Alceu Amoroso Lima | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Lima in 1935 | |
| Born | (1893-12-11)December 11, 1893 |
| Died | August 14, 1983(1983-08-14) (aged 89) |
| Occupation | Writer, Journalist, Activist |
| Language | Portuguese |
| Nationality | Brazilian |
Alceu Amoroso Lima (December 11, 1893, inPetrópolis – August 14, 1983, inRio de Janeiro) was a writer, journalist, activist fromBrazil, and founder of the Brazilian Christian Democracy. He adopted the pseudonymTristão de Ataíde in 1919. In 1928 he converted toCatholicism and eventually became head ofCatholic Action in Brazil. Although he initially had some sympathy for certain aims ofBrazilian integralism he became a strong opponent of authoritarianism in general andFascism in particular. That came in part through the influence ofJacques Maritain. He was a staunch advocate for press freedom during the period ofmilitary dictatorship.
Born into a middle-class family inRio, Alceu Amoroso Lima was "atheist andJacobin" studying atcollege Pedro II, obtaining a law degree in 1913. Influenced bypositivism, he traveled to Paris, but the shock of theFirst World War led him to get away from it, under the influence ofJackson de Figueiredo,G. K. Chesterton andJacques Maritain. After a dispute with the converted Jackson de Figueiredo, in favor of a "intransigent Catholicism" (with modernism), Lima converted to Catholicism in 1928, that event recounted inAdeus à disponibilidade e outros adeuses (1968). The same year he became leader of Dom Vital Center, founded by Figueiredo and broadcast anti-communist and anti-liberal anti-modernist ideas. He made his literary criticism under the pseudonym of Tristão de Ataíde, he was also manager of the company Cometa, inherited from his father. He married Maria Teresa de Faria (died 1981), the daughter of the writer Alberto de Faria. He was secretary of the Catholic Electoral League, created by the Cardinal Archbishop of RioSebastião Leme da Silveira Cintra to act in the political sphere (without a party) with the approach of elections in 1933.[1] Lima also chaired the National Junta ofCatholic Action, founded in 1935, until 1945, and founded the Catholic Institute of Advanced Studies in 1932 and theUniversidade Santa Úrsula (private) in Rio in 1937. He went in 1935 to theAcademia Brasileira de Letras, obtained in 1964 the Juca Pato Prize andJabuti Literature Prize in 1979. In 1930 Amoroso Lima was close toBrazilian Integralism, the fascist movement ofPlínio Salgado; he parted under the influence of Jacques Maritain, with whom he corresponded. He, then, made statements tinted withAntisemitism.[2] Alceu Lima was one of the founders of theChristian Democrat Organization of America (ODCA) in 1947, alongside, among others, the future Chilean PresidentEduardo Frei Montalva. One of the representatives of Brazil at theSecond Vatican Council, with the ArchbishopHélder Câmara, he was one of the founders of the Brazilian Christian Democracy. From 1967 to 1972 he was a member of thePontifical Council for Justice and Peace.[3] He was professor ofSociology at the Normal school of Rio, ofPolitical economy at the Faculty of Law and Brazilian literature at the University of Brazil and thePontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, then rector of the University of the Federal District and president of the Center Dom Vital between 1928 and 1968. He was also a member of the Conselho Nacional de Educação. Lima lived in France, lectured on "Brazilian civilization" to theSorbonne, and in theUnited States in the early 1950s. Under theBrazilian military government (1964–85), he strongly criticized censorship.
