António de Castro (Bishop)

António de Castro (born January 15, 1707 in Vila de Rei , Portugal , † August 9, 1743 in Lifau , Portuguese Timor ) was a Portuguese Roman Catholic bishop of Malacca .

Career

Castro was ordained a priest on May 19, 1731. On July 21, 1738 he was elected Bishop of Malacca (in present-day Malaysia ), the confirmation took place on September 3 and the episcopal ordination finally on October 5, 1738. Like his direct predecessor Manuel de Santo António , who died in 1733 , Castro chose 1739 as his official residence the place Lifau in the west of the island of Timor (today part of the state of East Timor ). Malacca had already been conquered by the Protestant Dutch in 1641 , which is why the bishops could only work in exile. The island's first seminary was opened in Lifau in 1742 . Two priests from Goa took care of the education of the students. Castro had reported the need for a seminar in 1741 in a letter to the Secretary of State for Navy and Overseas, in which he wrote about his trip from Goa to Timor. In the same year Castro complained in a letter to the Viceroy of India that the inability to get their colony on Timor under control revealed the weakness of the Portuguese in the eyes of the Dutch and Timorese. The topasse ruled de facto here , even if they were formally under Portuguese sovereignty.

António de Castro died at the age of 36 due to the climate. His remains were interred in Lifau.

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b Catholic Hierarchy: Bishop Antonio de Castro † , accessed April 22, 2020. (English)
↑ Ordem dos Pregadores iha Timor-Leste: Historia OP iha Timor , accessed on April 22, 2020. (tetum)
↑ ^a ^b Forum Hakesuk: Confêrencia nas Celebrações do Primeiro Centenário do Nascimento do Senhor Dom Jaime Garcia Goulart , May 28, 2008 (Portuguese) and 1769 O Onzo de Agosto na História de Timor-Leste , accessed on April 22, 2020 (Portuguese )
↑ Maria Luísa Abrantes, José Sintra Martinheira, Miguel Rui Infante, Maria Antónia Alves Caria: Catálogo da Série Timor do Conselho Ultramarino , In: Universidade Católica Portuguesa: Povos e culturas , p. 164 (PDF; 2.3 MB), accessed on April 22nd, 2020. (Portuguese)
↑ José Augusto Vilas Boas Tavares: O Império Português na Insulíndia a Gouvernação de Timor no Século XVIII. Lifau 1702–1769 , Dissertação de Mestradoem História do Império Português, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, March 2016 (PDF; 2.4 MB), accessed on April 22, 2020. (Portuguese)

personal data
SURNAME	Castro, António de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Portuguese Roman Catholic Bishop of Malacca
DATE OF BIRTH	January 15, 1707
PLACE OF BIRTH	Vila de Rei , Portugal
DATE OF DEATH	August 9, 1743
Place of death	Lifau , Portuguese Timor

[Cath-1] Catholic Hierarchy: Bishop Antonio de Castro † , accessed April 22, 2020. (English)

[2] Ordem dos Pregadores iha Timor-Leste: Historia OP iha Timor , accessed on April 22, 2020. (tetum)

[FH-3] Forum Hakesuk: Confêrencia nas Celebrações do Primeiro Centenário do Nascimento do Senhor Dom Jaime Garcia Goulart , May 28, 2008 (Portuguese) and 1769 O Onzo de Agosto na História de Timor-Leste , accessed on April 22, 2020 (Portuguese )

[4] Maria Luísa Abrantes, José Sintra Martinheira, Miguel Rui Infante, Maria Antónia Alves Caria: Catálogo da Série Timor do Conselho Ultramarino , In: Universidade Católica Portuguesa: Povos e culturas , p. 164 (PDF; 2.3 MB), accessed on April 22nd, 2020. (Portuguese)

[5] José Augusto Vilas Boas Tavares: O Império Português na Insulíndia a Gouvernação de Timor no Século XVIII. Lifau 1702–1769 , Dissertação de Mestradoem História do Império Português, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, March 2016 (PDF; 2.4 MB), accessed on April 22, 2020. (Portuguese)