By FAUSTINO TEIXEIRA*
In Gutiérrez's view, there is no way to understand theology other than as a critical reflection, whose first moment is not theoretical, but testimonial.
Introduction
We are a generation of theologians who established their vocation in the reception of Liberation Theology. This was in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The first contact I had with Gustavo Gutiérrez's inaugural book, Liberation Theology, was soon after its release in Brazil. Father Jaime Snoek, from the Department of Philosophy and Science of Religion at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, taught a course on the book in 1976. At the same time, we held a study group in Juiz de Fora on the book, which was very enriching.
My deepening reflection on Liberation Theology and Gustavo Gutiérrez occurred during my master's degree in theology at PUC-RJ, at a unique historical moment, when professors who were very in tune with Liberation Theology were teaching there, including João Batista Libânio, Garcia Rubio, Clodovis Boff and Pedro Ribeiro de Oliveira. Clodovis Boff's book, Theology and practice, which had been published in 1978. Fresh from his doctorate in Louvain, Belgium, Clodovis Boff worked on his book in detail with the students then enrolled in the postgraduate course.
The PUC-RJ has trained countless theologians committed to Liberation Theology, including many lay men and women. It was perhaps a prime moment for lay people, with names that would spread this new theological vision throughout Brazil. It was also a time when dioceses committed to popular pastoral work sent their students to study theology at PUC, enabling a rich dialogue between pastoral work and theology. Students from Duque de Caxias, Nova Iguaçu, Volta Redonda, etc. studied at PUC.
Those of us who studied at the Gregorian did our doctorates during the “hot” years of Liberation Theology, when Leonardo Boff and Gustavo Gutiérrez were under the yoke of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the former Holy Office), in mid-1983. I remember that some professors at the Gregorian, such as Juan Alfaro, dedicated special space to themes related to Liberation Theology. There was a particular fondness for fundamental names in Liberation Theology such as Gustavo Gutiérrez, Leonardo Boff, Jon Sobrino, Juan Luis Segundo, Ignacio Ellacuria, Ronaldo Muñoz, João Batista Libânio and others.
***
It is not my objective here to trace the fundamental steps of Liberation Theology, but to limit myself to some significant elements of Gustavo Gutiérrez's theology, which in my view were essential for our reception of Liberation Theology in Brazil.
Gustavo Gutierrez
In Gustavo Gutiérrez’s view, theology cannot be understood except as a critical reflection, the first moment of which is not theoretical but testimonial. He rightly says that commitment to others, and in particular to the poor and excluded, comes first. Only then comes theological reflection, understood as the “articulated cry of the poor.”[I]
The fundamental role played by attention to historical praxis came as a result of the rediscovery of the eschatological dimension. According to Gustavo Gutiérrez, “if human history is, above all, an opening to the future, it appears as a task, as political labor; by constructing it, man orients himself and opens himself to the gift that gives ultimate meaning to history.”[ii]
Highlights I want to highlight:
The unity of history
Perhaps one of the key elements of Gustavo Gutiérrez's theological vision is related to his vivid perception of the unity of history. This is the return to a theme that was very present in pre-conciliar French theology, linked to the thoughts of authors such as Henri de Lubac, Y. Congar and D. Chenu. We can also add the innovative theological vision of Karl Rahner. They were the first theologians to shake up the baroque framework of traditional theology, which broke with the duality between the natural and the supernatural.[iii].
Following in the footsteps of these theologians, Gustavo Gutiérrez emphasized the fundamental link that unites the natural and the supernatural, liberation and salvation. In his view, “the history of salvation is the very heart of human history.”[iv]. Thus, the emphasis is placed on the unity of the plan of salvation, which embraces and involves historical dynamics. For Gutiérrez, “the historical development of humanity must be definitively situated within the salvific horizon.”[v]
The practice of justice as the locus of knowledge of God
In the perspective opened by Gustavo Gutiérrez, the true encounter with God occurs in concrete history. This is another distinctive feature of Gustavo Gutiérrez's theological vision. Based on the thought of biblical scholar G. Von Rad[vi], he reports that it is in history that God reveals the mystery of his person; it is in history that the space for our encounter with the Greatest Mystery is established. Humanity does not come without the salvific aroma, but it is in history that the true temple of God is revealed.
