The Density of the Present

by Gustavo Gutiérrez

Essays by renowned author Gustavo Gutierrez cover such themes as developments in Catholic social teaching, the church's mission of evangelization, the meaning of spirituality, and the task of theology. Part One includes reflections on Pope John Paul II's encyclical on work as well as an overview of a century of Catholic social teaching in relation to the "option for the poor." In Part Two, Gutierrez examines the journey of the church in Latin America. In Part Three, he takes up the relationship between spirituality and theology, the function of the theology within the church, and the critical question of how to talk about God in a world of suffering.

Genres: Theology

190 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1999

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?"