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The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965)
Dom Helder Camara played a fundamental role during all the sessions of the Council. He was always on mission, making contacts, giving talks, organising and communicating. He formed working groups, always trying to influence the plenary sessions through someone who had the right to speak and, above all, to be heard.
He arrived as a mere stranger, but at the end of the Council he was asked to give conferences in various countries. He fought for a poor Church for the poor. He mobilised various participants to draw up the Covenant of the Catacombs which was to be signed by those who agreed to lead a simple life, closer to the poor, without pomp, without luxury, without cars, giving up privileges. The pact was signed on 16 November 1965, during a mass in the Catacomb of Saint Domitile. Dom Helder Camara was not present at the time of the signing because he was in a meeting of the mixed commission for the writing of Gaudium et Spes, of which he was one of the titular members (BEOZZO, 2015, p. 53). It is not known for sure if he signed it later, but with his life he demonstrated his commitment. During the Conciliar period, Dom Helder began to write circulars, initially for the São Joaquim Family and, after he came to Recife, for the Messejanense Family, a group formed by collaborators from Rio and Recife [1].
Archbishop of Olinda and Recife
In the year 1964 Brazil was surprised by a military coup that turned into a dictatorship with serious consequences for the Brazilian population, which lasted more than twenty years. Another event shook Recife in the month of March, the premature death of Archbishop Dom Carlos Gouveia Coelho. On 12 March Dom Helder was named Archbishop of Olinda and Recife by Pope Paul VI. He took possession one month later, on the twelfth day of the military dictatorship, and under its rule he lived his entire pastoral ministry.
The accommodation did not suit him. He would have to live in the Palácio São José dos Manguinhos, the official residence of the archbishops, a house too big for just one “little bishop”, as he liked to say. The initial steps were to change the name of his house to Solar São José and to open the doors to everyone. No locks on the gates, doors and windows always open, occupying the spaces with the people. During the day, the people occupied the manor house and at night he would gather specific groups for evenings, which he called “saraus”. Thus a group was always present: intellectuals, scientists, philosophers, theologians, politicians, young people, clerics, religious, community representatives? In March 1968 he went to live in the sacristy of the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption of the Border, a simple space of three rooms and a small garden with a rose-tree, just as he had always dreamed. There he remained until his death. He received there, with the same attention and respect, homeless people, poor people in general, collaborators, clergy, presidents of the Republic, authorities of other countries, artists. He himself made a point of answering the door and remaining there at the moment of farewell until he could no longer see the visitor. The Frontiers House was machine-gunned and graffitied on several occasions. The most impressive graffiti were: BRAZIL, LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT and CNBB – NATIONAL CAMBADA OF THE BANDITS OF BATTLE.
He created the pastoral areas in the Archdiocese, the administration became collegiate. He knew how to share the tasks with his auxiliary bishop, Dom José Lamartine, to whom he referred: “We were together Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, he even more than me” (Plaque on the Terrace of the Borderlands). He used the wooden crosier belonging to Dom Lamartine. He founded the Institute of Theology – ITER, open to the laity, which formed good generations of renowned theologians. During his pastoral ministry he created the Providence Bank, the Popular Pharmacy, Operation Hope, he initiated agrarian reform through the purchase of land with the money received from international prizes; with creativity he tried to help everyone, especially the most needy. He encouraged the creation of Basic Ecclesial Communities. He started the Meeting of Brothers – the poor evangelizing the poor, which still exists today in the Archdiocese. The Justice and Peace Commission, also created by Dom Helder, played an important role in the defence of the unjust. Dom Helder was always attentive to the defence of human rights, especially during the years of the military dictatorship when people suddenly disappeared and many never returned to their families.
Perhaps the most difficult moment of Dom Helder’s entire pastorate was the torture and murder of a young priest who was taking care of the University Pastoral, Father
Antônio Henrique Pereira Neto. The crime that took place on 27 May 1969 was a way to hurt Dom Helder. In addition to the suffering of the loss, he was careful to administer this moment calmly without further agitation. Dom Helder managed the whole event with mastery, attentive to the repercussions that each word he or any of the priests or his advisors might have. The military regime condemned Dom Helder to invisibility from 1971 to 1977. It was as if he did not exist. The spoken and written press was never allowed to mention or pronounce Dom Helder’s name, for any reason, in any vehicle of communication. Dom Helder was only allowed to speak to his people in a six-minute daily address on Radio Olinda, which belonged to the Archdiocese. It was the programme “A Look at the City”.
With the restrictions imposed in Brazil, invitations to give lectures increased and prizes were awarded all over the world. Perhaps the most important speech was that given at the Palais des Sports in Paris in May 1970, entitled “Whatever the consequences”, in which Dom Helder denounced the existence of torture, disappearances and deaths in Brazil. Of course, on his return, the repression was stronger against him.
