Samuel Silva Gotay


Samuel Silva Gotay is a sociologist of religion of Puerto Rico and Latin America. He was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico in 1935.

Education

Brought up in a Protestant tradition, he became active in the ecumenical movement during his student days. In 1955 he became member of the executive committee of the World Christian Student Federation, the oldest ecumenical movement in the world. He holds degrees from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, Yale University and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He is Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus.

Professional career

Since early in professional work, he developed an interest in the social dimension of the Christian tradition and participated in social justice movements. Following his first two years as a professor at the University of Puerto Rico, he studied theology and sociology or religion at Yale University, and became the student pastor at the UPR and director of the Higher Education Office of the Council of Churches in Puerto Rico. In 1967 he served as executive director of the Foundation of Community Development, leading the "Volunteers in service to Puerto Rico" group.
He became associate dean of students at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus in charge of cultural and students affairs. Two years later he returned to Mexico to pursue a doctoral degree on Latin American studies. His dissertation was on the origins of Liberation Theology. After returning from México, Silva-Gotay taught in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Faculty of Social Sciences, the Department of History of the Faculty of Humanities and in the Center for Advance Studies of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Current academic interests

The current focus of his research and scholarship is on the use the categories of "liberation theology" to understand the history and sociology of religion in Puerto Rico. Most of his recent publications are in sociology of religion in Puerto Rico and Latin America. He was appointed Coordinator for the Caribbean of CEHILA: Comisión de Estudios de Historia de la Iglesia de América Latina, CEHILA is a project of Latino American historians, related to Theology of Liberation, established to produce a 12 volume history of the Church from the perspective of Latin America with a focus on social justice.

Books

He is married to Jovita Caraballo, has three children and eight grandchildren.