If history reflects the scenario of the saving dynamic, knowledge of God is achieved through the practice of fundamental virtues, and in particular the practice of justice. Based on the book of Jeremiah, Gustavo Gutiérrez will point out that knowledge of God is linked to God's love, and access to such knowledge is achieved through works of justice.[vii].
For Gustavo Gutiérrez, “to know Yahweh, which in biblical language means to love Yahweh, is to establish fair relations between people, it is to recognize the rights of the poor. It is through inter-human justice that we know the God of biblical revelation. When this does not exist, God is ignored, He is absent.”[viii]
There can be no authentic faith without the performance of works. The exercise of justice and solidarity are fundamental steps towards the revelation of the God of Life. Charity reveals itself as the living presence of God’s love within us. A living example of this political charity is found in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37). It is the parable that reveals to us who our neighbor truly is. In the hermeneutics of Gustavo Gutiérrez, it was with the Samaritan’s gesture that the true encounter with the other occurred. He approached the wounded man on the side of the road not “out of a cold fulfillment of religious obligation, but because ‘his heart was stirred’ (…), because his love for this man became flesh in him.”9
The theological foundation of the option for the poor
The theme of the poor is central to TdL. In another fundamental work by Gustavo Gutiérrez, The historical strength of the poor,[ix] He will dedicate two chapters to the Episcopal Conferences of Medellín and Puebla. In his reflection, the use made of the work of the Benedictine Jacques Dupont, around the Beatitudes, will be of extreme importance.[X]
There is a direct influence from Gustavo Gutiérrez in number 1142 of the Puebla Document, which says: “For this reason alone, the poor deserve preferential attention, whatever their moral or personal situation. Created in the image and likeness of God to be his children, this image is obscured and also mocked. That is why God takes their defense and loves them.”[xi]
As Gustavo Gutiérrez points out, the preference for the poor finds its fundamental basis in the fact that they are loved by God. It is not a preference based on moral attributes or spiritual dispositions, but on the materiality of their situation of poverty. It is not an option for poverty, but rather an option against poverty and in favor of the poor. The Peruvian theologian also refers to the Puebla Working Document, which states that this privilege of the poor is related to the horizon of the Kingdom of God, insofar as this Kingdom translates a living manifestation of God's preferential love for the excluded. There is therefore a fundamental theological trait in this option. We can say that the Beatitudes tell us more about God than about the poor: they constitute the clearest revelation of God's essential disposition in favor of the poor and marginalized.
In his doctoral thesis, defended at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, the Jesuit theologian, Ignatius Neutzling, dedicated himself to this specific theme of the Kingdom of God and the poor, also inspired by the inaugural work of Gustavo Gutiérrez[xii]. For Ignatius, “God, as God and because He is God, preferentially chooses the poor, from whom He acts in favor of ‘all the groups and societies of this world’[xiii]".
With the Beatitudes we are faced with a new order of values, where the poor are the radical object of God’s love: “The Beatitudes signify in the mouth of Jesus the proclamation of a resounding ‘no’ on the part of God regarding the order of moral, religious, social, economic and legal values in force; regarding the men condemned by society’s ‘no’. Jesus, through the Beatitudes, pronounces God’s ‘yes’ (…). The Beatitudes clearly reveal to us who is the God of the Kingdom that Jesus comes to announce.”[xiv]
The theme of the church of the poor had already been raised in an extraordinary way by Pope John XXIII in a radio message in September 1962, a month before the Second Vatican Council. He said that the church should present itself “as the church of all and particularly the church of the poor”. And this challenge was presented in the council hall by the then archbishop of Bologna, Cardinal Lercaro, during the end of the first session of the Council. For him, the theme of the evangelization of the poor should not be one theme among others of the council, but the “only theme of the entire Vatican II”. The Council did not fail to address this issue, which appears in number 8 of the Dogmatic Constitution. Lumen Gentium. However, in Latin America, this essential challenge would emerge magnificently at the Conferences of Medellín (1968) and Puebla (1979).
A liberating spirituality
Finally, we can point out another singular issue in Gustavo Gutiérrez's thought, already present in his inaugural book on Liberation Theology. This is the theme of the spirituality of liberation. The Peruvian theologian announces the theme in chapter 8, when he mentions the urgency of developing a spirituality of liberation.[xv]. At the time, he was concerned about the personal and community prayer life of so many Christians involved in the process of liberation. Gustavo Gutiérrez's call for a liberating spirituality revealed his concern for a healthier balance between action and contemplation.
