One-on-one with Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez

I saw many posts online about Dominican Fr. Gustavo Gutiérrez, proudly Peruvian, popularly known as one of the fathers of liberation theology, who died on Oct. 22 at the age of 96. I thought, why don’t I post mine, too, my one-on-one interview with him in 2000, the turn of the century, when he visited the Philippines. He was 72 then. Someone like him might not come this way again when the world is in a mess, politically, environmentally, culturally and the so-called happiness index in some parts has plummeted.

The influence of this man’s revolutionary ideas, of his life as a priest, theologian, and action man went beyond the Catholic Church. Who was Gutiérrez that grassroots development workers both in the church and secular setting were so inspired by him?

First let me say that community organizing among the poor and oppressed had four key influences: theology of liberation for which Gutiérrez was known, Saul Alinsky (conflict resolution), Paulo Freire (pedagogy of the oppressed and Marxist analysis).

“Poverty is the first violence,” he said to me. I was dumbstruck. Suddenly the word “poor” took on a new nuance especially because he kept referring to them as “the last ones.” But wait. He also spoke about poverty as a way of life that could be embraced, not only by those in the so-called consecrated life but also by those of us right smack in the heart of a messy, consumerist world. Here goes:

“Poverty is an act of love and liberation. It has a redemptive value. If the ultimate cause of human exploitation and alienation is selfishness, the deepest reason for voluntary poverty is love of neighbor. Christian poverty has meaning only as a commitment of solidarity with the poor who suffer misery and injustice. The commitment is to witness to the evil which has resulted from the sin and is a breach of communion.

“It is not a question of idealizing poverty, but rather of taking it on as it is—an evil—to protest against it and to struggle to avoid it … It is poverty lived not for its own sake, but rather as an authentic imitation of Christ, it is poverty which means taking on the sinful human condition to liberate humankind from sin and all its consequences.”

He defined theology as “a way to speak on God, a language of God” and that liberation theology is “not a sociological or economic program” but something that addresses the consciousness in order to change it. The consequence of this is solidarity with the poor and helping them to not accept poverty as fate.

My take from left field: In this 21st-century landscape and in speaking of the poor, let us stop idealizing “Filipino resilience” as the gold standard of virtues.

For those squeamish about liberation theology because it had been wrongly associated with Marxism, Gutiérrez said that “people today are in a better position to understand our theology.” There was never any mention of armed struggled in his writings, he stressed. “We have affirmed this and the Latin American bishops have affirmed his. It is not a justification for any other violence.” So, comprende?

But, indeed, there was a time when some church elements misunderstood liberation theology. Even a United States report did say that liberation theology was dangerous to US foreign policy. This twisted thinking must have had a bearing on the killings of priests and nuns by right-wing military regimes.

The major source of liberation theology is the Bible, Gutierrez reminded. “It is the effort of liberation theology to read the Bible from the concrete situation of poor persons.” My sneaky retort: “Are top guys in the church not reading it that way?” He singled out models who got it right: the assassinated bishop of El Salvador Óscar Romero (now a canonized saint) and Brazil’s Dom Hélder Câmara.

The Bible, he said, is not to be read the way we read a beautiful book but from the point of the poor of history. We miss out on this, he said, because we tend to think of religion as without so many requirements. “We like a quiet religion,” he added, “that revolved around our little lives,” when, in fact, the whole view of the Bible is from the point of view of those who are considered the last, the insignificant (“insinyeeficant,” he would say) because of class, color, gender, culture. (In our context, it is ang mga nasa laylayan ng lipunan.)

What does his priesthood mean to him? “Service of God and the poor,” he replied. “It is one way, not the only way. It is not necessarily better, it is “dee-ferrrent.” Better depends on the quality of commitment, “not on my status as a priest.”

Did he have favorite biblical figures, the great prophets perhaps who railed against oppressors? He had many, he said, but this time he singled out the Book of Job in the Old Testament to stress a point. It is about justice and “the gratuitous love of God.” Matthew 25, too, he added. The heart-stopping last portion, methinks. Read it.

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