Former prefect of the faith and liberation theologian were friends

Cardinal Müller: Gutierrez was one of the great theologians

Vatican City - According to Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, the liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez is one of the most important theologians of recent times. The two knew each other well. On the death of his companion, Müller looks back.

Published  on 24.10.2024 at 09:09  – 

The German Curia Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller has paid tribute to the liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez (96) , who died on Tuesday. The Peruvian "little-people priest" and co-founder of liberation theology will go down in history as one of the great theologians and with his humility and sober but deep spirituality, Müller told the Catholic News Agency (KNA) on Wednesday.

The former Prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (now the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith) and the Peruvian met in 1988, in 2002 Gutierrez was at Müller's episcopal ordination in Regensburg and together they published a book on liberation theology. "Personally, as someone educated in the great tradition of European theology, Gustavo's theology of liberation appealed to me because, as a Mainz native, I had also been familiar with Bishop Ketteler, the co-founder of Catholic social teaching, since my youth," said the cardinal.

Human dignity applies to all

Gutierrez continued the teachings of the Second Vatican Council on the Church in today's world and understood them not only as social doctrine, but also as theology with the question: "How can we speak of God's love in the face of the miserable lives of many people who are created in God's image and have an inalienable human dignity?" The actual liberation theology is not a Marxist-influenced theology in the sense of ideological progressivism, according to Müller.

Liberation theology, which was sometimes criticised by the Vatican, had been reacting to extreme social grievances in Latin America since the 1960s. Gutierrez's book "Theology of Liberation", published in 1971 and translated into many languages, gave the movement its name. It interpreted the message of Jesus as a call to overcome the oppression and disenfranchisement of people. Supporters of left-wing guerrilla movements also referred to it in their struggle. (KNA)