Belchior Carneiro Leitão

Belchior Carneiro Leitão
Bust of Belchior Carneiro in Macau
Born	1516 Coimbra, Kingdom of Portugal
Died	19 August 1583 (1583-08-20) (aged 67) Portuguese Macau
Occupation	Jesuit missionary, bishop

Belchior Carneiro Leitão, often known as Melchior Carneiro (1516 at Coimbra, Portugal – 19 August 1583 at Macau) was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary bishop. He was one of the first Jesuit bishops.

He entered the Society of Jesus, 25 April 1543, was appointed in 1551 the first rector of the College of Évora, and shortly after transferred to the rectorship of the College of Lisbon. When, in 1553, Simão Rodrigues, the first provincial of Portugal, was summoned to Rome to answer charges made against his administration, the visitor, Nadal, assigned him Carneiro as a companion.

In the meantime King John III of Portugal, a friend and patron of the Jesuits, had written both to Pope Julius III and to Ignatius Loyola, requesting the appointment of a Jesuit as Patriarch of Ethiopia. On 23 January 1555 the Pope chose João Nunes Barreto, giving him at the same time two coadjutors with the right of succession, Andrés de Oviedo, titular bishop of Hieropolis, and Carneiro, titular bishop of Nicaea. Barreto and Oviedo were consecrated 5 May 1555 in Lisbon, and were the first Jesuits to be raised to the episcopal dignity. The pope had given them an order of obedience to accept consecration, and Loyola acquiesced, considering that the dignity carried with it hardship and suffering rather than honour.

Unable to enter his missionary field of Ethiopia, Carneiro set out for Portuguese India and landed at Goa. Not having been consecrated before leaving Portugal, he was finally ordained bishop 15 December 1560 by Barreto. Not able to fulfill his original assignment, he received the brief Ex Litteris carissimis from Pope Pius V in 1566 appointing him apostolic administrator for the Portuguese missions in Japan and China. He continued to labour on the Malabar coast until 1567, when he was invited to come to Macau where the Jesuits had established a mission. He arrived there in June 1568, thereby becoming the first consecrated bishop in the region of China and Japan. His work there was rewarded when the Diocese of Macau was established in 1576 by Pope Gregory XIII.