José Maria Pires: the barefoot Bishop1
Leonardo Boff
Fernando Altermeyer Júnior
Fr. José Oscar Beozzo
1 Translated by V. S. Conttren, November 2019. The original is available at << https://leonardoboff.wordpress.com/2017/08/28/jose-maria-pires-o-bispo-de-pes- descalcos/ >>, accessed in November 2019. Leonardo Boff: brief words.
Don José Maria Pires was one of greatest prophetic bishops the Brazilian
Church had. Brazilian and black, he had always defended the Afro-descendant cause. He stood at the origins of the Basic Ecclesial Communities (CEB) and as a great defender of Liberation Theology. Affectionately, the people called him Don
Pelé and later Don Zumbi. He died in his prime, at the age of 98 years, while still helping with the popular pastoral work in the city of Belo Horizonte.
We publish here two texts that show this Bishop's relevance: Prof. Fernando
Almeyer Jr of PUC-SP and Father José Oscar Beozzo, the Brazilian Church’s best historian. We were friends for many years and together we participated in countless meetings of Bishops, of the Basic Ecclesial Communities and in theological-pastoral renewal courses. Another Prophetic Bishop leaves, one of
those which we lack so much nowadays. He continues to be a reference of a bishop pastor, prophet, great preacher and friend to all, especially the poorest. Fernando Altemeyer Júnior: Go in peace, Quilombola of God2
Don José Maria Pires died on the 27th of August 2017, in Belo Horizonte, at
the age of 98 years old.
He was an Emeritus Archbishop of Paraíba, born on March 15, 1919, in the
small city of Córregos in Minas Gerais, northeast of the state, and participated in
the four sessions of Vatican II. At the time, being the only Brazilian black Bishop,
and one of the most important voices of the Brazilian episcopate, he was to
assume the new Church image proposed by the Council. With his preaching, he
would awake the will of so many brothers to effectively help those who suffer
injustice. He would listen to God's call in history and not remain impassive
before the cry of those who suffer.
He realized the Church was changing and happily followed with courage!
Such a simple act, done by such simple people that allow the world to be
transformed.
This child of the poor had Eleuterium Augustus Pires and Pedrelina Maria
de Jesus as his parents, and would learn from an early age that he would have to
keep his feet on the ground. In an emotional testimony at the funeral of
President Juscelino Kubitscheck de Oliveira, on August 29, 1976, he would say:
I walked through the same streets that Juscelino walked. He walked barefoot and so did I. It was common for poor children to walk barefoot on the street.
As he walked on the floor of his hometown, he would learn the permanent
lessons of how to be a priest, bishop and pastor. He would never forget that he
2 Master in Theology and Religious Sciences by the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. Graduated in Philosophy. PhD in Social Sciences from PUC-SP (Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo), Professor at PUC-SP. was someone with barefoot feet. And it is this contact with the ground which makes one a faithful Shepherd.
He was ordained priest in Diamantina, Minas Gerais on 20/12/1941 (he completed 70 years of priesthood!), serving as a parish priest, school director, and diocesan missionary. He was consecrated Bishop in Diamantina, Minas
Gerais, on September 22, 1957 (in 2017, he celebrated his 60th anniversary of episcopacy), beginning his ministry in the diocese of Araçuai, Minas Gerais, as its third Bishop, from 1957 to 1965. His episcopal motto would be Scientiam Salutis
(the science of salvation). Appointed by Pope Paul VI, he became the fourth metropolitan Archbishop of Paraíba from December 2, 1965, to November 29,
1995, when he resigned because of his age. Since then, as a pilgrim Emeritus
Bishop, he has lived as an itinerant preacher carrying the Gospel with enthusiasm and causing a holy envy.
From an early age he learned the art of speaking well: silence first, proper word later. He then took on with exquisite delicacy the certainty of being a shepherd Bishop: friend, evangelical, simple and, above all, servant of the impoverished.
His action in favor of the simple is a program of life. Let us see his inaugural speech as metropolitan archbishop of Paraíba, seconded by Bishop
Helder Pessoa Câmara, in the midst of the Brazilian Military Dictatorship, with its ideology of national security which denied the freedom and dignity of the human person.
Don Helder expressed himself in this manner about him: “Don José Maria goes to the causes, to the roots... And he speaks clearly, without losing his serenity, while calling things by their names. Whoever wants to get rid of a disembodied Christianity, whoever wants to get rid of odorless, colorless teachings, preached in a vacuum, read his pages” (preface to the book Do Centro para a margem [From the Center to the Margin], Ed. Acauã, Paraíba,
1978, p. 7).
