Camilo Torres Restrepo

Camilo Torres Restrepo (3 February 1929 – 15 February 1966) was a Colombian Catholic communist and Marxist-Leninist revolutionary, catholic priest, author and a leader of the National Liberation Army (ELN). During his life, he advocated for an early form of Latin American liberation theology by trying to reconcile revolutionary socialism and Roman Catholicism, an ideology which became known as Camilism and would later be adopted by the Montoneros. His social activism and willingness to work with Marxists troubled some.

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, as well as some intellectuals such as Eduardo Umaña Luna, María Cristina Salazar, Virginia Gutiérrez de Pineda, Carlos Escalante, Darío Botero and Tomás Ducay, in 1960.

His involvement in several student and political movements during the time won him a large following as well as many detractors, especially from the Colombian government and the church itself. Due to the growing pressure to back down from his radical politics, Camilo Torres was laicized (although he never abandoned his faith and he remained a devout Catholic) and persecuted. He went into hiding (leaving his job as an academic) by joining the guerrillas in Colombia.

He mostly served as a low-ranking member of the ELN to whom he also provided spiritual assistance and inspiration from a Catholic communist point of view. After becoming a leader of the ELN, he was killed in his first combat engagement when the guerrillas 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". Camilo Torres, along with Helder Camara and Des Wilson, is one of the most important figures in the history of liberation theology. He was a friend of fellow socialist Luis Villar Borda, Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez and founder of Liberation Theology Gustavo Gutierrez. In the Dominican Republic in 1970, a revolutionary group that included Catholic clergy members and university students was founded under the name CORECATO, which stood for Comando Revolucionario Camilo Torres (Revolutionary Command Camilo Torres). In New York City, San Romero of the Americas Church-UCC has founded the Camilo Torres Project in 2009. This project works for social justice and peace for the people of the Washington Heights community.

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