Dom Hélder Câmara

Hélder Pessoa Câmara (7 February 1909 – 27 August 1999) was a Brazilian Catholic archbishop. A self-identified socialist, he was the Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, serving from 1964 to 1985, during the military dictatorship in Brazil. He was declared a Servant of God in 2015. 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." He was born Hélder Pessoa Câmara 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. He was ordained a priest in 1931, with direct authorization of the Holy See over his premature age. Câmara was named auxiliary bishop of Rio de Janeiro by Pope Pius XII on 3 March 1952. During his first years as a priest he was a supporter of the far-right Brazilian Integralist Action (Ação Integralista Brasileira, AIB), an ideological choice that he later rejected. He also founded two social organizations: the Ceará Legion of Work, in 1931, and the Women Workers' Catholic Union, in 1933.