These are his coherent words when he took office as Archbishop: “I do not want to bring you a mentality from Minas Gerais — a custom or a civilization of the state in which I was born — in which this civilization, this mentality, these customs are different from those of the state of Paraíba. Just as Christ, becoming man, assumed human nature and, so to speak, concealed, kept what he was, as God, and presented himself to us without ceasing to be God, but began learning with us about being human, to live like humankind, so the new
Prelate comes here not to teach, but, first, to learn to be from Paraíba. I will begin my ministry by learning from you. Only by integrating myself will I be able to fulfill my mission of service. It is holy the ground on which I walk.” (João
Pessoa, PB, 26.03.1966, In: Sampaio Geraldo Lopes Ribeiro, Dom José Maria
Pires—Uma voz fiel à mudança social [A voice faithful to social change], Ed.
Paulus, 2005, p. 17).
The dialogue, as recommended in the beautiful programmatic letter of
Pope Paul VI, Ecclesiam Suam, and even better expressed in the Constitution
Lumen Gentium, became for Don José Maria the criterion of pastoral life. He would become an excellent defender of black people, being dubbed in his life by two affectionate and densely symbolic nicknames: at the beginning of his episcopal life he would be called as Bishop Pelé (by Don José Vicente Távora, the
Workers' Bishop), linking him to a Brazilian football player of international fame.
Pedro Casaldáliga (Emeritus Prelate of São Felix do Araguaia, Mato Grosso) would rename him Bishop Zumbi, connecting him to the struggles of black people in Brazil and remembering the leader of the Brazilian Quilombos, Zumbi dos Palmares. The nicknames did not succeed in removing his innermost identity, which was that of someone who had always assumed his origin, his ethnicity, and his love for the poor as an interpretive key to the world and an effective form of
Christian incarnation in northeastern Brazil, immersed in so many injustices and contradictions that demanded radical fidelity to Christ. Don José was not a man of half words or half actions.
Those who listened would always perceive him to be wholly – to what, with and within – that which he dreamed of and shared with his interlocutors.
Listening to him, one would feel that before them stood a true shepherd: there was no arrogance in his words. One felt encouraged and challenged, never frightened. Don José was a true brother and shepherd, one who did not give up on dialogue, for he both believed and loved his interlocutors.
We can follow in his footsteps, in every corner of the Brazilian land, always animating small grassroots communities, the causes of the impoverished and the struggles for social justice, without extremism. When the Pastoral Land
Commission (Comissão Pastoral da Terra, CPT) was created, he was among its first hour workers, as well as among the supporters and enthusiasts of the
Indigenous Missionary Council (Conselho Indigenista Missionário, CIMI) and also with each one of the dozens of social pastoral works, created by the people and welcomed by the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (cNBB) when Don
Aloísio Lorscheider, Don Ivo Lorscheiter and Don Luciano Mendes de Almeida presided at a prophetic moment – the golden age of the Brazilian Church lived between 1970 and 1980. He saw the birth, with the pains of childbirth, of the poetic Mass of the Quilombos, later forbidden, and would be among the animators of the Mass of the Land Without Evil, also proscribed, which nonetheless intended to open new liturgical paths in acculturation and inter- religious dialogue. He would face the greed of farmers and colonels from the Northeast region, with the simplicity of doves. He would not ask for favors from political or economic powers, always placing his trust in the Word of God and in the compassion of the poor. Such path may be slower and simpler, but the roots will always reach deeper in safety. He would cry out against the landowners like
Naboth did against King Ahab. On March 5, 1976, he would say in his pastoral letter to all the diocesans: “When the patience of the poor who are being crushed by the powerful is tired, God's patience will also be tired and God will enact the justice men have refused to” (Pastoral Letter of March 1976).
Don José saw, understood and spoke of the farmers' suffering. He knew the problems of the countryside and made a commitment, as a parish Church, to be the Church that stood together with the weak and oppressed, that is, a Church that took a stand alongside the poor out of faithfulness to the Gospel and out of love for the people.
He denounced the capitalist system for its fruits and for the segregation of the large masses. In 1967, he would say: “Everyone thinks it is reasonable to give alms. But to accept that it is robbery to keep what is superfluous when others lack what is necessary, smells like Marxism to them. Indeed, within the dominant mentality, it is not easy to accept the recipe of Populorum Progressio which is the same as that of the Gospel.”
