¿Felices los pobres (Mt 5,3)? Evidencia empírica para confrontar una promesa evangélica

In Beatitudes, the promise of happiness to the poor is polemic since it is obvious that they face very hard living conditions. This paper focus on the relationship between happiness, religiousness and economic situation, poverty or wealth, in two groups of districts in Peru: The poorest and the richest ones, ie the opposite. While Luke's statement «Happy are the poor" seems to be incorrect in an empiric sense -real poor people are often less happy than rich ones-, Matthew's statement «Happy are the poor in spirit" seems to find empirical support, at least if it is understood as Gustavo Gutiérrez does. In summary, fieldwork made on surveys endorses Gutiérrez interpretation on the happiness of those who identified themselves as spiritual poor.