Camilo Torres

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Camilo Torres

Camilo Torres Restrepo (born February 3, 1929 in Bogotá , † February 15, 1966 in San Vicente de Chucurí , Departamento de Santander ) was a Colombian , Catholic priest and liberation theologian . In 1965 he became an active member of the National Liberation Army (ELN), the first South American guerrilla movement that also had active Christians in its units. With her he wanted to force a fairer social order in his country by force. He was killed in his first battle against Colombian troops.

Live and act

Camilo Torres came from a middle-class family. He was born the son of the doctor and former dean of the medical faculty and temporary rector of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia , Calixto Torres Umaña. As a child he came to Germany between 1931 and 1934 and in 1937, where his father was the Colombian consul in Berlin and later attended the Colegio Andino - German School in Bogotá. After graduating from Liceo Cervantes in 1946, he began studying law and got engaged. However, in retreats , he decided to become a priest and studied philosophy and Catholic theology. In 1954 he was ordained a priest. On the recommendation of Cardinal Luque of Bogotá, he was able to study sociology at the Catholic University in Leuven , where his social ideas were decisively shaped and, as a Christian, he felt drawn to the subject of poverty and social justice.

After a temporary job as a social worker and pastor in West Berlin, Torres returned to Bogotá in 1959. After he was appointed chaplain of the National University of Colombia, he founded the faculty of sociology with Orlando Fals Borda in 1960, with which he was associated as a professor. He became a student pastor and co-founder of the local sociological faculty, where he worked as a lecturer.

Torres increasingly began to see people's poverty as a major problem and advocated collaboration between Christians and Marxists . He himself said: “Why should we argue whether the soul is mortal or immortal when we both know that hunger is fatal.” He became increasingly well-known in Colombia since 1965 when he began to spread his social revolutionary ideas and himself to use for striking students. Since Torres, contrary to the orders of his Archbishop Cardinal Concha, continued his political activity, he was suspended in his priestly functions; he also had to resign from his university positions.

For several months he traveled the country to promote and organize his “Christian-Communist movement”. He gained a large following, especially among the academic youth, and was viewed by many as a potential leader of the left-wing opposition to the National Front . In the run-up to the 1966 elections, Torres founded the Frente Unido (United Front) - an association of almost all of the country's left.

On March 17, 1965, Torres published his Frente Unido policy . In October 1965 he joined the National Liberation Front of the communist- inspired Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) with a group of students and went underground from November 1965. After having disappeared for months, on January 7, 1966, he spoke publicly for the last time as a spokesman for one of their armed groups with a "proclamation to the Colombian people" from the mountains.

On February 15, 1966, Torres was killed by government troops in a jungle battle at a place known as Patio Cemento ("cement courtyard") in the municipality of El Carmen de Chucurí , then a corregimiento of San Vicente de Chucurí in Santander . It was his first engagement with the Colombian army . His body was secretly buried and refused a Christian burial. His grave is still unknown today.

souvenir

Camilo Torres with rural population, before 1968.

Daniel Viglietti set a monument to him in his song Cruz de Luz , made famous by Víctor Jara . In 1969 Paolo Breccia made a film about Torres. In 1977 his story was filmed in "The Death of Camilo Torres" under the direction of Eberhard Itzenplitz with Gerd Böckmann in the leading role for German television.

When the ELN and the Venezuelan Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR) merged in 1987 , they sometimes called themselves in his memory the “United National Camilist Liberation Army”.

The initiation of a beatification process for Camilo Torres was also suggested from the ranks of religious socialists .

Fifty years after his death, the Catholic Church of Colombia initiated a posthumous reconciliation with Camilo Torres. The Archbishop of Cali , Darío de Jesús Monsalve Mejía , described him in an ecumenical commemoration as a sign of reconciliation for the times of peace in Colombia. The instruction of the Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos to search for the remains of Torres was seen as another symbolic sign that his memory for the ongoing peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the two guerrilla organizations FARC-EP and ELN is deemed helpful.

Publications

  • Camilo Torres Restrepo: From apostolate to partisan struggle. Articles and proclamations , (Rowohlt-Paperback, Volume 78), Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1969
  • Camilo Torres Restrepo: Revolution as a task of the Christian , Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, Mainz 1969 (several new editions), ISBN 3-7867-0899-1
  • Camilo Torres Restrepo: Escritos políticos , Sel. y prólogo de Ignacio Escobar Uribe, Ancora Ed., Bogotá 1991, ISBN 958-9012-56-6

literature

  • Wim Hornman: The guerrilla priest. Novel about Camilo Torres , Herder, Freiburg i. Br. 1969
  • Hildegard Lüning: Camilo Torres: Priest, Guerrillero. Presentation, analysis, documentation , Furche-Verlag, Hamburg 1969
  • Renate Wind: Up to the last consequence. The life story of Camilo Torres , Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 1994, ISBN 3-407-80730-9
  • Camilo Torres Restrepo , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 45/1969 of October 27, 1969, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely available)
  • Fabrice Braun: A new church , in: Geo Epoche 81, pp. 152–165.

Web links

Commons : Camilo Torres Restrepo  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Irenaeus Rosier: Revolution in a dead end. A situation report from Latin America . Herder, Freiburg 1970, p. 176.
  2. ↑ The song on Youtube , youtube.com, accessed on April 16, 2020 (es)
  3. ↑ The Death of Camilo Torres or The Reality Holds a Lot from filmdienst.de, accessed on April 16, 2020
  4. ↑ Presidente Santos ordenó búsqueda de los restos del cura Camilo Torres , El Tiempo , of January 16, 2016 (es)
  5. ↑ Norbert Mette : Camilo's legacy . In: Publik-Forum , Volume 2016, No. 3, pp. 30f.
personal data
SURNAME Torres, Camilo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Torres Restrepo, Camilo (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Colombian priest and liberation theologian
DATE OF BIRTH February 3, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Bogotá
DATE OF DEATH February 15, 1966
Place of death San Vicente de Chucurí , Santander