PIMENTA, SILVÉRIO GOMES

Brazilian archbishop; b. Congonhas do Campo, Minas Gerais, Jan. 12, 1840; d. Mariana, Aug. 30, 1922. One of the most outstanding ecclesiastical figures in Brazil at the beginning of the 20th century, Pimenta came from a very humble family. He made his first studies in his home town, and he began to work as a clerk in a commercial house to support the family when he was nine years old. His uncle and godfather, Manuel Alves Pimenta, aware of the great intelligence of the boy, asked the Vincentian Fathers of Congonhas to give him more education. Working to help his mother and studying at the same time in the most precarious circumstances, Pimenta nevertheless succeeded in excelling in Latin, French, and the humanities. In 1855 Antônio Ferreira Viçoso, Bishop of Mariana, knowing that Pimenta wanted to be a priest, took him under his protection and gave him a place in the seminary at the expense of the bishopric. On July 20, 1862, he was ordained. In 1871 Pimenta was chosen to teach Latin in the seminary, and he did this for 18 years, becoming a master in the language.

Pimenta's first writing was in defense of the Church, in 1872, in the famous Religious Question that had started in Rio between the Free Masons and Bp. Pedro Maria de Lacerda, former teacher of Pimenta in the seminary of Mariana. Pimenta worked as a journalist for four years. In 1875 he was named vicar capitular, in spite of some opposition because he was a person of color. In 1877, he was made vicar–general of the diocese of Mariana. In 1890, Father Pimenta was appointed titular bishop of Camaco and auxiliary bishop of D. Antônio Benevides of Mariana. Again there was criticism by those who did not wish to have a person of color as pastor.

He took over most of the administration of the diocese because the bishop was ill. Preoccupied with the shortage of clergy, he asked the Redemptorists and the Jesuits to come to his diocese. With the separation of Church and State in 1890, the bishops were free to rule over their territories, and D. Pimenta readily took advantage of it. On Dec. 3, 1896, he was named bishop of Mariana and was triumphantly received by his people.

His zeal was endless; he traveled dozens of miles on horseback to administer Confirmation and visit his priests in the vast diocese. Mariana became an archdiocese in 1906; and D. Pimenta, its first archbishop, having Goiás, Diamantina, and Pouso Alegre as suffragans. He established conferences for the clergy and founded an organization for fostering vocations. In 1920, he was elected a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, being the first clergyman to enter that house of poets and writers. Among other works, he wrote a biography of his predecessor Antônio Ferreira Viçoso.

Bibliography: j. silvÉrio de souza, Vida de D. Silvério Gomes Pimenta (São Paulo 1927).

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