Ivan Ilyich (1926-2002) was born in Vienna, the capital of Austria. His father is a Yugoslav Catholic and his mother is a German Jew. After receiving a doctorate in history from the University of Salzbrg in Vienna, he went to Rome to study theology at the Gregorian University and was ordained a priest by them.

His first vocation was as assistant priest in the Puerto Rican immigrant community of New York. During his five years in office, he devoted himself to the social welfare issues of these culturally and economically disadvantaged minorities. Later, he went to Ponce, the capital of the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, to serve as vice president of the Catholic University of Puerto Rico. Like most Caribbean countries, Puerto Rico's economy is unstable and living standards are low. Poverty among farmers and unskilled workers is exacerbated by high birth rates.

After returning to the United States, Ilyich was appointed professor at Catholic Fordham University. Here he proposed the idea of ??establishing a center and successfully obtained support from Ford University, Cardinal Spellman and the Latin American Committee of the United States. Therefore, in 1961, he established a center in Cuernavaca, Mexico ( Cuernavaca) established the Cultural Exchange Information Center, which was later renamed the Center for Interculture Documentation (CIDOC). Its founding mission is to train Catholic priests and catechists to work in Latin America through Spanish language programs and Latin American studies. CIDOC later became more and more "secular", and its purpose evolved to recognize human problems (especially problems in Latin America and developing countries), collect relevant information, stimulate and awaken public awareness of these problems, and seek possibilities solution.

These activities of Ilyich caused constant conflicts between him and the Catholic Church. In 1968 he was sent back to Rome to face a secret Vatican investigation.