ARCOVERDE DE ALBUQUERQUE CAVALCANTI, JOAQUIM

First cardinal of Rio de Janeiro and of Latin America; b. Pernambuco, Jan. 17, 1850; d. Rio de Janeiro, April 18, 1930. He was ordained on April 4, 1874. Although elected bishop of Goias in 1890 and consecrated in Rome, he renounced that office before taking power and was named coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of São Paulo in 1892. In 1894 he became bishop of São Paulo, and then strove to stimulate the rather lifeless Brazilian Catholicism of the period, coordinating the labors of Catholic associations and attracting to the diocese such religious congregations as that of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Premonstratensians, and the Redemptorists.

In 1897 he was transferred to Rio de Janeiro as the second archbishop of the archdiocese created there in 1892. In this position Dom Joaquim gave his greatest contribution to the Church of Brazil, which at the time not only failed to influence national life—though Catholics formed an absolute majority—but also lacked sufficient organized political support. He actively participated in the Latin American Plenary Council held in Rome in 1899. The better to put the decisions of the council into practice, he assembled his suffragan bishops annually after 1901. The fruits of these reunions were published in Pastorais colectivas (1901, 1909, 1915). These episcopal meetings were necessary antecedents for the important Brazilian Plenary Council held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1939.

In Rio de Janeiro Dom Joaquim constructed the Palácio S. Joaquim, the archiepiscopal headquarters. A series of difficulties forced him to close the diocesan seminary in 1907, but he sent his more intelligent clerical students to Europe to complete their studies. He reaped the fruits of closer contact between the Church and the new republic when, in 1905, he was named cardinal of Rio de Janeiro, the first Latin American cardinal in history. In 1921 D. Arcoverde's mental and physical health began to fail. From that date until his death, he was merely a figurehead as the archdiocese was administered by coadjutor Abp. D. Sebastião leme de silveira cintra, who succeeded the cardinal in 1930.

Bibliography: m. alvarenga, O Episcopado Brasileiro (Sã Paulo 1915). l. castanho de almeida, São Paulo, filho da Igreja (Patrópolis, Brazil 1955). g. schubert, ed., A província eclesiâstica do Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro 1948).

[i. silveira]