Colombian countryside, February 1966. A group of communist guerrillas ambushes a military brigade. The soldiers return fire and one of the guerrillas is killed while attempting to retrieve his weapon. It appears to be a typical image of the South American Cold War, except for one small detail. The communist guerrilla fighter who was killed is a priest.

This priest was called Camilo Torres, and he was born in Bogotá in 1929. From a middle-class, liberal and anti-clerical family, after finishing his secondary education he enrolled in law school, but dropped out shortly afterwards, wishing to become a priest. His parents did not take it well and tried to prevent him from doing so, but there was no way: he entered the seminary and was ordained a priest in 1954. In 1955, he moved to Belgium to specialise in sociology. Here he came into contact with exponents of social Christianity and anti-colonial struggles, which helped to develop his thinking. At the time, many future revolutionaries from Third World countries were radicalising their ideas in Europe. It is no coincidence that Pol Pot and Ho Chi Minh were also educated in Paris.

Returning to Colombia, in 1959 he became a professor of sociology at the University of Bogotá, only to be dismissed due to conflicts with the archbishop. He became convinced that the only way to overthrow the oligarchy ruling Colombia was to create an alliance between Catholics and Marxists and resort to armed struggle. In 1965, he founded the Frente Unido del Pueblo, a platform that brought together various factions of the Colombian left. His superiors considered his activities incompatible with his role as a priest, which is why he formally abandoned the priesthood. In the same year, he joined the Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional, a movement of communist guerrillas inspired by the tactics of Che Guevara and trained in Cuba. He began to spread proclamations in which revolution was presented almost as a moral obligation for Christians who truly loved their neighbours and wanted to practise true charity. He was killed by the military during the first guerrilla action in which he took part.

After his death, his legend spread throughout much of South America and Europe, celebrated by songwriters and poets in Uruguay, Chile, Mexico and Italy. He became a sort of 'Che Guevara of the Catholics'. The Cuban regime even named a school after him. For the occasion, Fidel Castro invited Camilo's elderly mother, who at the time had certainly not encouraged him to follow his ideals.