His Eminence Joaquim Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti |
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Cardinal, Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro | |
Cardinal Arcoverde; portrait by Almeida Júnior
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Archdiocese | Rio de Janeiro |
Province | Rio de Janeiro |
In office | 24 August 1897 - 18 April 1930 |
Predecessor | João Fernando Santiago Esberard |
Successor | Sebastião da Silveira Cintra |
Orders | |
Created Cardinal | December 11, 1905 by Pope Pius X |
Rank | Cardinal-priest |
Personal details | |
Born |
Pesqueira, Brazil |
January 17, 1850
Died | April 18, 1930 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
(aged 80)
Nationality | Brazilian |
Denomination | Roman Catholic |
Coat of arms |
Styles of Joaquim Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti |
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Reference style | His Eminence |
Spoken style | Your Eminence |
Informal style | Cardinal |
See | São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro |
Joaquim Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti (January 17, 1850 – April 18, 1930) was the first Cardinal to be born in Latin America. He was known as "Cardeal Arcoverde".
Arcoverde was born into a prominent family in Cimbres, province of Pernambuco, in the Northeast of Brazil. He showed an early vocation for the priesthood but the absence of local seminaries meant that he did all his studies prior to becoming a priest in Rome. However, after being ordained in 1874, Arcoverde returned to Olinda to become rector of the new seminary there. He was nominated a bishop by Pope Leo XIII in 1888 but refused; however, when Pope Leo, obviously believing very firmly in his ability, nominated him again three years later to the diocese of Goiás he accepted his nomination very willingly.
In 1897 Arcoverde was promoted to the archiepiscopal see of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro, then clearly the highest position on the Latin American Church. Although Leo did not name him a cardinal, Pope Pius X did so in his second consistory on December 11, 1905. He was only the second cardinal to serve as ordinary of a diocese located in the Southern Hemisphere behind Francis Patrick Moran, the Irish-born Archbishop of Sydney who had been elevated in 1885. Arcoverde was the first Cardinal to be born in the Southern Hemisphere.
He participated in the conclave in 1914 but did not attempt to reach Rome in time for the 1922 conclave, due to ill health. The other three cardinals from the Americas, William Henry O'Connell of Boston, Denis Dougherty of Philadelphia, and Louis-Nazaire Bégin of Québec City, made the attempt but arrived too late. Pope Pius XI then made it easier for distant cardinals to participate by increasing the time between the death of a Pope and the start of a conclave.