Gutierrez, Gustavo

(b. 1928)

   Theologian.

   Gutierrez was born in Lima, Peru, and was educated at the Universities of Louvain, Lyons and Rome. In 1959 he was ordained to the Roman Catholic priesthood and he began to teach at the Catholic University of Lima while living in the slum area of the city. Increasingly he became uneasy at the gap between the theology taught in the university and the reality of ordinary people’s lives. A leading exponent of liberation theology, his writings stress that Jesus Christ is the liberator from political and social, as well as spiritual, oppression. His works include A Theology of Liberation, The Power of the Poor in History, We Drink from our own Wells and On Job.

   R.M. Brown, Gustavo Gutierrez: An Introduction to Liberation Theology (1990);

   M. Ellis and O. Maduro, The Future of Liberation Theology: Essays in Honour of Gustavo Gutierrez (1989).