Ignacio Ellacuría

Root and Method of an Intellectual Commitment

Abstract

In this article we propose a reading of the existential root that animated Ellacuría’s intellectual commitment, his model of a Christian-inspired university, as well as the critical, ethical, and utopian practice and inspiration of his philosophy and theology. This is none other than his Christian following. Some biased views imputed that the vital root of Ellacuría’s intellectual and public commitment was his following of Marxist doctrines. Against this, Ellacuría defends that he and his companions did not live by ideological doctrines, but as companions of Jesus and that this is the mystery of their lives. In this context, the Jesuit charism that he lived for his Christian following provides him with a spiritual wisdom that he deploys and applies with the method of historicization both in philosophy and theology.