| 1968 |
1968-07-21/25 |
Gutiérrez's Chimbote lecture — Asked to speak on a 'theology of development', Gustavo Gutiérrez reframes the topic as 'Hacia una teología de la liberación'.[6] [1] |
| 1969 |
1969 |
Rubem Alves, 'A Theology of Human Hope' — Alves's Princeton dissertation, defended in 1968 as 'Towards a Theology of Liberation', was published in 1969 as 'A Theology of Human Hope'; his publisher required the retitling for the US market. Harvey Cox later observed that but for the change, Alves rather than Gutiérrez might be remembered as the 'father of liberation theology'.[7] [8] [9] |
| 1971 |
1971 |
Gutiérrez publishes 'Teología de la liberación' — The movement's foundational text; English translation 'A Theology of Liberation' follows in 1973 (Orbis).[1] [10] [11] |
| 2001 |
2001 |
Gutiérrez enters the Dominican Order — Gustavo Gutiérrez, a diocesan priest since his 1959 ordination in Lima, is received into the Order of Preachers (Dominicans); in the same period he takes up the John Cardinal O'Hara Professorship of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. (Some accounts give 1998–1999 for the entry; Notre Dame's own memorial states 2001.)[3] [1] |
| 2013 |
2013-09 |
Francis receives Gutiérrez — Francis meets privately with Gustavo Gutiérrez, brought by CDF prefect Gerhard Müller, Gutiérrez's friend and co-author — widely read as a rehabilitation-adjacent gesture, a reading attributed to commentators.[12] |
| 2015 |
2015 |
'On the Side of the Poor': Gutiérrez and Cardinal Müller — Orbis Books publishes 'On the Side of the Poor: The Theology of Liberation', pairing essays by Gutiérrez with those of Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller — Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (2012–2017) and a former student of Gutiérrez who had spent summers working in Peru (the material first appeared in German as 'An der Seite der Armen', 2004). Müller praised Gutiérrez as 'one of the great theologians of our time'; commentators read the collaboration as a public marker of a thaw between Rome and liberation theology — characterizations attributed to their authors.[13] [5] |
| 2018 |
2018-05-28 |
Francis's letter for Gutiérrez's 90th birthday — In a letter dated 28 May 2018, ahead of Gutiérrez's 90th birthday (8 June), Pope Francis thanks him for his 'theological service' and his 'preferential love for the poor and the discarded of society', encouraging him to continue his prayer and service. Together with their 2013 meeting, the letter is widely cited as evidence of warming relations under Francis; whether it amounts to a rehabilitation of liberation theology is contested (see disambiguation).[14] [15] |
| 2024 |
2024-10-22 |
Death of Gustavo Gutiérrez — The 'father of liberation theology' dies at 96 in the Dominican convent in Lima.[2] [16] |