Father and poet Tolentino Mendoça will be archbishop Saturday and will visit Rome

This is the President of the Republic who declared it on June 26, the very day it was announced that the priest of Madeira had been appointed by the archival papacy of the Vatican Secret Archives and Librarian of the Apostolic Library,

The same day, it was announced that José Tolentino de Mendonça would be elevated to the Archbishop, symbolically receiving the former Episcopal See of Suava, North Africa.

Episcopal ordination takes place on Saturday afternoon in the Jeronimos Monastery in Lisbon and the celebration will be presided over by the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon, Manuel Clemente, and will have as co-ordained the bishops Cardinal António Marto, Bishop of Leiria-Fatima, and Teodoro de Faria, Emeritus Bishop of Funchal [19659002] It is in Madeira, Machico, that he was born and became a priest at the age of 24 years. But he also lived in Angola, where he spent his childhood, returning to Madeira on April 25th. And then in Rome, where he studied Biblical sciences, and again in Lisbon to study Biblical theology at the Catholic University, where he was professor and vice-rector

The year he became a priest, he also edited the first book of poetry. Dias Contados, "the first of dozens of other books, mostly poetry, but also essays and pastoral texts, even theater, not counting articles in magazines and newspapers.

He received several Award in 2001 and received the order of the Infante D. Henrique, and again decorated by the Presidency of the Republic in 2015, with the Order of Sant Iago de Espada. [19659002] José Tolentino Calaça de Mendonça, Archbishop since Saturday, is an avowed admirer of the poetry of Herberto Helder, who was also a Madeiran, Pasolini, Italian filmmaker, poet and writer, or Fernando Pessoa, among other names, almost always poets

His choice by the pope also made him more admired.The Legislative Assembly of Madeira approved a vote of congratulations, the Assembly of the Republic a vote of praise. regarded as "one of the most prominent theology Portuguese ns "and recalled the" different prices for his poetic and essayist work ".

The head of state, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, evokes "the greatest dimension of contemporary Portuguese culture" and stated that the nomination "is an act that enhances the name of Portugal", and confessed his admirer

But not only Tolentino de Mendonca, said the president, "is admired by the Portuguese," having reached "a place of choice" in Portugal and in the "lap of Catholic intellectuals around the world."

Doctor in Biblical Theology, former Vice-Rector of the Catholic University and Director of the respective Faculty of Theology, Consultant of the Pontifical Council for Culture, Rector of the Portuguese Pontifical College in Rome, Director of the National Secretariat of the Ministry Pastoral of Culture of the Catholic Church in Portugal, will be archbishop from Saturday.