Free Republic

Perhaps the biggest falsehood about Helder Camara is the one that presents him as a friend of the poor and defender of freedom. The title, defender of freedom fits very badly on one who sang the praises of some of the bloodiest dictatorships that constellated the 20th century; first Nazism, and then Communism in all of its variants: Soviet, Cuban, Chinese… Most of all, however, the title friend of the poor does not fit at all one who sustained regimes that have caused such terrifying poverty, described by the then Cardinal Ratzinger as “the shame of our times.”

Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, has announced, on the heels of the recent beatification of Pope Paul VI, an exciting new candidate for beatification on the increasingly crowded Expressway to the Ever-Widening Gate of Heaven. It seems that Cardinal Walter Kasper, President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, has now introduced the cause of Annibale Bugnini, the architect of the highly-touted liturgical reform of Vatican II, to the Congregation. Kasper reportedly gave his permission to open an investigation into Abp. Bugnini’s virtues in response to repeated and urgent requests from...