According to F. J. García Mogollón, Gutierre spent some of his life "in the midst of great moral laxity, and we even know that he had a love affair with Magdalena de Mendoza, a lady from Toledo related to the Marquises of Almazán, who was the niece of Canon Carlos de Mendoza, Count of Castro, also a person of dissolute life.

[1] In 1551, Gutierre was sent to the Council of Trent by Charles I, where he met the Jesuits and read the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, which completely changed his life.

Laínez commented to Ignatius of Loyola in 1552, in Trent, about Gutierre de Vargas: "...not to fail with the Placentinian, because he is a Spaniard and fellow countryman, and almost a man of war, such that by force of arms he would make us answer, if we did not want to do so willingly.

In 1534, he called a diocesan synod in Jaraicejo (Cáceres), in which he anticipated the reforms that he would propose at the Council of Trent regarding the ordination and administration of dioceses.

The 107 articles of the synodal constitutions covered a variety of subjects, including the establishment of baptismal registers in every parish, recurrent visits by the prelate to the towns, the lives of the clergy, and the tithe.

The expedition set sail from Seville in August 1539, with the aim of crossing the Strait of Magellan, colonizing and evangelizing Patagonia, and reaching the coasts of Peru.

Only one ship succeeded, the one commanded by Alonso de Camargo, which sighted the archipelago of Chiloé and managed to reach Arequipa (Peru).