Dignity and closeness: Fray Ñero, the Colombian who made the street a meeting place

On August 19, Latin America commemorated the Latin American Day of Struggles of People in Street Situations, a date that keeps alive the memory of those who have suffered violence and exclusion and calls for a perspective centered on their dignity and rights. The day remembers the Sé Massacre, which occurred in São Paulo, Brazil, in August 2004, when seven street dwellers were killed and eight others were seriously injured.

The memory of this day also reaches in Colombia to Fray Gabriel Gutiérrez Ramírez, known as Fray Ñero, who turned the support of street dwellers in Bogotá into a pastoral and social cause. His closeness to this population marked his last years of ministry, until his passing on April 2, 2021, at the age of 63, after being hospitalized for COVID-19.

His pastoral commitment was for a Church capable of approaching the peripheries and meeting those who remained on the margins.. After returning to Bogotá in 2015, Fray Ñero deepened his work with people in street situations, particularly after the intervention in the Bronx in 2016. His presence with this population allowed him to engage in listening, accompaniment, and defense of the rights of a regularly marginalized group.

In front of a society that frequently associated street life with insecurity or drug use, Fray Ñero proposed another perspective: to approach and get to know the people behind those circumstances. “Come to know the underground Bogotá”, he said to the authorities, convinced that no policy could respond to this reality without first listening to those who live it.

In his way of speaking about this reality, Fray Ñero sought to restore face and name to those who were often reduced to stereotypes. “We do not have criminals or only drug users, but we have human beings in a state of defenselessness,” he said. His insistence was on first recognizing the person and, from there, promoting responses that united assistance, inclusion, protection of rights, and accompaniment.

The mission that Fray Ñero promoted also continues in the Callejeros de la Misericordia Foundation, which works for the dignity of people in street situations through actions of accompaniment, inclusion, and training, as well as the promotion and defense of their rights.

For Cardinal Luis José Rueda Aparicio, Fray Ñero represented a Church that reaches out to those living on the margins. As archbishop of Bogotá, he accompanied his mission and, during the illness of the Franciscan, prayed for his life. After his death, he recalled him as “an apostle, a servant of the homeless,” whose task was to “accompany them, to heal them, to care for them, to defend them, and to protect them.”

The legacy of Fray Ñero has also been expressed in new gestures of closeness with people in street situations. In 2024, Cardinal Rueda presided over a Eucharist in memory of the Franciscan and shared food with homeless people in the Las Cruces neighborhood, during an event organized by the Callejeros de la Misericordia Foundation.

Years after his death, the work associated with Fray Ñero continues to find paths in the streets of Bogotá. The Callejeros de la Misericordia Foundation maintains actions for food, companionship, education, and support for entrepreneurship, among other initiatives aimed at vulnerable populations.. His work keeps alive a conviction that marked the Franciscan: "before labels or prejudices, there are people whose dignity must be recognized."

The legacy of Fray Ñero reminds us that solidarity begins when we stop viewing people in street situations as a problem and start recognizing them as individuals with names, histories, connections, and rights. His life thus leaves a current challenge: to move from occasional assistance to a closeness capable of accompanying and transforming.

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