Hélder Pessoa Câmara was a Brazilian Roman Catholic Archbishop, theologian and author. He was a prelate whose progressive views on social questions brought him into frequent conflict with Brazil’s military rulers after 1964.
Background
Hélder Pessoa Câmara was born on February 7, 1909, in Fortaleza, Brazil as the second youngest of 13 children. Camara grew up in a poor area of northeast Brazil. Tragedy struck when an epidemic of whooping cough wiped out five members of the family, a disaster that Camara never forgot and reportedly declared at age four that he would become a priest.
Education
Though far from wealthy, Câmara's parents had enough money to give the children a good education. He was educated in local Catholic schools and entered seminary at age fourteen. He was ordained at twenty-two, with direct authorization of the Holy See over his premature age.
Career
Câmara became auxiliary bishop of Rio de Janeiro in 1952. That same year he became instrumental in the formation of the Brazilian Bishops’ Conference and served as its first general secretary until 1964. He then was appointed Archbishop of the Diocese of Olinda and Recife, a position he held until 1985. During that period the country had a series of military rulers and Câmara became involved in the Liberation Theology movement, which helped design a program of Christian activism that advocates for the poor.
Government authorities began to harass Câmara actively in 1968, interfering with his ministry in the slums. The government also began to censor him. From 1968 until 1977 he was not allowed to broadcast on radio, and no information about him was printed by any Brazilian press. Still, Câmara continued in his own writings to attack the disparity in wealth between developed and underdeveloped nations and the prevalence of an “internal colonialism” that fostered disrespect for basic human rights.
His speeches and writings were translated into numerous languages. Some writings include La rebelión de los economistas, Une journée avec Dom Helder Camara, and La iglesia en el desarrollo de America Latin. His collected sermons and speeches on social issues were published as Revolução dentro da paz (1968; Revolution Through Peace). Câmara also published Spiral of Violence (1971), a short tract written when the United States was immersed in a still escalating Vietnam War.
Câmara attended all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council and played a significant role in drafting the Pastoral Constitution on The Church in the Modern World. On November 16, 1965, a few days before the Council ended, 40 bishops led by bishop Hélder Câmara met at night in the Catacombs of Domitilla outside Rome. They celebrated the Eucharist and signed a document under the title of the Pact of the Catacombs. In 13 points, they challenged their brother bishops to live lives of evangelical poverty: without honorific titles, privileges, and worldly ostentation.
Religion
Câmara had some controversial views, endorsing the position of the Orthodox church that spouses who were abandoned should be allowed to remarry within the Church. Câmara also criticized Pope Paul VI's removal of artificial contraception from the purview of Vatican II. However, by Humanae Vitae, he had changed his mind about contraception, being the first person to telegram the Vatican's Secretariat of State praising the controversial encyclical.
Politics
Identifying Communism as "the worst of all evils", Câmara was recruited in 1931 into the Integralist Party, a Brazilian nationalist party with strong fascist tendencies, an ideological choice that he later rejected. He began to talk of the "unjust structures of poverty".
During his tenure as archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Câmara was informally called the 'Bishop of the slums' for his clear position on the side of the urban poor. With other clerics, he encouraged peasants to free themselves from their conventional fatalistic outlook by studying the gospels in small groups and proposing the search for social change from their readings.
Câmara spoke out and wrote about the implications of using violence to repress rebellion resulting from poverty and injustice in other venues than Brazil. Traditionalist Catholics urged the military government to arrest Câmara for his support of land reform and Câmara's colleague, Father Antônio Henrique Pereira Neto, was murdered by unknown conservative forces.
In 1959 Câmara founded Banco da Providência in Rio de Janeiro, a philanthropic organization to fight poverty and social injustice by facilitating the contraction of loans by poorer populations. He also founded two social organizations: the Ceará Legion of Work, in 1931, and the Women Workers' Catholic Union, in 1933.
Views
Câmara identified himself as a socialist and not as a Marxist, and while disagreeing with Marxism, had Marxist sympathies. In the Oriana Fallaci interview, he stated, "My socialism is special, its a socialism that respects the human person and goes back to the Gospels. My socialism it is justice." He said, concerning Marx, that while he disagreed with his conclusions, he agreed with his analysis of the capitalist society.
Quotations:
"When I give food to the poor, they call me a Saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist."
"My socialism is special, its a socialism that respects the human person and goes back to the Gospels. My socialism it is justice."
"When you live with the poor, you realise that, even though they cannot read or write, they certainly know how to think."
Personality
Camara's admirers lived throughout the world and he was well-known in various countries.
Physical Characteristics:
Câmara was a tiny man with notably small hands and feet but with a mighty voice.