Long ago and far away, in the years before the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), in the Rimac barrio of Lima, Peru, a newly ordained priest helped start a pastoral process among the people of his parish that turned into a movement that would transform Catholicism throughout the world — including Notre Dame. His name was Gustavo Gutiérrez, and he died October 22, leaving many of us saddened and inspired.
The process Gutiérrez helped start lay at the core of what came to be known as “liberation theology.” It involves several steps. First, start a conversation among the poor in a parish about their everyday experiences of poverty. Then, use the Bible to discover together how God’s Word sheds light on this reality. Then, put this truth into concrete action so that the poor become the agents of their own liberation. Then, turn to critical reflection on this process, guided by God’s special love for the poor.
The process caught on throughout Latin America and made its way into the statement of the bishops who met in Medellín, Colombia, in 1968. Eventually, Guterriez set forth the theory and practice of this movement in a book — published in English in 1973 — called A Theology of Liberation.
The book was deeply Catholic and unapologetically revolutionary. A glance at the footnotes and index will turn up great Catholic thinkers of centuries past — Augustine and Aquinas among others — along with those of the past century who shaped the deliberations of Vatican II. One will also find sources pointing leftward: Antonio Gramsci, for example, the Italian Marxist imprisoned under Mussolini for anti-fascist organizing. Marx’s ideas are peppered throughout the book, especially the idea that people make their own history as “artisans” of their destinies.
This potent mix of traditional Catholic and radical thought aroused criticisms. Some of the most vociferous and least credible came from apologists of regimes in Latin America run by strongmen and oligarchs bent on silencing anyone who worked for social change. Gutiérrez sloughed off these criticisms. Other criticisms, however, came from theologians with honest questions and serious reservations, including some in the Vatican. Gutiérrez’s careful responses to these can be seen in his subsequent writings: The Power of the Poor in History, We Drink from Our Own Wells, On Job, and Las Casas: In Search of the Poor of Jesus Christ. He was later inducted into the French Legion of Honor and received too many other high honors to be listed.
In 2001, Gutiérrez entered the Dominican order and joined Notre Dame’s theology department in what can be described as a “coup” of the academic type. People who knew him only by reputation as the fiery “father” of liberation theology were surprised when meeting him in person. Father Gustavo, or “Gustavo,” as friends and colleagues called him, was small in stature, walked with a limp from an adolescent bout with polio, and spoke in congenial tones with a gentle smile and laugh. Students invariably found him generous with his time.
One of his teaching assistants, Michael Griffin ’93, ’04M.Div., ’14Ph.D., now provost at Holy Cross College, warned him about giving too many A’s in his classes; Gustavo brushed off the worry with the reply, “the real grade for what they learned is yet to come — with their lives.” During his Notre Dame years, Gutiérrez divided his time between teaching on campus and working with poor communities in Lima — a living enactment of the theory-and-practice dialectic that he said should shape theology.
I often wondered how he handled the contrasting cultures of bourgeois Notre Dame and the barrios of Lima. On the one hand, his work was admired at the University. Since the 1970s, faculty had debated key themes in his theology: dependency economics, the use of force to fight injustice, the biblical meaning of solidarity, the preferential option for the poor. Padre Don McNeil’s founding vision of the Center for Social Concerns was inspired by Gutiérrez’s work; at the center’s opening Mass in 1983, Father Henri Nouwen delivered a ringing homily on justice and peace informed by his work with Gutiérrez in Lima. So, liberation theology was alive and well at Notre Dame when Gustavo joined the faculty. He was stepping into familiar territory.
On the other hand, Notre Dame surely generated in him some cognitive dissonance. I once pointed out the ROTC building and explained how the program works. He was shocked: “A military installation at a Catholic university?” Where many saw ROTC as a way for students to afford tuition, he saw it as an institution connected to the School of the Americas with its lethal tentacles poisoning his home continent.
But he was a gracious colleague. Rarely, if ever, did he criticize the contradictions of our realidad at Notre Dame. He didn’t have to. We all knew where he stood. Even when standing next to us at the copy machine or sitting with students for lunch at Decio Hall, he stood with the poor.
Now he is buried with the poor, not far from the birthplace of “liberation theology.” At his funeral, the pope spoke via video to commend his life and work. It remains for us to commend it by critically reflecting on our lives in light of God’s love for the poor. Gustavo’s writings are still included in class assignments, his concerns are still echoed in campus lectures, the Gospel is still proclaimed and preached — all embers for us to blow on in the hope that the sparks will grow into a flame guiding our path to liberation with the Light of Christ.
Michael Baxter is a visiting associate professor at Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute for Church Life.