During John Paul II's visit to Lima in 1988, Gutiérrez was stopped by volunteers while he tried to gain access to the closing Mass with false credentials, seeking a photo opportunity with John Paul in order to appear to be in communion with the man he had described as a "shitty Pole" (Spanish: polaco de mierda) during Wojtyla's historic first trip to Puebla (Mexico) in 1979.

Curiously, one of the most 'conservative' voices in the current College of Cardinals, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, showed considerable sympathy for Gutiérrez. In 2014, he presented a book with two chapters written by Gutiérrez and a prologue by Francis.

In 2015, a Romanian spy chief in the 1970s told ACI Prensa that “the KGB [the Soviet secret service] created and financed Liberation Theology.”

In 2018, Francis sent a warm congratulation to Gutierrez’s 90th birthday.