Hélder Pessoa Câmara

Hélder Pessoa Câmara (born Feb. 7, 1909, Fortaleza, Braz.—died Aug. 27, 1999, Olinda) was a Roman Catholic prelate whose progressive views on social questions brought him into frequent conflict with Brazil’s military rulers after 1964. Câmara was an early and important figure in the movement that came to be known as liberation theology in the late 1970s.

Câmara was ordained a priest in 1931. In close collaboration with Monsignor Giovanni Montini (later Pope Paul VI), Câmara founded the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops in October 1952, shortly after he had been named auxiliary bishop of Rio de Janeiro. He was also one of the organizers of the Latin-American Conference of Bishops. (The birth of liberation theology is usually dated to the second of these conferences, held in Medellín, Colombia, in 1968.) As general secretary of the Brazilian conference for 11 years, Câmara encouraged the Brazilian church to take an active role in promoting social change. His interest in the shantytown slums of Rio de Janeiro and his television sermons earned him renown as a champion of the poor.

While attending the second Vatican Council, Câmara advocated a church that distributed its riches. He also encouraged bishops to eschew such titles as Eminence and to seek greater unity with the common people they served. Câmara followed these precepts; during his tenure as bishop he never lived in the episcopal palace, and he wore a simple brown cassock and a wooden cross in place of the formal garb and gold cross of a bishop.

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In 1964, two weeks before the military coup that ousted President João Goulart, Pope Paul named Câmara archbishop of the poverty-stricken archdiocese of Olinda and Recife, where he immediately instituted social programs and spoke in favour of reform in weekly radio broadcasts. In a famous speech at Pernambuco in August 1967, Câmara angered local landlords and army officers by warning that only the social action of the church could ward off a violent revolution by the dispossessed. Government authorities began to harass Câmara actively in 1968, interfering with his ministry in the slums and condoning, possibly instigating, machine-gun attacks on his residence. 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.

Upon Câmara’s retirement in 1984, Pope John Paul II chose a more traditionally minded prelate to replace him. The Vatican believed that a return to more traditional thinking could curb the influence of liberation theology in Latin America and stem the large numbers of Latin-American Catholics who had converted to evangelical Protestantism during the 1970s and ’80s. Although officially retired, Câmara remained active in his local church and committed to causes involving social justice.

During his career Câmara was often accused of being a communist and was sometimes called the “Red Bishop.” His reply was, “When I fed the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked ‘Why are they poor?’ they called me a communist.” Câmara was the recipient of several peace prizes. His collected sermons and speeches on social issues were published as Revolução dentro da paz (1968; Revolution Through Peace).