Frei Betto

Carlos Alberto Libânio Christo (born 1944), better known as Frei Betto, is a Brazilian writer, political activist, philosopher, liberation theologian, and Dominican friar. Life Frei Betto was born on 25 August 1944 in Belo Horizonte. At the age of 20, when he was a student of journalism, he entered the Dominican Order. He was later imprisoned for four years by the military dictatorship which ruled Brazil for smuggling people out of the country. His incarceration was part of an ongoing series of attacks by the government on activist members of the Catholic Church. These events are depicted in the 2006 biographical drama film Baptism of Blood, based on the book of the same name by Frei Betto. Brazilian actor Daniel de Oliveira portrays Frei Betto in the film. In addition to work on eliminating hunger in Brazil, Frei Betto is involved in various aspects of Brazil's politics. He worked for the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, for whom he was considered a spiritual advisor and mentor. As a liberation theologian, Frei Betto has been involved in various international efforts in order to support an understanding between Marxism and Christianity. During the 1980s, he visited Havana and held frequent and lengthy interviews with Fidel Castro, the result of such talks being a book, Fidel and Religion, where Castro exposed his views on Christianity, something that raised protest among conservatives but is also said to have improved relations between Castro's government and the Cuban Catholic Church.