Who is Helder Camara

Hélder Pessoa Câmara was born in Fortaleza, in the North-East of Brazil, on February 9th, 1909. The eleventh of twelve siblings, he died on August 27th, 1999, in Recife, where he had been a bishop for more than 20 years. He is well known as one of the most outstanding Catholic figures of the 20th Century. The Sunday Times called him “the most influential man in Latin America after Fidel Castro.”

He was one of the protagonists of the Council and, even when he was behind the scenes, he inspired working parties on subjects such as ecumenism and poverty, in order to involve the Church itself in a process of renewal.

His special love for the poor and his great commitment against misery and social injustice, led him to help the miserable inhabitants of the ‘favelas’, firmly denounce the worldwide spread social iniquities between the rich and the poor and bring his prophetic message of peace, justice and hope, especially to young people.

Precursor of the liberation theology, disliked by the powerful, he once said: “When I feed someone poor they call me saint, but when I ask why the poor don’t have food they call me communist”.