His message was one full of life and, above all, of conversion. He would say that it is necessary to go from the center to the margin. This would be his continuous vital process. To move towards the little ones. To go to the margins of society, of the Church, of the world. He made this ethical and religious gesture motivated by a profound living experience of Christ, besides being a permanent apprentice in the practice of active non-violence, as an action of permanent firmness. As a disciple of Christ, he would still be able to show the riches of the Second Vatican Council as a project of life.
A Church that distances itself from the centers and approaches the margins of the world. A Church that does not wait or trust the powerful and worldly masters. A Church that must continue to fulfill the prophetic mission of proclaiming the rights of the oppressed, even knowing that the anger of those in power weighs upon her, because only this authentic faith will be able to save the poor and the rich. In this Church there is no place for the accommodated and passive. He would say, incisively: “Brazilian Catholicism has not created in the people an awareness of their culture, of their values, of their idiosyncrasy.
The dominant conscience of the people is hierarchical, as passive acceptance and perhaps the greatest obstacle to true development, because it generates accommodation and conformism.”
For Don José Maria Pires, the eighth sacrament is joy. It is always said that when a joyful person enters a house, it is as if in a dark room, a window is opened for the light to enter. This was the task of Don José: barefoot, to open the windows of the Holy Church. Was this not the request of another José, the bergamasco Roncalli, when he convoked the Council? Even today we need bishops who will open the windows of our churches so that the joy of Christ may rejuvenate us. People like José, barefoot, shirt wrapped up in the struggle for the poor and a convicted joy in their hearts, true sons and heirs of the Council.
He died on August 27, 2017, with 98.4 years of many prophecies, plunged into life and walking on the road next to the Pilgrim Jesus.
Go in peace, Quilombola of God. Fr. José Oscar Beozzo: D. Maria, the Church’s Pilgrim3
Don José Maria Pires was a voice heard with respect by the entire
episcopate, feared by the powerful and welcomed with joy and comfort by the
little ones, from whose causes he never departed. For more than fifty years he
frequented each year the Latin American Meeting of Studies—Bishops' Course, an
instance of meeting, reflection, prayer and courageous initiatives that continued
to bring together the Latin American bishops of the Church of the Poor group of
the Second Vatican Council and those who then decided to follow the same path
in their episcopal ministry.
Don José Maria Pires was the patriarch of the group he attended until 2015,
missing the 2016 meeting because of health reasons.
When ITRA, the Theological Institute of Recife, was closed by the successor
of Don Helder, Don José Maria welcomed in João Pessoa teachers and students
of the Institute, in order to give continuity to a theological formation committed
to the cause of the poor and their liberation grounded in the Northeastern
culture.
On two occasions he traveled on foot for a month to Santiago de
Compostela, departing from the french border with Spain. The second time, he
was already 90 years old and, after being Emeritus Bishop, he continued to
3 “Graduated in Theology at the Gregorian University, in Rome, political and social sciences at the Catholic University of Louvain, where he concluded a post-graduate course on the Sociology of Religion (Les Mouvements Universitaires Catholics au Brésil: Aperçu historique et essai d’interprétation) in 1968. His PhD thesis, defended in 2001, concerned Social History at the University of São Paulo (Brazilian Conciliary Priests within the Second Vatican Council: participation and prosopography — 1959-1965), published under the title of ‘The Brazilian Church within the Second Vatican Council (1959-1965)’.” Taken from << http://cebsdobrasil.com.br/2019/02/28/pe-jose-oscar-beozzo-e- homenageado-em-livro-sobre-a-conferencia-de-puebla/ >>, November 2019. serve a parish in the outskirts of Belo Horizonte, both in simplicity and humility and with a tireless spirit of service.
By delegation of the cNBB, he affectionately accompanied with understanding the movement of priests married to their families, taking part in the reinstatement of ministry on the part of those who wished to do so. He fought for the Church to open its doors to the ordained ministry of married men.
He was also the great animator of the Afro-Brazilian Pastoral and of the movement of black priests and bishops that gained space and breadth in the life of the Church in Brazil, Latin America and the Caribbean, through CELAM.
It was my privilege to have enjoyed his faithful friendship. Every Christmas and Easter, Don José would not fail to send a kind and always attentive word in the most urgent matters for our country and Church.
He was one of the founding partners of CESEEP (Ecumenical Center for
Services for Evangelization and Popular Education) and a member of its
Assembly that, for 33 years (1982-2015), accompanied him, encouraging the work being done and always proposing wise guidelines.
The Church and Brazilian society lose a great figure, whose greatest glory is to have been a faithful follower of both the gospel and Jesus Christ, at the service of the poorest—of their causes and liberation.