7 February 12

My tie-ful of books honors the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens. Today also marks the birthday of Dom Helder Camara (1909-1999), a bishop of the Catholic Church in Brazil. The Common Prayer Web site provides the following details: "Dom Helder Camara became a bishop of the Catholic Church and one of the twentieth century’s great apostles of nonviolence. After joining a conservative political movement as a young priest, Camara experienced a conversion while ministering among the poor in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. 'When I fed the poor they called me a saint,' Camara said. 'When I asked why they were poor, they called me a Communist.' Labeled 'the red bishop,' Camara worked tirelessly for democracy and human rights in Brazil, even as he watched friends and fellow priests imprisoned, tortured, and killed. When a hired assassin knocked on the elderly Camara’s door, he was so moved by the sight of the bishop that he blurted out, 'I can’t kill you. You are one of the Lord’s.'"