Dom Helder has been awarded many titles and prizes abroad and also in Brazil. He has been nominated four times for the Nobel Peace Prize, his last candidature taking place in 1973. The Truth Commission was able to prove that he was not chosen due to the intervention of the military government in the organs responsible for the prize.
In 1985 he became “Archbishop Emeritus”, witnessing the dismantling of much of his efforts during twenty-one years as a pastor. Once again, he had to remain obsequiously silent, limited to speaking only in the precincts of the Church of the Borders.
In the last six years of his life, his health became more fragile and consequently he needed more assistance. Dom Helder himself chose Father João Pubben, a Lazarist, resident in the pastoral area of Dois Unidos – Recife, to accompany him until the end. On the evening of 27 August 1999, at 10.20 p.m., Dom Helder Pessoa Camara, serenely, in his residence at Fronteiras, made his “Great Journey”, as he himself said. Of the eleven people present, five were Daughters of Charity. Dom Helder was buried the following day, at 5pm, in the nave of the Sé Cathedral, Olinda, before the presbytery.
His body was exhumed on 17 August 2012 and transferred to his current tomb in a side chapel on the 27th of the same month. Next to him are the tombs of Dom José Lamartine Soares, and that of Father Antônio Henrique Pereira Neto.
Jesus Christ and the poor in Dom Helder’s life An intense life of prayer
Dom Helder was accustomed to prayer from childhood. After his ordination as a priest, he adopted the practice of keeping vigil from two to four o’clock in the morning, as long as his health allowed him. He said that he vowed obedience to the alarm clock. They were the privileged moment to restore the unity lost during his work and worries the day and to prepare for Holy Mass. The vigil and Mass “are very sensitive antennae, picking up the slightest waves emitted by the head and heart of Father Joseph.“ (Circular Letter. Vol III, Volume I, p. 172). At the Easter Vigil of 1970 he reflected: “What would become of me if at each dawn, unity were not remade in Christ?”
A Eucharistic man
Dom Helder used to say that his day was a Mass. When he was not at the altar, he was either in preparation or in thanksgiving. He lived the Mass intensely every day. Those who have had the grace of participating in celebrations with Dom Helder will never forget the piety, the seriousness, the lightness, the emotion, the joy, the tenderness with which he celebrated. Sometimes he wept, sometimes he smiled. One had the impression that he really saw Christ in the Eucharistic Bread. On 19 May 1976 he commented
“Every day when I celebrate Mass and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, instead of bread and wine, I have the body and blood of Christ in my hands, I want to go out dancing with the host and the chalice in my hand. Go out dancing! Whoever wants to think me mad may find me. Mad with divine madness. It is the Son who becomes Man and in the Eucharist takes the place of the wine and the bread! DESIRE AND MAGIC.
In 1986, in one of his meditations under the pseudonym “Meditations of Father Joseph”, he wrote:
HOW OFTEN I CRY
in the middle of Holy Mass.
People are distressed,
without being able to guess
which is of the purest joy
that the tears are welling up
Inda today
for me it’s a mystery how does one not fall
struck dumb,
when the sky unites with the Earth
and comes to us, alive, in person,
The true Celebrant of every Mass:
Our Lord Jesus Christ!
Viamão, 7/8.2.1986. Meditations of Father Joseph, p.7263 It is also worth reflecting on this other Meditation:
HOW I WOULD LIKE IT
that every priest
should live
the conviction
that the greatest moment of the
day is the celebration
of the Holy Mass!
Can there be a higher moment
than concelebrating
with Jesus Christ?
Recife, 18.07.1989. Meditations of Father Joseph, p. 7362
Jesus Christ and the Poor
Dom Helder lived a profound identity between Jesus Christ and the poor, the poor and Jesus Christ. One day, he was told that a church in the suburbs had been attacked, the tabernacle violated, the consecrated hosts thrown on the floor and the amber bottles taken away. The parishioners invited Dom Helder to celebrate a Mass in reparation to the Blessed Sacrament for what had happened. During the homily, he thanked the people for the attention given to the Blessed Sacrament, but he said that he was very worried because, during the trip he had made, he found Jesus Christ out in the open, protecting himself from the rain with cardboard and plastic bags, scavenging for food in the rubbish, dirty, badly dressed and nobody paying attention to him. He then asked the community for more attention to the Christ who did not even dare to enter the Church, but who was as real as the Christ of the consecrated host [2].
