On the Side of the Poor: The Theology of Liberation

by Gustavo Gutiérrez, Gerhard Ludwig Müller

For many years the theology of liberation, which emerged from Latin America in the 1970s, was viewed with suspicion and even hostility in Rome. In this historic exchange, Father Gustavo Gutiérrez, one of the original architects of liberation theology, and Cardinal Gerhard Müller, current Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, o�er a new and positive chapter. Cardinal Müller, who as a student of Gutiérrez spent many summers working in Peru, writes with deep feeling and conviction about the contributions of liberation theology to church teaching—particularly in its articulation of the preferential option for the poor.

In his own contribution here, Gutiérrez lays out the essential ideas of liberation theology, its ecclesial location, and its fresh enunciation of the gospel for our time.

Gustavo Gutiérrez, a Dominican priest and theologian from Peru, is the author of A Th�eology of Liberation, On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent, We Drink from Our Own Wells, The God of Life, and many other books. He teaches at the University of Notre Dame.

Gerhard Ludwig Müller was ordained a priest in 1971. After teaching dogmatic theology in Munich, he was appointed bishop of Regensberg. In 2012 he was appointed Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He was named a Cardinal in 2014.

Genres: Theology, Religion, Politics, Nonfiction, Spirituality, Philosophy, Faith

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2015

About the author

Gustavo Gutiérrez-Merino Díaz was a Peruvian philosopher, Catholic theologian, and Dominican priest who was one of the founders of liberation theology in Latin America. His 1971 book A Theology of Liberation is considered pivotal to the formation of liberation theology. He held the John Cardinal O'Hara Professorship of Theology at the University of Notre Dame and was a visiting professor at universities in North America and Europe.
Gutiérrez studied medicine and literature at the National University of San Marcos before deciding to become a priest. He began studying theology at the Theology Faculty of Leuven in Belgium and in Lyon, France.
His theological focus connected salvation and liberation through the preferential option for the poor, with an emphasis on improving the material conditions of the impoverished. Gutiérrez proposed that revelation and eschatology have been excessively idealized at the expense of efforts to bring about the Kingdom of God on Earth. His methodology was often critical of the social and economic injustice he believed to be responsible for poverty in Latin America, and of the Catholic clergy. The central pastoral question of his work was: "How do we convey to the poor that God loves them?"

Reviews

[Randall Wallace · Rating 2 out of 5]

Liberation Theology is about “God’s special partiality for the people who are poor and marginalized.” No wonder the U.S. wanted to stop it spreading in Latin America. With comments like, “Without equality, there is no justice” and “The truth is that in many ways the experience of the cross marks the daily life of Latin American and Peruvian Christians”, Liberation Theology also quickly became the enemy of elites throughout Latin America. I had great hopes for this book and then found two big problems. First, Gerhard Ludwig Muller says that everyone’s attention on Christ alone can stop injustice. Apparently, no other religion or thinking agnostic or atheist alone has the tools to be moral or fight for justice. And apparently, Gerhard has never heard of Constantinian Christianity, Christian Just War Theory, The Crusades, the long history of Christian Terrorism, or centuries of state governments and priests routinely using Christianity to sanction the killing of others through war. Just as there are good and bad electricians, there are good and bad followers of Christ; so, if everyone merely followed Christ, you wouldn’t get justice, you’d get everything from perfect justice to sheer terror.

Second, this book pretends that U.S. Foreign Policy has no connection to why Liberation Theology is so needed in Latin America. Christian Capitalism is also apparently of no concern. I love Liberation Theology but can’t imagine why one of its top authors would simply ignore the obvious role Liberation Theology has in fighting Imperialism, Capitalism, Corporations, Elites, Just War Theory, and U.S. Foreign Policy. Perhaps the author didn’t want to be murdered like Oscar Romero for saying the full heavy truth? But how do you affect social change in this case, if you don’t point fingers at those that made Latin America poor to begin with? And how do you end up with justice if you believe the only solution is a world of ALL Christians, knowing that would happily include pedophile priests, Jesus sprouting warmongers, and sociopathic Christian neoliberals all bent on undermining your work for the poor? Nor did I see in this book any critique of the centuries of corruption within the Church which led to the need for Liberation Theology. This book is only about the poor but strangely plays it safe. We are supposed to seriously help the poor of Latin America with Liberation Theology somehow without addressing either Capitalism, or the U.S. financing the repression of the Latin American poor for over a hundred years that continues until today? That is like pouring water into colander. If you help the poor in Latin America, you run into, and must address, the resistance - the long history of the U.S. financing the blocking of any advances of the poor (Guatemala in ’54 stopped in trying for a minimum wage and land reform for peasants, etc.). Why ignore an obvious long-documented finger-pointing history that would far better create sympathy for the Liberation Theology case? I recommend Noam’s great writings on Vatican II and Liberation Theology, and Oscar Romero’s writings to this rather sedate book which chose to go only half-way. As long as the U.S. and Latin American elites are openly hostile to Liberation Theology and continue to oppose it by well-financed terror, then Liberation Theology has to both define the opposition and its tactics for the education/protection of its believers.

[Igor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was aware of the theology of liberation as a discipline and the work of Gutierrez before, but never read anything. This collection of essays, although outdated in terms of recent developments with Francis’ pontificate, nonetheless is ever so present and actual - the poor are still with us.

The poor, in a larger meaning of the marginalised and excluded, and in specific meaning as the economic poor - are the foundation from which we need to build our theologies. Our church ought to be the church for and of the poor.

Recommend to anyone looking for a short introduction to the theology of liberation.

Whom I didn’t expect to see in this book was Hegel, but we should always expect Hegel.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gustavo Gutierrez is ALWAYS worth reading, and Mueller's two essays are also helpful. However, I was a bit miffed when I first discovered that this is actually a translation of a book published in 2004, that already was a compilation of pieces from the 90s and early 2000s. Buy this for its convenience, not its timeliness. Even though it remains timely since, unfortunately, we still fail to heed the theology of liberation.

[Seamus Ryan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boooooring

[Grant McGurn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely caused me to think about my faith in new and exciting ways, especially with regard to the poor. I still feel a sense of vagueness with regards to some of the substance of liberation theology after reading this book, but at the same time an excitement and many new thoughts about the faith.

[Zbigniew Zdziarski · Rating 4 out of 5]

The way that Theology of Liberation is presented here seems fine. This is the first real work on this topic that I've read so I may change my mind when I read more. To me, at the moment, it seems like a lot of misunderstandings have come out of this movement, probably flamed by those with poor theological backgrounds, who espoused certain aspects or strands of the theology without keeping it in its intended whole. Hence, the controversies.

[Jarrod Dillon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting

I just finished reading a theology of liberation a few weeks ago and someone recommended this as a more updated version of it. I really enjoyed it. To be honest, I probably should’ve just skipped reading the classic text and read this one instead.