Vatican Approves Sainthood Process for Helder Camara, Patron of the Brazilian Catholic Left
By Julio Severo
Just weeks after official announcement of the beatification of the leftist Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, murdered in 1980, the Vatican has given a green light for the sainthood process for a Brazilian bishop known for radically promoting the liberation theology: Helder Camara (1909-1999).
The beatification request was made by Olinda and Recife Archbishop Fernando Saburido, who received from the Vatican a very positive answer.
In an interview to the Catholic TV network Canção Nova, Saburido said, “Helder Camara was a courageous prophet who faced many hardships, especially under the military repression.”
Saburido added that Camara exerted great influence in Brazil. From a leftist perspective, he is right.
The most outspoken critic of the 1964-85 Brazilian military rule was Camara, who was called “Red Bishop” because of his Marxist stances.
In 1973, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by a U.S.-based leftist organization, the American Friends Service Committee.
According to Dr. Constance Cumbey in her book “The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow,” the Brazilian bishop played a prominent role in international New Age events.
Camara was one of the founders of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (NCBB), the most powerful Catholic organization in Brazil, the largest Catholic nation in the world.
For decades, NCBB has kept the Catholic population in Brazil under its Marxist spell and it is credited for having helped to found the ruling Workers’ Party, which has kept Brazil enslaved under its pro-Cuba socialism for 13 years.
Archbishop Fernando Saburido, who made the beatification request to the Vatican, is no less controversial than the liberation theology bishop he wants beatified.
Saburido began to cause concern among Brazilian pro-lifers when he made remarks in 2010 that seemed to excuse an abortion performed on a minor in the archdiocese. “The decision is for the parents, who have all of the freedom to act in the way that they believe to be most convenient,” the archbishop said in a television interview.
Although Saburido issued a clarification following the interview in which he retracted his statements, he found himself embroiled in another controversy, when Jorge Ferraz of the blog “Deus lo Vult” revealed that the archbishop had led a march under the banner, “The Cry of the Excluded” (Grito dos Excluídos), in which pro-abortion, homosexualist, and socialist organizations had freely participated.
The Catholic university under Saburido’s responsibility held a 2011 symposium on “homoaffective law,” which gave advocates of the homosexual agenda a platform for promoting their ideology.
According to the homosexualist website MixBrasil, the symposium included such speakers as Fr. Luis Correa Lima, founder of “Catholic Diversity” (Diversidade Catolica), which openly seeks to normalize and legitimize the homosexual lifestyle and “gay identity.” One of the main speakers was Jean Wyllys, the most prominent homosexualist member of the Brazilian Congress.
Leftism in the Catholic Church has been a source of worry.
According to a recent BBC report in Spanish and Portuguese by Jaime Gonzalez, American conservatives see Pope Francis as Marxist and radical environmentalist.
What happens when a liberal Brazilian Catholic archbishop asks a Marxist pope for the beatification of a Brazilian Marxist Catholic bishop?
If Helder Camara is beatified, the Brazilian Catholic Left, especially the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (NCBB), will be sanctified.
While Brazil waits his beatification, the Vatican has named Camara “Servant of God.”
With information from National Catholic Reporter, Canção Nova, LifeSiteNews and Estadão.
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