The theme is taken up again more explicitly in chapter 10 of his inaugural book, entitled “A spirituality of liberation”[xvi]. Spirituality is defined by Gutiérrez as “a vital, global and synthetic attitude” that informs the entire dynamic of life. It is the presence of the Spirit, which must be the basis of any liberating initiative. Spirituality is “a concrete way, moved by the Spirit, of living the gospel. A precise way of living ‘before the Lord’ in solidarity with all men, ‘with the Lord’ and before men.”18.
And again the concern for a healthier balance for militancy: “For many, the encounter with the Lord, in these conditions, can disappear in favor of what he himself inspires and nourishes: the love of man. A love that will then be unaware of all the fullness it contains (…). Where oppression and the liberation of man seem to forget God – a God sifted by our own great indifference to these issues – faith and hope must spring forth in the one who comes to uproot injustice and bring, irreversibly, total liberation.”[xvii]
It is worth remembering that Gustavo Gutiérrez's concern was also shared by other Latin American theologians, including Jon Sobrino. This Jesuit theologian, who worked in El Salvador, wrote a book with a precious title: Liberation with spirit. The book was translated into Portuguese with another title: Spirituality of liberation[xviii]. Jon Sobrino emphasizes the importance of living historical life “with spirit.” And by doing so, Christians can be more “effective” in their liberating struggle. If in the 1970s the emphasis was on the need for historical life for the dynamics of spiritual life, in turn, in the 1980s the complementary fact was processed that commitment to history must be bathed in spiritual life.[xx]
This essential theme was taken up again by Gustavo Gutiérrez in another work: Drinking from your own well, with Brazilian translation in 1984.[xx] As in all his works, Gustavo Gutiérrez remained firmly concerned with the poor and excluded, that is, those who live, due to poverty and exclusion, in a strange land and in an alien world. They are those who are deprived of their legitimate interests and subjugated by domination. But they are also a deeply spiritual and believing people. Gustavo Gutiérrez emphasizes that the encounter with the Lord presupposes this spiritual exodus towards the world of the poor, including their vital spiritual experience.
For Gustavo Gutiérrez, the work of commitment in favor of the liberation of the poor involves the search for effectiveness, but effectiveness does not exclude spirituality, but presupposes it as an essential climate for the liberating work. It thus becomes the “climate that invades and settles in every search for efficiency. It is something more refined and precious than the balance to be maintained between two important aspects of the same issue.”[xxx]. This awareness occurred during the process of insertion into the popular world.
The essential starting point came when it was understood that “a full and true encounter with our brother requires that we experience the gratuitousness of God’s love.”24. Gratuity is a powerful antidote to hybris totalitarianism, excess, the syndrome of ethical superiority and the desire to impose oneself on others. It is something that enables fundamental humility and the serene availability to welcome and respect the world of others. It is a nuclear experience that “gives the human process its total significance”.[xxiii]
The theme reappears in the introduction written by Gustavo Gutiérrez for the second edition of his inaugural book, entitled: Look far away. The theologian returns to the idea of the spiritual singularity of the Latin American people, a people who simultaneously believe and hope. He suggests that theology draw deeply from this prayerful practice of our people. He highlights a fundamental place for the practice of prayer. It is “a privileged way of being in communion with Christ and of guarding, like his mother, ‘carefully guarding things in her heart’ (Lk 2,51:XNUMX)”[xxiii].
In Brazil, Friar Carlos Mesters, in a precious book – Six days in the basement of humanity (1977)[xxv] –, points out the importance of rescuing and emphasizing the gratuitousness of the gospel, which is not always prioritized in pastoral practices that have emphasized more the awareness-raising dimension of the gospel. He emphasizes that such unilateralism does not fully satisfy him. He then emphasizes the prayerful, festive and celebratory side of the word of God. He indicates that this is indeed the dimension that he feels a great need for: “To do nothing, to be idle, almost lazy before God, to feel the gratuitousness of life and to be happy with it, without any other objective, other than to feel the joy of living in fellowship with God and with one’s brothers and sisters.”[xxiv].
