São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro, Archdiocese of

SÃO SEBASTIÃO DO RIO DE JANEIRO, ARCHDIOCESE OF. - In the federal district of Brazil. It is the head of the ecclesiastical province of the same name, which also includes the dioceses of Niteroi, Espirito Santo, Barra do Piraí, Campos and Valença. The archdiocese occupies an area of 1,350 sq. km., with ca. 2,000,000 inhabitants. It has 105 parishes, 250 diocesan priests and 286 regulars, 65 male and 145 female religious communities, the major and minor seminary, a Catholic university, numerous colleges directed by religious and other centers of culture, social works, etc. Its patron is St. Sebastian.

I. HISTORY

The Bay of Rio was discovered on January 1, 1502 by Portuguese explorers, among whom was Vespucci, who believed it to be the mouth of a great river (River of January). Despite the beauty and wealth of the region and the excellent harbor it offered, no colony was founded there by the discoverers until the establishment of a Huguenot republic was perceived, with French emigrants led by Nicolas de Villegaignon, who had allied themselves with the Indians and were making extensive use of the region's commercial advantages. Moved by religious and patriotic zeal, the Portuguese fought and finally drove out the French, then erecting there a village (1567) which, in honor of the Saint whose feast was celebrated on the day of the victory and in honor of the king of Portugal, was called S. S. The Jesuits who accompanied the expedition and who directed the first constructions devoted themselves to the instruction of the natives and succeeded shortly thereafter in establishing a college in the center of the nascent city, whose first rector was the famous Father Manuel da Nobrega.

Rio, which in 1572 was already the seat of the southern government of Brazil, three years later was chosen as the seat of a prelature nullius (bull In supereminenti militantis Ecclesiae of July 19, 1575); raised on November 16, 1676 to a diocese suffragan of Salvador (bull Romani Pontificis pastoralis sollicitudo), its territory embracing all of the south and part of western Brazil, until the great partition made by the motu proprio Candor lucis aeternae of December 6, 1745, which gave rise to the dioceses of São Paulo, Mariana and the prelatures nullius of Cuiabá and Goiás. For political reasons, however, shortly after this division, Rio reacquired all the regions from Santa Catarina to the Rio de la Plata, which were governed by a vicar general, until the creation of the diocese of Porto Alegre, already in 1848. In 1763, Rio became the capital of the State of Brazil, that is, the seat of the viceroys, who did much for its prosperity, and later it was transformed into a Portuguese metropolis, hosting for thirteen years the dynasty and the government that Napoleon drove out of Lisbon.

Along with the radical improvements the city underwent in the last 40 years, there occurred a growing religious progress of the diocese, which the bull Ad universas orbis ecclesias of April 27, 1892 erected as a metropolis of the ecclesiastical province of southern Brazil, its remaining territory then being divided with the creation of the dioceses of Petrópolis (now at Niterói) and of Espírito Santo. The events of greatest religious significance that took place in Rio in recent years were the national Eucharistic Congress of the centenary (1922), the coronation of Our Lady Aparecida proclaimed queen of Brazil (1931), the inauguration of the image of Christ the Redeemer on the summit of the mountain called Corcovado (1931) and the first Brazilian plenary Council (1939).

The first bishop of Rio was Manuel Pereira, who however resigned before going to his diocese; there followed José Barros de Alarcão (1680-1700); Francisco de S. Jeronimo (1702-21); José Antonio de Guadalupe (1725-40), etc., up to João Eckerard (first archbishop, 1894-97); Joaquim Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti (1897-1930), first cardinal; followed by Cardinal Sebastião Leme da Silveira Cintra (1930-42) and by the present Cardinal Jaime de Barros Camara (1943). Among the most representative Catholic laymen in recent years are remembered: Carlos de Laet (1928), man of letters and polemicist; Jonatas Serrano (1944) historian; Alceu de Amoroso Lima, man of letters and sociologist.

In the archdiocese there exist the abbey of St. Benedict and the convent of St. Anthony, which exercised no small scientific and religious influence in the life of the city. There are also the ancient monasteries of the Carmelite nuns (St. Teresa) and Franciscan nuns (Ajuda). The city preserves some old colonial monuments; besides the aqueduct of the Arcos, the remains of some fortresses, the Palace of the viceroys and those of the emperors, Rio also has churches built in typical colonial style (v. BRASILE, III. Arte sacra), such as the Cathedral, S. Cruz dos Militares, S. Antonio, S. Bento, S. Francisco de Paula, Gloria do Outeiro, Rosario and Lapa; among all of them, however, the splendid Candelaria stands foremost.

Maurilio Cesar de Lima

II. THE STUDY CENTER

Rio is also the most important study center in Brazil. The Museum of Natural History and the National Library are notable.

1. The Seminary

Founded in 1739, closed in 1904, reopened as a minor seminary in 1924, and as a major seminary in 1944, it is a flourishing institution, with a new seat, whose first stone was laid by Msgr. J. de Barros Camara on Sept. 15, 1944.

2. The Catholic University

The idea of a Catholic University, fostered by Card. Leme (1930-42), had a first realization with the Catholic Institute of Higher Studies, inaugurated on May 24, 1932. In 1939 the Brazilian episcopate, assembled in the First Plenary Council, announced it to the country with a collective pastoral letter. On June 21, 1940 the founding body was constituted (Sociedade civil « Faculdades Católicas ») as required by Brazilian law; on the following Oct. 30 (decree 6409) the government granted authorization for the Faculties of Philosophy (and Letters) and of Law, solemnly inaugurated on March 15, 1941; in 1943 the School of Social Service was added.

After five years of operation, the government issued the decree constituting the « Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro » (decree 8681, of Jan. 15, 1946) and that approving its Statutes (decree 21,968, dated Oct. 21, 1946). Canonical erection, with the title of pontifical university, came about through the decree Laeta caelo of the S. Congreg. of Seminaries and Universities, Jan. 20, 1947 (AAS, 40 [1948], p. 43 ff.). In the same year the Social Institute, founded in 1927, was aggregated to the University; in 1948 the Polytechnic School and the Institute of Comparative Law were erected.

The University has its seat in the « bairro de Botafogo »; its grand chancellor is the cardinal archbishop. Its direction is entrusted to the Jesuits (the organizer and first rector was Fr. Leonel Franca, d. in 1948). Periodicals: Verbum, a quarterly review of higher culture; Anuário, for the life, organization and activity of the University; Coleção Servir, for the dissemination of the social sciences. - See plate CXVI.

Igino Cecchetti