Cleber Teodosio @clefabio: The Vincentians Province Brazil (Rio de Janeiro)

The sanctuary of Caraça, the mother house of Brazil, from 1820. The former seminary and school is set in a national heritage private reserve.

1820-43

Vincentians arrived in Brazil in the 18th century, using the country as a rest stop on the way to China. Their first work in Brazil, though still informal, was to accompany the exiled court of King João VI of Portugal as the fled into exile from Napoleon’s advancing troops in 1807. The close relationship between the Vincentians and the royal family would serve the Congregation well during the first few decades of its existence in Brazil.

The vicar-general Antonio Baccari, approved the official foundation in 1820. He commissioned two of his confreres to open work in Brazil – Leandro RabeloPeixoto e Castro (Known simply as Fr. Castro) and Antonio Vicente Ferreira Viçoso. Originally send to care for the spiritual needs of native peoples in the region of MatoGrosso, they arrived to find that a group of Capuchins was already tending to those needs. Instead, they accepted an opportunity from the king to build a mission house and school Caraça in Minas Gerais. The king also provided additional funds when needed. The school opened near the beginning of 1821, the same year that the king returned to Portugal and appointed his son regent of Brazil. A year later, his son declared his independence from Portugal and assume the title of emperor and name Dom Pedro I.

Castro and Viçoso, along with new arrivals from Portugal, JeronymoGonçalves de Macedo and José Joaquim Mendes de Moura Alves, working hard to expand the school in Caraça and open new works, thus laying the foundation for the elevation of Brazil to a full province in either 1828 or 1830. The ambiguous date stems from differences in interpretation of a letter from the superior general Peter Dewailly in which he named JoãoTimóteo Silva provincial of Portugal and Macedopraepostus, not visitator, in Brazil. Macedo, however, believed that since Brazil no longer depended on Portugal but Paris, it was in essence already a province on its own.

Lourenço de Nossa Senhora, a Portuguesehermit, founded Caraça in 1774. He died there in 1819.

As the new imperial authority extended control over the Church in Brazil, it decided that no congregation could have foreign members or admit new members of any nationality other that Portuguese. This appears not to have been applied rigorously to the Congregation, but it did signal the start of increasingly difficult regulations from the state. Eventually, the confreres in Brazil were forced to take the same measures as those in Lithuania and Naples: administrative separation from the international Congregation. Superior General Salhorgne approved this in 1833 and granted Macedo temporary powers equivalent to a superior general, with the exception of dispensing his confreres from vows. However, a group of disaffected dormer Vincentians initiated an effort against him that forced Macedo to resign after only a couple of years. Viçosowas appointed his successor, but he was still stationed elsewhere and could not assume his office his office until 1837, Castro served as interim.

As Viçoso took over, thee major obstacles faced him. Firsty, slavery had existed in Brazil before the arrival of the Vincentians, and they simply accepted its existence as a necessary evil. Second, Brazil suffered from chronic shortage of Vincentians. Third, the question of independence from the mother house in Paris presented the most complicated problem. Changes in the Brazilian criminal code moved hum to request a formal separation from Paris, following the legal process in Brazil and working with the internuncio. The constitutions for the new province were quite similar to what the general council had accepted for Naples, and the emperor approved them on 3 December 1838. In a fateful assembly held 11-17 December, Viçosowas officially elected “superior general” or “major superior” of the Brazil Congregation of the Mission.

On many occasion, Viçoso tried to explain this to the general council, but it regarded his action as a schism and never recognized it. In fact, no record exists of communication between Viçoso and Nozo, Poussou, and Etienne. In 1843, the Brazilian government nominated Viçoso to be bishop of Mariana. Shorty thereafter, the Brazilian Vincentians and the general council began working toward “reestablishing” the Brazilian province by agreeing with Brazilian minister in France on an “independent” province. This provided the legal cover for the government, while the council considered it a mere civil arrangement that would not effect the administration of the houses. Antonio Affonso de Moraes Torres was elected provincial at the provincial assembly of 1843, and the province moved forward as a legal entity within the laws of Brazil and as a legitimate part of the Congregation.

Antonio Vicente Ferreira Viçoso (1787-1875), one of the Vincentian pioneers in Brazil. He served as its visitor and later as bishop of Mariana, Minas Gerais. Because of his renown for holiness, and being a model bishop, his cause for beatification has been introduced.

1843-78

This new arrangement allowed for the inclusion of foreign confreres in the Brazilian province, and expeditions of Vincentians and Daughters of Charity began arriving from Europe in 1848. With this influx of manpower, the Congregations was able to greatly increase its footprint in the country while also impressing the government and local bishops with its successes. A key figure in this development was the provincial Mariano Maller, a Spanish Vincentian. The Brazilian government was so pleased with the results that it requested the Congregation in Paris send yearly at least five new Vincentians. The council had to decline this offer, but Etienne promised to support the province with as many new priests and Daughters of Charity as he could spare.

After a series of short-lived administrations, Pierre Bénit served as provincial from 1866 to 1878. He oversaw further expansion of the province, particularly in seminaries. After his visionary leadership, however, the province would be plagued again by rapid turnover of provincials for the next twenty-two years.

1878-1919

Brazil’s population was heterogeneous mixture of Europeans and their descendants, Africans, and native Indians. Each group had its own spiritual needs that had to attended to differently. For example, the bishop of Curitiba there requested Polish Vincentians to assist with the spiritual formation of immigrant from Poland. In the roughly forty years between 1878 and 1919, the Vincentian population in Brazil nearly doubled from the influx of French, Dutch, Polish, Italian, German, and Belgian confreres.

As provincial beginning in 1900, Pierre Dehaene took advantage of the expulsion of Vincentians from French seminaries to strengthen the influence of the Congregation in Brazil once again.

Priest Geraldo Mol, CM Provincial, with Superior General Priest Mavric, CM during the CM General Assembly, Chicago 2016

1919-80

Eugene-Joseph Pasquier was a towering figure who remained in office from 1912 to 1941. He had to resist Vatican pressure to continue the Vincentian commitment to seminary work, as Paris, the normal manpower source, became unable to assign confreres to Brazil. Ultimately, he made the difficult but inevitable decision to hand over some of their works to their Dutch confreres working in the north and to their Polish confreres in the south. José Dermeval Mont’Alvao in 1963 solidified the borders with both the Dutch and Polish vice-provinces in Brazil, ultimately handing over territory in the north and south of the country rather than just individual works.

José Paulo Sales Júnior, whose two periods as provincial bookended that of Mont’Alvao, led the province during tumultuous times (1951-63, 1966-69). Like other religious communities and the Church in general, the Congregation in Brazil faced a serious reduction in its membership while also trying to navigate social and civil unrest.

The administration of José Elias Chavez presided over the largest reorganization of the province in Brazil. He worked collaboratively with the Dutch and Polish provinces in the country, and thereby redefined the province’s mission. From its very beginning, the province Brazil had focused on clergy formation and seminary work. But by 1980, the Vincentian involvement in all its seminary programs had ended. Sometimes the cause was a lack of manpower and the need to consolidate its limited human resources, end sometimes it was overbearing bishops who forced the Vincentians to withdraw. This allowed more time for pastoral work serving the poor in parishes and offering popular missions.