Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns, whose advocacy of human rights and devotion to the poor, the wrongly incarcerated and the tortured earned him an honorary degree from Siena College, died on Dec. 14 in Sao Paolo, Brazil.
He was 95.
Cardinal Arns, who was educated by the Franciscans and was a member of the Order of Friars Minor, received his honorary doctor of sacred theology from Siena at Commencement in 1981. He advocated for years for human rights in Brazil, in opposition to that country’s military dictatorship.
“Where human rights are not respected, we speak out against them,” Cardinal Arns said in 1972, a year before he made was a cardinal by Pope Paul VI. “When these rights are defended, we find ourselves in support.”
Dom Paolo, as he was known, became an enemy of the government for his stance against the torture of political prisoners. After the murder in 1975 of a journalist, Cardinal Arns led an ecumenical service, along with rabbis and a Presbyterian minister, that was attended by 8,000 people. Afterwards, a group of bishops issued a pastoral letter that deplored torture, the denial of prisoners’ rights to a full legal defense, and the suspension of habeas corpus.
Paulo Evaristo Arns was born in 1921 in Forquilhinha, Brazil. His parents were German immigrants. He was ordained in 1945, and received a doctorate from the Sorbonne in Paris. After teaching at several schools, including the Catholic University of Petropolis, Brazil, he was appointed bishop by Pope Paul VI in 1966 and made archbishop four years later. He sold the diocese’s residence to finance charitable works.
Cardinal Arns believed in liberation theology, a movement in the Roman Catholic Church that focused on empowering the poor through political and civic involvement.
Cardinal Arns retired in 1998.
His former press secretary said, “When Brazil was plunged into darkness, Dom Paulo was the star that illuminated it.”
