Las Casas: In Search of the Poor of Jesus Christ

by Gustavo Gutiérrez

In this passionate work, the pioneering author of A Theology of Liberation delves into the life, thought, and contemporary meaning of Bartolome de Las Casas, sixteenth-century Dominican priest, prophet, and "Defender of the Indians" in the New World. Writing against the backdrop of the fifth centenary of the conquest of the Americas, Gutierrez seeks in the remarkable figure of Las Casas the roots of a different history and a gospel uncontaminated by force and exploitation. Las Casas, who arrived in the New World in 1502, underwent a conversion after witnessing the injustices inflicted on the Indians. Proclaiming that Jesus Christ was being crucified in the poor, he went on to spend a lifetime challenging the Church and the Empire of his day. His voluminous writings, along with those of his numerous adversaries, provide the substance for Gutierrez's reflections. What emerges is both a prophet of unquestioned courage and a theologian of remarkable depth, whose vision continues to set in relief the challenge of the gospel in a world of injustice. Not only did Las Casas point the way to such contemporary themes as the church's "preferential option for the poor" and the denunciation of "social sin," but he anticipated by centuries the principles of religious freedom, the rights of conscience, and the salvation of non-Christians, articulated at Vatican II. Through the poor of his time, Las Casas was moved to rediscover the radical challenge of the gospel. Gutierrez writes from a similar location and with a similar pathos. Far from a dry exercise in historical retrieval, Las Casas represents the author's most recent effort to articulate the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our own world and time, now as then marked by oppression as well as the struggle for liberation.

Genres: Theology, Religion, Nonfiction, Philosophy, History

704 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1993

About the author

Gustavo Gutiérrez-Merino Díaz was a Peruvian philosopher, Catholic theologian, and Dominican priest who was one of the founders of liberation theology in Latin America. His 1971 book A Theology of Liberation is considered pivotal to the formation of liberation theology. He held the John Cardinal O'Hara Professorship of Theology at the University of Notre Dame and was a visiting professor at universities in North America and Europe.
Gutiérrez studied medicine and literature at the National University of San Marcos before deciding to become a priest. He began studying theology at the Theology Faculty of Leuven in Belgium and in Lyon, France.
His theological focus connected salvation and liberation through the preferential option for the poor, with an emphasis on improving the material conditions of the impoverished. Gutiérrez proposed that revelation and eschatology have been excessively idealized at the expense of efforts to bring about the Kingdom of God on Earth. His methodology was often critical of the social and economic injustice he believed to be responsible for poverty in Latin America, and of the Catholic clergy. The central pastoral question of his work was: "How do we convey to the poor that God loves them?"

Reviews

[graceofgod · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb. Perhaps his greatest work.

[Elisha]

LOVE this book...