Hélder Câmara
Brazilian Catholic priest, archbishop of Olinda and Recife (1909–1999)
Hélder Pessoa Câmara (7 February 1909 – 27 August 1999) was a Brazilian Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of Olinda and Recife from 1964 to 1985 during the military dictatorship in Brazil. He was declared a Servant of God in 2015.
A self-identified socialist, Câmara was an advocate of liberation theology. He did social and political work for the poor and for human rights and democracy during the military regime. Câmara preached for a church closer to the disfavoured people. He is quoted as having said, "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist."
Early life and education
Câmara was born on 7 February 1909, in Fortaleza, Ceará, in the poor Northeast Region of Brazil. His father was an accountant and his mother was a primary school teacher. He was educated in local Catholic schools and entered seminary in 1923.
Career
He was ordained a priest in 1931 at the age of 22, with a dispensation from the Holy See since he was below the canonical age of 24.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q378326. VIAF identifies the subject as 2467648. The Library of Congress control number is n79096903. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1909, 1999, 1964 and 1985.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hélder Câmara” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.