A supporter of liberation theology, he is noted for saying, "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist."[1]
He was born Hélder Pessoa Câmara in Fortaleza, Ceará, the poor northeast area of Brazil. He went to local Catholic schools and decided to become a priest, completing seminary.
After his appointment as the 'Bishop of Corum,' Câmara was known for his clear position on the side of the urban poor.[2] In 1959 he founded Banco da Providência in Rio de Janeiro, a philanthropic organization to fight poverty and social injustice by making it easier for poor people to receive loans.
He became a proponent of liberation theology and served the poor in northeast Brazil for most of his career. He was Archbishop of the Diocese of Olinda and Recife from 1964 to 1985, during the period of repression under the military dictatorship.
Câmara spoke out and wrote about the implications of using violence to repress rebellion resulting from poverty and injustice in other venues than Brazil. He published Spiral of Violence (1971), a short tract written when the United States was immersed in a still escalating Vietnam War. It is distinctive for linking structural injustice (Level 1 violence) with escalating rebellion (Level 2 violence) and repressive reaction (Level 3 violence). In it, Câmara called on the youth of the world to take steps to break the spiral, saying their elders became addicted to those escalating steps. By the early 21st century, this book had been out of print in the United Kingdom for about 20 years. A scanned version in English is available on the web at the link given below.
^Quote: "Quando dou comida aos pobres chamam-me de santo. Quando pergunto por que eles são pobres chamam-me de comunista." – cited in Zildo Rocha, Helder, O Dom: uma vida que marcou os rumos da Igreja no Brasil (Helder, the Gift: A Life that Marked the Course of the Church in Brazil), Page 53, Editora Vozes, 2000, ISBN 85-326-2213-5, ISBN 978-85-326-2213-6 – 208 pages (Portuguese)
