Photo of the Week

Brazilian Cardinal wears a communist cap

The man you see above is Card. Paulo Evaristo Arns, the retired Archbishop of São Paulo, Brazil. On last September 14, at the celebration of his 95^th birthday in the auditorium of the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, he donned the cap of the Landless Movement (MST- Movimento dos Sem Terra). MST is a radical movement of communist orientation that invades farms all over Brazil, occupies them by force and destroys the properties of the owners.

At the time Card. Arns was an acting Archbishop, São Paulo was the largest Archdiocese in the world, with more than 10 million Catholics. He took advantage of this situation to launch many socialist-communist movements in São Paulo, which then spread all over the country.

Among these movements are the Christian Basic Communities, which became the strongest promoter of Liberation Theology in Brazil. When Fr. Leonardo Boff was condemned for his Marxist orientation, it was Card. Arns who traveled with him to Rome to defend Boff before the Vatican officials.

At that time, Arns wrote a famous letter to Fidel Castro that started with “My dearest Fidel,” and affirmed, “The Christian Faith discovers the signs of the Kingdom of God in the conquests of the [Cuban] Revolution.”

It was also Card. Arns, along with one of his Auxiliary Bishops, Claudio Hummes – later his successor in the Archdiocese of São Paulo who was also raised to Cardinal and played an important role in the election of Pope Francis in the 2013 conclave – who encouraged the formation of the Workers Party (PT– Partido dos Trabalhadores) and hoisted Lula from a simple union worker to become Brazil’s president.

The leader of the Landless Movement (MST) – the open communist João Pedro Stédile – offered these words of gratitude to Card. Arns at the celebration of the latter’s 95^th birthday: “The majority of land movements that exist today – MST, MAB [Movement of Those Harmed by Dams], MPA [Movement of Small Farmers], CPT [Land Commission Pastoral], CIMI [Indian Missionary Counsel] – were born guided by your wisdom, which preached ‘God only helps those who organize themselves.’ Then, we went on to organize ourselves. We thank you with all our heart, above all because you were instrumental in ending the military dictatorship in Brazil.”

Arns died on December 14, 2016. The next day, the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano dedicated a prestigious place on the first page to note his passing, with a photo and half-page article inside the issue mourning and honoring the Brazilian red Cardinal.

Pope Francis sent a message to the Archdiocese of São Paulo, which reads: “Receiving with great grief the news of the death of the venerated brother Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns, I present ... my condolences for the disappearance of this intrepid pastor, who in his ecclesial ministry revealed himself to be an authentic witness of the Gospel among his people, pointing out the path of the truth ...” Francis ends by saying that the Church in Brazil had in Arns “a secure point of reference.”

So, for the Pope Bergoglio to be a communist is to be “his brother,” “an authentic witness of the Gospel” and a “secure point of reference."

Are you surprised? We are not. Francis and Arns are birds of a feather…

Below fourth row, Arns embraces Lula in March 2001; fifth row, Arns is smilling while Lula embraces the then Cardinal Archbishop of São Paulo Claudio Hummes in 2003.

Photos from the Internet & Getty Images, first seen in Fraters in Unum

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Posted December 18, 2016

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