Approaching the feast of Corpus Christi in 1964, his first year in Olinda and Recife shared his dream:
If it were up to me, this year’s Corpus Christi procession could be different: when the People awaited the Archbishop with the monstrance and the Blessed Sacrament in it, it would appear the Archbishop, in a lorry, crowded with victims, I will not say of the floods, which are transient, but permanent victims of the floods… And the Archbishop, showing his poor people, would repeat only: ‘The Body of Christ’, ‘The Body of God’ and would fall on his knees in adoration of Christ, present in those who suffer” (Circulars, Vol. II, Part III, p. 169).
To be with the poor, to converse with them, to share his journeys, to inform where he was going was very pleasurable for him. On 26/27.1969 he wrote: “The Poor have learned to call me Don. It is a delight!”
On the main solemnities of the year, he always found time to celebrate in a place where the poor were concentrated. They would arrange the date, time and place together, Sister Catherine would bring the money so that they could buy what they needed, and at the appointed time, together with our Sister, Dom Helder would celebrate, living the Eucharist of the Poor. Afterwards, they shared a meal prepared by them. He also liked to have meals with the poor and with construction workers, street sweepers and others. These meetings were frequent. The procedure was the same, he financed the meal and the group prepared the meeting which took place in an atmosphere of joy, relaxation and gratitude of the participants.
Dom Helder was regularly seen in supermarkets and department stores doing some small shopping. He liked these moments because he could see the prices and make contact with the people there.
Always Vincentian
While still a child, he prepared for his first Eucharist with the Lazarists at the Prainha Seminary in Fortaleza.
Dom Helder lived imbued with Vincentian spirituality right to the end. The references are countless. He celebrated with enthusiasm the vigils of the feasts of Saint Vincent. He liked to call Saint Vincent my Master and Model (with initial capital letters), Patron and Master, Model and Master. To contemplate Dom Helder in action, especially with the poor and the suffering, is to listen to and see St Vincent in action.
Dom Helder used to say that it was Saint Vincent who brought him to Recife, because after a homily he had given on the feast of Saint Vincent in Rio de Janeiro, at a Eucharist presided over by the then Cardinal, on returning home, the Cardinal called him and said that it was time for them to part and arranged for Dom Helder to leave Rio.
With the Society of St. Vincent de Paul – SSVP
Before entering the Seminary he was a Confrere of an SSVP Conference (Doc 3).
With the Lazarists
Dom Helder had a very trusting relationship with his professors and rectors during his seminary years. He greatly admired Father Guilherme Vaessen. When he heard of his death, during t h e midnight vigil, he wrote
Natal (Rio Grande do Norte), 14/15.1.1965. Father Guilherme Vaessen died at Fortaleza. When I entered the seminary of Fortaleza in 1923, the rector was a Dutchman, Fr.
Two years later he went to Holland and had one of his kidneys removed. The following year he left the Rectorate to become a missionary and head a group of Dutch missionaries.
How many retreats and sermons he preached in the Northeast as Rector and especially as a missionary? After his old age (he died at 92 years of age, 67 of Brazil, lucid and in full working order), he dedicated himself to the spiritual and material help of the prostitutes of the sands of the Moura Brasil, where he was chaplain, replacing a saint (Msgr. Tabosa Braga)
He broke his leg while bringing help to a poor old man in Moura Brasil. In bed, with his leg stretched out, he developed a thrombosis.
Years before, his brother (Fr João Vaessen, or Fr Joãozinho) had died and was considered a saint. If the process of canonization were easy, men like the Vaessen brothers would go to the altars (CI 129).
This admiration was reciprocated. Father Guillermo Vaessen was also a writer. In the dedication of his book “Retreat for priests according to the spirit of St Vincent de Paul“, he begins thus:
“Your Excellency Dom Helder Camara, give me your holy blessing.
It is to Your Excellency that these humble pages are dedicated, he who, five decades ago, had the satisfaction of accompanying, as rector of the seminary of Fortaleza, the development of a beautiful intelligence and a great heart, from which today the Catholic Church and the Brazilian nation reap the beneficial and tasty fruits.
He concludes:
“Your Excellency’s blessing, united to that of the Immaculate Virgin, will make up for the imperfections and weaknesses (of this book) and transform them into value. May I add that the priests and religious who read these pages will greatly appreciate finding on the first page the dear and venerable name of one who consecrates, like Your Excellency, ‘corde magno et animo volenti’, all his love and activity to the Church of Jesus Christ. Your Excellency please accept the expression of my profound respect and gratitude” (Doc. 4, Father João Pubben, CM, in Dom Helder and the Lazarists, unpublished).
___
1 Dom Helder wrote more than 1,030 Council circulars published in four volumes by the Companhia Editora de Pernambuco – CEPE. Other circulars are being prepared for publication and will form three more volumes: Volumes V and VI – Ação Justiça e Paz and Volume VII – Cartas da Caminhada.
2 A story that Dom Helder liked to repeat.
