A tortured man – In the footsteps of Friar Tito de Alencar

A MOVING ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE OF FRIAR TITO AND THE IMPRESSIONS LEFT BY THE DICTATORSHIP. A philosophy student at USP, where he actively participated in the student movement, Tito experienced moments of doubt and uncertainty about the possibility of reconciling Marx and Christ. With other Dominican friars, he joined Carlos Marighella's National Liberation Action, providing logistical support to the organization. Persecuted, Friar Tito was arrested and subjected to severe torture. In September 1974, the body of the 28-year-old friar was seen by a peasant, hanging from a tree near an inhospitable area on the banks of the Saône River. Tito preferred death to living with the specter of torture. To follow the steps of Tito de Alencar Lima from the day he was arrested to the day of his suicide in 1974 in France, the authors interviewed some activists who were imprisoned with him in São Paulo, the psychoanalyst who treated him, and spoke with one of the main figures in Tito's story: Frei Betto. They also interviewed some of the 69 political prisoners who left Brazil with Tito on the flight to Santiago, exchanged for the Swiss ambassador Giovanni Enrico Bücher in January 1971. Frei Tito's body arrived in Brazil in 1983 and now rests in Fortaleza. • A book-report on the life of Frei Tito, in the year that marks the 40th anniversary of his death, after having been a victim of the Brazilian military dictatorship.