“I participated in the CNBB meeting in April 1964, where they debated whether or not the CNBB should support the military coup. The majority voted to support the coup. It turns out that the church’s rank and file were very progressive, especially the Catholic Action members. There were far-right bishops, such as Dom Vicente Scherer in Rio Grande do Sul, and left-wing bishops, such as Dom Helder Câmara in Pernambuco. There was great tension. Brazilian bishops were very ideologically divided.” Words by Frei Betto to TUTAMÉIA. Dominican friar, journalist and writer, Carlos Alberto Libânio Christo, 79, talks about his career as a student leader, his activism in the Catholic Church in the fight against the dictatorship, his arrests and the current situation. “Bolsonaro was elected in 2018 because we, on the left, we progressives, abandoned grassroots work. Either we all work to sow a better future for future generations or this country runs the serious risk of returning to living under a dictatorship, under the heel of military sectors that are extremely uncommitted to democracy,” he says in a conversation recorded on February 13, 2024. On April 1, 1964, Betto was at the Latin American student congress in Belém, Pará. “I was a national leader of the JEC, Catholic Student Youth, staying at the home of Archbishop Dom Alberto Ramos. When the coup took place, the congress was literally broken up, everyone ran off wherever they could. I left the archbishop’s house because he started reporting priests as subversives,” he says. Betto recalls: “I had gone to Belém with a ticket provided by Betinho. We were good friends, and he was the chief of staff of Minister Paulo de Tarso dos Santos, of Education. I went to the Varig agency to try to return to Rio, where I lived. The agency was absolutely packed and one of the attendants told me: 'Your ticket can no longer be used because it was issued by the previous executive branch.' He stamped the word "cancelled" on the cover of the ticket. I was a little desperate, but it was an intuition, I didn't think much: I tore the cover and handed it to another attendant -- and she marked the ticket with a connection in Recife. What a coincidence: it was the inauguration of Dom Helder Câmara as archbishop of Recife." He continues: "The JUC, Catholic University Youth, had created an independent political arm of the church called Popular Action. Betinho was one of the founders of this left-wing movement that later acquired a Marxist character and even had a Maoist segment. The dictatorship made no distinction between Catholic Action and Popular Action. So much so that the apartment where I lived in Rio, which housed the national leadership of the JEC and JUC, was invaded on June 6, 1964 by the Navy's secret service, Cenimar." “We were woken up at 4 a.m. with machine guns and taken to Praça 15, where Cenimar was located. It was my first arrest. I was arrested twice during the 21 years of dictatorship. We were interrogated under torture. I was mistaken for Betinho.” “Later, in 1969, as Dominican friars, we were arrested. It was the first time in history that Dominican Catholic friars, arrested in São Paulo, were accused of being terrorists.” Betto continues: “At first, the repression was very grateful because the bishops had supported the coup. But they soon began to suspect that the church was playing a double game. In fact, the church was divided. There were priests, lay people, and nuns who were progressive and left-wing. Especially the grassroots ecclesial communities, which were just beginning at that time.” “The repression began to consider that the Catholic Church was actually a left-wing structure that some at the top pretended to support the dictatorship, but everyone was against the dictatorship. Because they compared the church to a barracks structure. They thought that a religious institution functions like a barracks. That is not the case. There are many contradictions within religious institutions.” “At that time, the Catholic Church had broad religious hegemony in Brazil. The weight of the Catholic Church was extremely strong. The dictatorship was bothered by the fact that it had bishops, cardinals like Dom Aloísio Lorscheider, Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns, who were openly critical of the dictatorship.” “Today, the Catholic Church is a conservative body with a progressive head. It is a bizarre being.” The testimony is part of the series WHAT I SAW ON THE DAY OF THE COUP, in which TUTAMÉIA presents testimonies from figures such as Almino Affonso, João Vicente Goulart, Anita Prestes, Guilherme Estrella, Sérgio Ferro and Rose Nogueira. Subscribe to TUTAMÉIA TV and visit the TUTAMÉIA website, https://tutameia.jor.br, a journalistic service created by Eleonora de Lucena and Rodolfo Lucena. Access this link to join the AMIG@S DO TUTAMÉIA group, exclusive for the dissemination and distribution of our journalistic production: https://chat.whatsapp.