This concern of Gustavo Gutiérrez and Jon Sobrino is equally alive in the mystical thought of Teresa of Ávila, in Book of mansions, particularly in the Quinta Manadas. This is the moment when Teresa points out to the Carmelites what she considers a fundamental “shortcut” to achieving true spiritual life. She identifies this path in love for others: “As for us, the Lord asks only for these two: love of God and love of neighbor.”[xxv]. The observance of fraternal charity is for Teresa the deepest sign of the realization of these two loves.
She says: “The more advanced you are in loving your neighbor, the more advanced you will be in loving God” (n. 8). And she adds in the following number (n. 9): “Love for our neighbor will never blossom perfectly in us if it does not spring from the root of the love of God.”[xxviii].
In a later article by Gustavo Gutiérrez, published in a book organized by Rosino Gibellini, in 2003[xxviii], he points out as two great challenges for liberation theology in the 21st century the themes of religious pluralism and the deepening of spirituality. He identifies religious pluralism as a “new and demanding territory” for liberation theology. He also highlights the challenge of spirituality. Attention to spirituality is established as a fundamental step in a dynamic that aims to be liberating. It is a way of going to the “bottom of things” and capturing their essential root. It is in the depth, in the inner fire, that the mystery of the encounter between love for God and love for others is revealed. In this sense, “at the heart of the option for the poor there is a spiritual element of experience of God’s gratuitous love”.32
*Faustino Teixeira is a doctor in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University and senior professor of the postgraduate course in Science of Religion at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora.
Notes
[I] Gustavo Gutierrez. Liberation Theology. Petrópolis: Voices, 1975, p. 24.
[ii] Ibidem, p. 22.
[iii] See about: Giuseppe Colombo. The journey ends 'sopranaturalle'. In: Interdisciplinary Theological Dictionary III. Marietti, 1977, p. 297-301.
[iv] Gustavo Gutierrez. Liberation Theology, P. 129.
[v] Ibidem, p. 129. On the subject see also: Faustino Teixeira. Basic ecclesial community: theological bases. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1988, p. 61-101 (The relationship between salvation and liberation; Knowledge of God and practice of justice).
[vi] Gerhard von Rad. Old Testament Theology. 3rd ed. Aste, 2006.
[vii] Gustavo Gutierrez. Liberation Theology, P. 162.
[viii] Ibidem, p. 163. Ibidem, p. 167.
[ix] Gustavo Gutierrez. The historical strength of the poor. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1981 (the original is from 1979).
[X] Jacques Dupont. Le Beatitudini I and II. 4 ed. Rome: Paoline, 1979.
[xi] III General Conference of the Latin American Episcopate. Evangelization in the present and future of Latin America. Petropolis: Vozes, 1979, p. 276 (n. 1142).
[xii] Ignatius Neutzling. The Kingdom of God and the poor. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
[xiii] Ibidem, p. 88.
[xiv] Ibidem, p. 102.
[xv] Gustavo Gutierrez. Liberation Theology, P. 116.
[xvi] Ibid., p. 172-176. 18 Ibidem, p. 172.
[xvii] Ibidem, p. 173.
[xviii] Jon Sobrino. Spirituality of liberation. Structure and contents. São Paulo: Loyola, 1992.
[xx] Ibid., p. 15-16.
[xx] Gustavo Gutierrez. Drinking from your own well. Spiritual itinerary of a people. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1984.
[xxx] Ibidem, p. 120. 24 Ibidem, p. 125.
[xxiii] Ibidem, p. 125.
[xxiii] Gustavo Gutierrez. Liberation Theology. Perspectives. 2nd ed. São Paulo: Loyola, 2000, p. 31 (Introduction).
[xxv] Carlos Masters. Six days in the basement of humanity. Petrópolis: Voices, 1977.
[xxiv] Ibidem, p. 108.
[xxv] Saint Teresa of Jesus. Inner castle or dwellings. 8th ed., São Paulo: Paulus, 1981, p. 120 (Fifth Mansions, Chapter III, 7).
[xxviii] Ibidem, p. 121.
[xxviii] Gustavo Gutiérrez. Situation competi della theologia della liberazione. In: Rosino Gibellini (Ed.) Prospective theology for the 21st century. Brescia: Queriniana, 2003, p. 93-111. 32 Ibidem, p. 109.
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