DOM HELDER CAMARA: A MEMORY, PART 1

Dear Friends:

Dom Helder Camara (1909-1999), the prophetic and holy bishop of Olinda and Recife, in the impoverished Northeast of Brazil, was an untiring and devoted advocate and champion of the poor and the outcast. Of his many felicitous utterances and sayings, perhaps the best known is: “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.”

This remark, which can take pride of place along with Amos’ thundering and the Letter of James’ dire indictment of unbridled and brutally oppressive wealth, is much more than a perceived sigh of resignation, or a lament at his opponents’ misunderstanding of his teaching. It is, in fact, a synthesis, magnificent in its brevity and its depth (as only saints can do), of the whole of Catholic Social Doctrine. We need to encourage, and be committed to soup kitchens, to shelter the homeless, feed the hungry (the sublime text of Isaiah 58: 1-10, that greets us at the beginning of Lent, is a warrant of this), advocate, as we all must at this particular point in time in USA political history, the cause of justice for migrants.

BUT, clearly present in Dom Helder’s remark, there is a need for the next step, the crucial, defining step without which Catholic Social Doctrine would simply collapse into a meek, non-disturbing, non-perturbing, unthreatening Valium for our wealthy parish Catholics: the need to radically question an economic system that so many, the vast majority, take for granted as “good,” “progressive,” as epitomizing that chimera known as the “American Way of Life,” the need to commit ourselves to radically change the economic and political structures that doom so many to hunger, poverty, homelessness, marginalization, exclusion (cf. Pope Francis, “The Joy of the Gospel), It is a call (a demand!!) for a drastically, radically (Gospel-radical) dramatic, risky, vulnerable conversion to an embrace with the Crucified and Risen One as the starting point for a new (radically new) economic and political system, that will embrace all, that will marginalize no one.

Dom Helder’s remark invites us to go a step further, without which even the above would be convicted of hypocrisy: to embrace, and I mean, physically embrace, those who are mercilessly cast to the margins by our arrogant systems and parish insensitivity. When was the last time that we (beginning with me!) actually shook hands, or embraced, or uttered a smiling “brother,” or “sister,” to a migrant clad in poverty, with the soil of the fields they toil to put Caesar salad in our tables still visible in their fingernails. Further still, do we go out of our way to welcome them to sit next to us in our wealthy parishes, here in Boynton Beach, Delray Beach, Boca Raton (!!!), redeeming the sense of embarrassment they feel at the thought of mingling with nicely-clad parish Catholics. Do we (do I?) make them feel that they belong as brother or sister Catholics in our parish communities, rather than the object of our condescending and patronizing acts of arrogance and hypocrisy disguised as “charity”?

Dom Helder’s remark should ring in our ears, like a convulsing, fastidious, disturbing and threatening warning that Jesus REALLY meant what he said in Mtt 25: 31-46: “For I was hungry . . . for I was a stranger . . . ” or perhaps Luke 1: 46-55, Mary’s Song, especially v. 53: “The rich He has sent away empty . . . ” For, as much as we seek to take refuge in quickly-written and quickly-mailed checks “to our favorite charity” (and mind you, sending those checks is a good thing in itself), and try to Clorox our consciences by assuming we are helping the poor and the homeless, far away and comfortably distant from our shining and polished parish pews, people we send checks to, but would never care to embrace and tell : “Come brother (or sister), come and let’s break bread together at our parish community, for in you I see (as I hope you see in me) the face of the Crucified and Risen One.” The alternative to doing that? Again, Mtt. 25: 31-46.

Dom Helder’s utterance is, after all, a prophetic insight into Pope Francis’ teaching. Dom Helder implicitly endorses Francis’ remark to the leaders of the CLAR, the Latin American Federation of Religious, in their meeting on June 10, 2013: “The poor are the Gospel.” Amen, Francis. Amen, Dom Helder. I hope to be granted a long enough life to see you publicly acknowledge by the Church as a saint.

Oremus pro invicem

Sixto
AT THE SUNSET OF OUR LIVES, WE
WILL BE JUDGED BY LOVE
St. John of the Cross
“Sayings of Light and Love,” 59
WE WILL NEVER LOVE ENOUGH
Bl. Charles de Foucauld
Letter to Marie de Bondy,
December 1, 1916,
The day of his Martyrdom
BLOG: https://sixtogarcia.wordpress.com/

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