Faro, Diocese of

FARO, DIOCESI di. — City and diocese of southern Portugal, capital of the province of Algarve. It has an area of approximately 5,072 km², with 317,628 inhabitants, of whom 503,747 are Catholics. It has 67 parishes, with 66 diocesan priests and several religious priests (1948).

Occupied by the Moors, it was reconquered in 1860 by Dom Alfonso III. Near the city are the ruins of the ancient centre of Orobona, the primitive episcopal see, transferred circa 1189 to Silvès and Algarve, whence it was transferred to F. on 30 March 1577. Among its principal monuments are the Cathedral, in the Gothic construction of the 13th century, largely rebuilt by the Italian architect Francesco Saverio Fabbri, commissioned by Bishop Avelar; noteworthy inside it is the interior, covered with “azulejos,” and the chapel of the relics, built by Bishop Pereira de Silva, who is also buried there. Near the Cathedral are the ruins of the ancient convent of the Capuchin nuns, from the 14th century, in the Romanesque style. Also worthy of note is the church attached to the convent of S. Francesco, built in the 16th century, and the “Arco de Vila,” the monumental entrance to the city, a work by the architect Fabbri.

PARVACQUES, FRANCIS. — Augustinian theologian, born in Belgium in the first decade of the seventeenth century and died around 670. Professor of sacred sciences at the ancient Abbey of S. Geltrude in Lovanio, he earned a reputation as an excellent interpreter of the Church’s doctrine through his writings on the thought of the Fathers, scholasticism, and the councils.

Principal works: De attritione seu quae fuerit mens Concilii Tridentini de sufficiuntia attritioni in sacramento Parvidentiae necessitas assavitur et confirmatur (Lovanio 1666); Veritas et caritas, disquisitio theologica (there 1669). Almost all his writings were included in the edition of his works printed in Liège in 1680 under the title: Opuscula theologica.