Sergio Gutiérrez Benítez was born in 1945 in the state of Hidalgo, into a family of at least seventeen children.
As a boy he started using marijuana. By early adulthood he had moved on to pills and cocaine. After treatment for his addiction, he turned to the church.
His first try at the seminary, in Toluca, lasted one week: he was expelled for punching another seminarian. The second try held. He studied in Barcelona, Navarra and Rome, and on May 26, 1973, he was ordained a priest.
