Nisha Rathode (Editor)

Joaquim Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit
Reference style
  
His Eminence

Spoken style
  
Your Eminence


Informal style
  
Cardinal

Name
  
Joaquim de

Joaquim Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti

See
  
Sao Sebastiao do Rio de Janeiro

Died
  
April 18, 1930, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Joaquim Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti (January 17, 1850 – April 18, 1930) was the first Cardinal to be born in Latin America. He was known as "Cardeal Arcoverde".

Contents

Early life and ministry

Arcoverde was born into a prominent family in Cimbres, province of Pernambuco, in the Northeast of Brazil. He showed an early vocation for the priesthood but the absence of local seminaries meant that he did all his studies prior to becoming a priest in Rome. However, after being ordained in 1874, Arcoverde returned to Olinda to become rector of the new seminary there. He was nominated a bishop by Pope Leo XIII in 1888 but refused; however, when Pope Leo, obviously believing very firmly in his ability, nominated him again three years later to the diocese of Goiás he accepted his nomination very willingly.

Archbishop

In 1897 Arcoverde was promoted to the archiepiscopal see of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro, then clearly the highest position on the Latin American Church. Although Leo did not name him a cardinal, Pope Pius X did so in his second consistory on December 11, 1905. He was only the second cardinal to serve as ordinary of a diocese located in the Southern Hemisphere behind Francis Patrick Moran, the Irish-born Archbishop of Sydney who had been elevated in 1885. Arcoverde was the first Cardinal to be born in the Southern Hemisphere.

He participated in the conclave in 1914 but did not attempt to reach Rome in time for the 1922 conclave, due to ill health. The other three cardinals from the Americas, William Henry O'Connell of Boston, Denis Dougherty of Philadelphia, and Louis-Nazaire Bégin of Québec City, made the attempt but arrived too late. Pope Pius XI then made it easier for distant cardinals to participate by increasing the time between the death of a Pope and the start of a conclave.

Death

Cardinal Arcoverde led the See of Rio de Janeiro for more than 30 years, until his death in 1930, although in his later years (from 1921 onwards), due to failing health, he was aided by a coadjutor Archbishop. He died in Rio de Janeiro, then the Brazilian capital.

References

Joaquim Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti Wikipedia