They Called Me a Communist

February 7, 2012 By Kurt Willems 3 Comments

From Common Prayer:

Dom Helder Camara of Recife (1909 – 1999)

Born February 7, 1909, in Fortazela, Brazil, Dom Helder Camara became a bishop of the Catholic Church and one of the twentieth century’s great apostles of nonviolence. After joining a conservative political movement as a young priest, Camara experienced a conversion while ministering among the poor in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. “When I fed the poor they called me a saint,” Camara said. “When I asked why they were poor, they called me a Communist.” Labeled “the red bishop,” Camara worked tirelessly for democracy and human rights in Brazil, even as he watched friends and fellow priests imprisoned, tortured, and killed. When a hired assassin knocked on the elderly Camara’s door, he was so moved by the sight of the bishop that he blurted out, “I can’t kill you. You are one of the Lord’s.”

Bishop Camara wrote, “To walk alone is possible, but the good walker knows that the great trip is life and it requires companions.”

Filed Under: Faith Journey, Nonviolence, Social Justice Tagged With: , , 3 Comments
  • Yshekster

    Thx Kurt!

  • ellie_1

    So, is the article saying that communists aren’t poor or that the government where he was ministering thought you were communist if you were concerned at all about the poor or helping them?

  • Charlie

    Kurt, I finally got a chance to read this, and thanks, it’s great!  My impression of the response to his question about their poverty is that perhaps their perception was that -any- non-communist would -know- why they were poor, they were peasants, they were -supposed- to be poor.  He had the audacity [or grace] to see them first as God’s human beings, and not automatically locked in to a certain societal station.  To their experience, anyone audacious enough to suggest they might be anything but poor -must therefore- be a communist.  That’s my guess anyway, its an interesting cultural poser.