A mass for workers and a mass for the poor

Helder Camara’s proposal:

(It will be) a concelebration in Cardijn’s cardinal’s church involving twenty bishops from around the world (the difficulty will be to select them). All others will also be invited. A Mass specially dedicated to workers. Delegations from neighbouring countries will come. Workers from Rome will come. In the midst of the Mass, we will take a solemn oath, more concrete and binding than that of Cardijn. The minimum that we will promise will be to renounce our purple habits and the title of Excellency… After the mass, we will have coffee in confraternity with the working class.

Another concelebration (will be held) at St Mary’s at Trastevere, one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Rome… Twenty bishops from the whole world (again, the difficulty will be to choose them), perhaps around Cardinal Lercaro or Patriarch Maximos IV, who is the protector of the Group of the Poor, which is a little suspect in the eyes of the Holy Office. We will invite poor people from the neighbourhood…

Helder Camara, Lettres conciliaires, II, 802