The archbishop seemed an unlikely candidate for an honorary degree at Harvard. Yet in June, 1974, this diminutive, 75-year-old, Brazilian churchman, dressed in a simple black soutane with a wooden cross around his neck, showed up in Cambridge at the invi-tation of the university. During the commencement exercises, Helder Camara, Archbi-shop of Recife, was recognized for his charismatic zeal, exercised on behalf of the poor and disenfranchised.
Memories of his visit twenty-five years ago were stirred up in me last week by reports of his death at age 90. Long since retired from his archdiocese, Dom Helder (as he was commonly called), continued to the end his burning advocacy for people deprived of society’s goods.
In the course of long life, one looks back with thanks for the opportunity to meet great-souled people along the way. That’s how I feel about the time I spent with Dom Helder. Much to my satisfaction, I served as his host during the time he spent in Cam-bridge both in 1974 and earlier when he came at my invitation for three days in 1969.
My main effort, as a Harvard chaplain then, was to put him in touch with students, faculty members, and others for whom his message could make a difference. Many of those who came to hear Dom Helder speak at our Catholic student center and elsewhere were already aware of his efforts, and that of other South American church leaders, to change the fundamental stance of the Catholic Church.
They wanted to move away from support for the rich and powerful toward the poor and left-out. Emboldened by the Second Vatican Council, these leaders worked to make the church break with centuries of favoring the established forces of society.
This “preferential option for the poor,” of course polarized the church in the coun-tries where it was adopted by the bishops. Even though a majority of Latin American bi-shops had endorsed this radical agenda at a famous conference held in Medellin, Colum-bia in 1968, still the struggle to carry it out met fierce opposition both from secular forces and from those sectors in the church opposed to change.
As I recall Dom Helder’s message at Harvard, it was largely an appeal to us Americans to endorse fundamental change in policies that were causing misery in Third-World nations. So long as the United States continued to back corrupt governments and to support unjust practices of some large corporations, then the poor would continue to suffer.
The world situation, he said, gave much reason for people to lose hope. But he de-scribed himself as belonging to the “Abrahamic minority” – – those who continue to hope against hope.
This hard message Dom Helder delivered with great simplicity and in Gospel terms. His was basically a religious, rather than a socio-political message, though his enemies would always accuse him of meddling in matters foreign to his calling.
At one point in his earlier stay, I remember taking Dom Helder to visit Cardinal Cushing, the then Archbishop of Boston. Though Cushing practiced his own forms of austerity, the spacious house in which he lived made a vivid contrast with the simple dwelling where Dom Helder lived in Recife after having refused to move into the archie-piscopal mansion.
With his typical generosity toward third-world bishops, Cushing disappeared ups-tairs at the end of our visit, came down and presented Dom Helder a check for a thou-sand dollars.
Reading the New York Times obituary, I could not help but reflect on the effects of the liberation theology preached by Dom Helder. Though detailing his accomplish-ments, the writer notes the many efforts to reverse his influence.
A friend, Ellen Warwick of Arlington, has called my attention to what she calls “the law of unintended consequences.” One such consequence of liberation theology, in particular, comes loaded with irony. As noted in the Times, many thousands of Catholics in Brazil and other South American countries have abandoned the Catholic Church and have converted to evangelical and Pentecostal churches.
Indeed the tide of Church-led reform seems to have long since peaked. Society in many third-world countries has led a successful counter-attack and returned to the for-tress of the status quo. The heady era of challenge to vested interests in the name of faith would appear to have passed. The president of Brazil can declare three days of official mourning for Dom Helder, but many of his successor bishops have closed the door to ba-sic reform.
Still, I like to think that spiritual greatness makes a lasting difference. I take com-fort in its traces. To me it’s a consolation that a delivery truck of a nutrition program in my city bears the words of Helder Camara painted large: “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.”
Richard Griffin