Vatican newspaper publishes reflection by leading liberation theologian
May 08, 2015
L’Osservatore Romano has published an excerpt of On the Side of the Poor, a recent book coauthored by Father Gustavo Gutierrez, a leading liberation theologian, and Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
In the excerpt, published on May 8, Father Gutierrez, 86, stated that two streams of reflection on poverty flow from the Gospel: Christians should love the poor and follow Christ in his poverty.
In the past century, the Peruvian Dominican added, an understanding has grown that poverty is not just economic: there is “cultural, racial, ethnic” poverty, as well as a poverty related to gender, in which persons are looked upon as non-persons.
In addition, the understanding has grown that poverty is a global phenomenon. Older books of spirituality speak of the poor as someone in one’s local area, but “today, however, we must realize that our neighbor is both near and far,” for “the majority of human beings in the world live in the condition we call poverty.”
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Further information:
- Meglio i poveri (L’Osservatore Romano, p. 4)
- Leading liberation theologian to speak at Vatican conference (CWN, 5/7)
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