Father Camilo Torres Restrepo was a Colombian socialist, Roman Catholic priest, a predecessor of liberation theology and a member of the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla organisation. During his life, he tried to reconcile revolutionary Marxism and Catholicism.
Torres was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1954, but continued to study for some years at the Pontifical Catholic University of Leuven (Louvain) in Belgium. When he returned to Colombia, he increasingly felt obliged to actively support the cause of poor and the labouring class. Camilo Torres believed that in order to secure justice for the people, Christians had a duty to use violent action.
As part of the academic staff of the National University of Colombia, he was a co-fFather Camilo Torres Restrepo was a Colombian socialist, Roman Catholic priest, a predecessor of liberation theology and a member of the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla organisation. During his life, he tried to reconcile revolutionary Marxism and Catholicism.
Torres was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1954, but continued to study for some years at the Pontifical Catholic University of Leuven (Louvain) in Belgium. When he returned to Colombia, he increasingly felt obliged to actively support the cause of poor and the labouring class. Camilo Torres believed that in order to secure justice for the people, Christians had a duty to use violent action.
As part of the academic staff of the National University of Colombia, he was a co-founder of the Sociology Faculty together with Orlando Fals Borda in 1960. His involvement in several student and political movements during the time won him a large following as well as many detractors, specially from the Colombian government and the church itself. Due to the growing pressure to back down from his radical politics, Camilo Torres saw himself persecuted and went into hiding (leaving his job as an academic) by joining the guerrillas in Colombia. He served as a low-ranking member of the ELN to whom he also provided spiritual assistance and inspiration from a Marxist-Christian point of view. He was killed in his first combat experience, when the ELN ambushed a Colombian Military patrol. After his death, Camilo Torres was made an official martyr of the ELN.
He is perhaps best known for the quote: "If Jesus were alive today, He would be a guerrillero."...more
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