Heard this a few days ago from a story on Júlio Lancellotti, a Brazilian priest and activist:

Lancellotti has worked among São Paulo’s street people for 40 years. Yet if you suggest he actually helps them, you get a prickly reply.

“I don’t help anyone,” he says. “I live with them. I share what I can with them.”

For Lancellotti, this is about faith and about pushing back against intolerance and injustice.

“Society has to find a better way of living together.”

It’s since stuck with me. He spoke so much about the ideals of communal living, mutual aid, classlessness with just a few sentences.

  • southerntofu
    1·
    3 years ago

    Disclaimer: i didn’t read the article

    I believe you’re missing the point, that the priest does not help people from a privileged/comfortable position (charity) but rather lives and struggles with communities (solidarity). This is eminently political and sounds a lot like communist/anarchist approach to mutual aid.