Jaime Garcia Goulart

Statue of Jaime Garcia Goulart in front of the Nossa Senhora das Candeias church in Candelária.

Jaime Garcia Goulart (born January 10, 1908 in Candelária do Pico , Portugal , † April 15, 1997 in Ponta Delgada , Portugal) was the first bishop of the Diocese of Dili in what was then the colony of Portuguese Timor . Between 1940 and 1942, Goulart was the apostolic administrator . He was ordained bishop on October 12, 1945 and held the office until January 31, 1967.

Life

Jaime Garcia Goulart was born in the municipality of Candelária on the Azores island of Pico to João Garcia Goulart and Maria Felizarda Goulart . Both parents were related to Cardinal José da Costa Nunes . Isabel Emilia da Costa , Jaime's paternal grandmother, was the sister of the cardinal's father and Isabel Felizarda Castro , Jaime's maternal grandmother, was the sister of the cardinal's mother.

Following the example of his cousin, Goulart went in 1921 at the age of 13 with eleven other boys from the Azores to Macau , where José da Costa Nunes was Vicar General of Macau and Timor. Here Goulart attended the São José seminary. While still a theology student he was appointed first secretary to the bishop.

Back in the Azores, Goulart took part in the Episcopal Theology course at Angra do Heroísmo . Here he was ordained a priest on May 10, 1931. He celebrated his first mass on May 15 in Candelária, his birthplace. In the same year he returned to Macau.

From 1933 to 1937 Goulart was sent to Portuguese Timor as a commissioner of the colony belonging to the diocese of Macau . During this time the Nossa Senhora da Fatima seminary was founded in Soibada . After three years in Macau, Goulart returned to Timor in 1940 as Vice General of the Mission there . Thanks to the intercession at the Holy See by Bishop Nunes with the Bull Sollemnibus conventionibus on September 4, 1940, the Diocese of Dili was created. It was subordinated as a suffragan diocese to the Archbishop of Goa and Daman and Goulart was appointed Apostolic Administrator on January 18, 1941.

During the Second World War the Battle of Timor broke out , during which Dutch and Australian troops first moved into the colony of neutral Portugal and in 1942 Japan occupied Portuguese Timor. Goulart had to leave his diocese and found refuge in Australia, where he was interned with other evacuees on Bob's farm . After the end of the war, he was appointed the first bishop of Dili on October 12, 1945. His consecration took place on October 28, 1945 in the chapel of St. Patrick's College, Sydney . The main consecrator was Giovanni Panico , the Apostolic Legate in Australia. Co- consecrators were Norman Thomas Gilroy , Archbishop of Sydney , and John Aloysius Coleman , Bishop of Armidale . On December 9, 1945, Goulart ceremoniously entered Dili. The pastoral structures, such as the old cathedral from 1909 and many other churches, had been destroyed in the war.

As a bishop, Goulart devoted himself particularly to missionary work, the formation of priests and catechists, and the consolidation of the pastoral seminary in Soibada, which was moved to Dare in 1951 . During his tenure, the number of Catholics in the colony rose from 30,000 to 150,000. The number of students in the mission schools increased from 1,500 to 8,000. Since 1940 the Catholic Church has had a monopoly on education in the colony through a concordat . On May 23, 1964, Goulart was awarded the Order of Infante Dom Henrique for his work in Portuguese Timor .

On the grounds of being tired and pointing out his poor health, Goulart asked for the appointment of a coadjutor in 1965 . This was José Joaquim Ribeiro , titular bishop of Aegeae , who previously served in the Archdiocese of Évora . Ribeiro was nominated as the new Bishop of Dili on January 31, 1967, when Goulart resigned. Instead, he received the title of Titular Bishop of Trofimiana . On January 27, 1971, Goulart gave up this title when he retired as Bishop of Dili. Goulart had returned to the Azores in August 1967 and initially settled in Horta on the island of Faial . He later returned to his native Candelária, where he took over the patronage of the São José Children's Home , a social institution founded by his cousin Cardinal José da Costa Nunes. On November 3, 1985, Goulart was one of the concelebrants at the blessing of the Sé de São Salvador Cathedral in Angra. It was rebuilt after the January 1st 1980 earthquake.

For health reasons, Goulart moved to live with relatives in Rabo de Peixe on the island of São Miguel . He died in Ponta Delgada on April 15, 1997 at the age of 89.

Namesake

The Diocese of Dili runs the Instituto Filosofia e Teologia Dom Jaime Garcia Goulart (ISFIT).

Web links

• Entry for Jaime Garcia Goulart on catholic-hierarchy.org

Individual evidence

1. ^ Boletim Eclesiástico dos Açores , n.º 848, 1997.
2. ^ Diocese of Dili: Instituto Filosofia e Teologia (ISFIT-Interdiocesano) , accessed on March 6, 2018.

predecessor	Office	successor
-	Bishop of Dili 1945–1967	José Joaquim Ribeiro