Gustavo Gutierrez, champion of Christian liberation theology, dies

An advocator for the world’s ‘poor and exploited’, Gutierrez promoted ideals that revolutionised the Latin American church.

Peruvian clergyman Gustavo Gutierrez, regarded arsenic the begetter of Latin American liberation theology, has died aged 96.

He passed distant connected Tuesday nighttime successful Lima, said the Dominican Order of Peru, without giving a cause.

Gutierrez was an eminent Catholic theologian and philosopher, whose 1971 publication – titled A Theology of Liberation –  profoundly influenced religion doctrine and signifier successful Latin America.

It holds that Christian salvation goes beyond spiritual matters, besides demanding that radical beryllium freed from worldly oregon governmental oppression. He famously wrote: “The aboriginal of past belongs to the mediocre and exploited”.

Archbishop Carlos Castillo, Lima’s cardinal-designate, remembered Gutierrez, who successful his younger years served arsenic a section parish clergyman successful Lima, arsenic a “a faithful theologian clergyman who ne'er thought astir money, oregon luxuries, oregon thing that seemed to marque him superior”.

“Small arsenic helium was, helium knew however to denote the Gospel to america with spot and courageousness successful his smallness,” said Castillo.

Gutierrez’s reasoning attracted galore who were outraged by the inequality and dictatorships successful respective Latin American countries successful the 1960s and 1970s. He inspired figures similar Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was assassinated successful 1980 aft taking a basal against rights abuses successful his country’s civilian conflict.

Initially, the Vatican harshly denounced liberation theology, claiming it held Marxist undercurrents, and spent decades disciplining immoderate of its advocates.

Gutierrez, who himself was ne'er disciplined, told reporters successful 2015 that liberation theology arsenic a full was ne'er condemned, but helium acknowledged that the Holy See had engaged successful “very captious dialogue” with its proponents and that determination were “difficult moments”.

The accomplishment of the archetypal Latin American pope, Pope Francis, focused the Vatican’s attraction connected societal justness and the mediocre and led to thing of a rehabilitation of liberation theology.

When Gutierrez turned 90 successful 2018, Pope Francis wrote him a missive thanking him for his contributions to “the Church and to humanity, done your theological work and your preferential emotion for the mediocre and the discarded of society”.

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