João Batista Becker

João Batista Becker (born February 24, 1870 in Sankt Wendel , † June 15, 1946 in Porto Alegre ), appointed Conde ( Count ) João Becker by the Holy See , was a Brazilian Catholic bishop .

Life

As the son of Karl and Katharina Weiand Becker, he and his parents emigrated from Winterbach near Sankt Wendel to the south of Brazil when he was eight . The family settled in Montenegro, in the Caí valley, near São Vendelino , today's twin town of St. Wendel in Saarland .

His father, who always worked as a primary school teacher, introduced his son to the life of a student at an early age. Gifted with an outstanding intelligence, he helped the father with the subjects taught by the students, occasionally explaining them himself. He took private lessons with the Jesuits , after which he enrolled in the traditional Colégio Nossa Senhora da Conceição in São Leopoldo , founded by the Jesuits in 1869 . He attended the preparatory courses for medicine and law .

In 1891, at the age of 21, he enrolled in the first semester of the newly founded seminary of Porto Alegre (where the diocesan curia of Porto Alegre is today), which was founded that year by Dom Cláudio José Ponce de Leão .

A brilliant student of philosophy, defending theses praised by the Jesuit priest Jacob Faeh, he enrolled in theology in 1893. After he had finished his academic training, he received the ordinance of subdeacon and deacon on November 30, 1894 and November 30, 1895, respectively.

Ordination

The Bishop of Porto Alegre, Dom Cláudio José Ponce de Leão consecrated him as a priest on August 2, 1896 in the chapel of the seminary.

Two days later he was called by the bishop to be vicar of the parish of Menino Deus in Porto Alegre. During the twelve years that Pastor João Becker presided over the parish, he was distinguished by his piety and zeal in pastoral care. The tower of the original chapel, which formed the cornerstone of the parish, was extended and remodeled by him (the chapel was demolished at the end of the 1960s and then rebuilt). Because of all these works he was made an honorary canon on August 9th, 1906 , in the same year he founded the Liga Sacerdotal magazine together with Pastor Luís Mariano da Rocha .

Episcopal ordination

Pope Pius X appointed Dom João Becker on May 3, 1908 as 1st Bishop of the State of Santa Catarina . On September 13 of the same year in the parish of Nossa Senhora das Dores, in Porto Alegre, he received the episcopal ordination of Dom Cláudio José Gonçalves Ponce de Leão as consecrator and Dom João Francisco Braga , Bishop of Curitiba and Dom João Antônio Pimenta, Bishop Coadjutor of Porto Alegre as co-consecrators.

He chose as the motto of episcopal life: PASCAM IN JUDICIO  - “I will feed them with just judgment” ( Ez 34,16  VUL ).

Bishop of Florianópolis

Dom João Becker took over the Archdiocese of Florianopolis on October 12, 1908 .

In January 1912 he called a congregation of priests together, which dealt with disciplinary matters, an "episcopal table" and a "set of rules for the costs of the church chamber" were adopted. The disciplinary issue had already been dealt with at the 1st Episcopal Synod, which took place from January 31 to February 2, 1910 in Florianópolis . The 1st Synod divided the diocese into ten districts ( comarca ), with the existing four districts no longer meeting pastoral needs.

From the beginning of his office as bishop he encouraged parish schools. Dom João Becker claimed in a dedication in his pastoral letter from 1910 that there would be no real parish without a parish school. The insistence on ecclesiastical teaching can certainly be attributed in large part to the absence of religious training in the official schools, given the separation of church and state introduced by the republic in 1890.

Other pastoral letters, altogether there are five of them: On the dignity and duties of the bishop, a greeting to the diocese (1908), on social work (1911) and the farewell letter from 1912. Dom João Becker attached great importance to the pastoral letters, in He wrote one of them for practically every great moment in ecclesiastical and national life. The publications in Porto Alegre are extensive, they are sold in the libraries as reading and textbooks.

To get to know his parish better, he made twelve pastoral trips to each individual parish, mostly twice.

In 1912 he founded the new parishes of Canoinhas, Nova Veneza, Luiz Alves, Botuverá and Jaraguá do Sul . Also the parish curaties of Cocal, 1910, Massaranduba, 1911, Ascurra, 1912 and Rio dos Cedros, 1913. He encouraged the immigrant congregations, which grew rapidly in that region, and brought many churchmen to these congregations, especially since the national clergy practically did not exist.

Archbishop of Porto Alegre

He was on his second pastoral trip when the news came that he had been promoted to Metropolitan of Porto Alegre. The Archdiocese of Florianópolis became a Suffragan Diocese on October 25, 1910 , the time when the Archdiocese of Rio de Janeiro was dismembered.

The date of the appointment was August 1, 1912. On the following December 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, Dom João Becker took over the office of Archbishop of Porto Alegre. He served as Apostolic Administrator of Florianópolis until September 7, 1914 . In 1913 he created the official organ of the archbishopric, the Unitas magazine , which existed until the end of Dom Cláudio Colling's episcopate .

He played a major role in public, both in ecclesiastical administration and in the political field, showing his support for the revolution of 1930 and the work of General Flores da Cunha. Dom João developed a fruitful apostolate by facing with caution and skill the new challenges that the Fatherland was going through, the gradual nationalization after World War I, the crisis of the old republic , the New State and World War II.

During his episcopal office, the old colonial cathedral was demolished to make way for a new neoclassical building . He founded 15 parishes in the capital Porto Alegre and 50 parishes in the interior of the state of Rio Grande do Sul. In 1937 he presided over the first Eucharistic Congress of the state, and two archbishop synods.

He wrote 34 pastoral letters, and published various religious books, sermons and essays, as well as travelogues, including Viagens e Estudos (Travels and Studies), which describes a ten-month journey in 1925 through Europe, Egypt, and Palestine. On March 20, 1932 he was given the title of Conde (Count) of the Holy See by Pope Pius XI. awarded. In 1938 he inaugurated the São José Episcopal Boys' Seminary in the city of Gravataí . He organized innumerable meetings and retreats for the clergy. He received new religious congregations in the archbishopric and trained the Ação Católica Brasileira (ACB) , a formation initiative for lay people, in all parishes.

He died in Porto Alegre on June 15, 1946 at the age of 76. In the same month Dom Vicente Scherer was from Pope Pius XII. appointed auxiliary bishop in the diocese of Porto Alegre before he was finally appointed archbishop of Porto Alegre in December of the same year as successor to Dom João Becker. Dom Vicente Scherer's father came from Theley, also in the district of Sankt Wendel .

Episcopal ordinations

Dom João Becker consecrated the following bishops:

1. Antônio Reis (1931)
2. José Baréa (1936)
3. Cândido Júlio Bampi, OFMCap (1936)
4. Antônio Zattera (1942)

literature

• Cláudia Regina Costa Pacheco: Pascam in judicio: a constituição humana na perspectiva católica . Appris Editora e Livraria Eireli - ME, 2016, ISBN 9788547300890 .
• Sérgio da Costa Franco: Guia Histórico de Porto Alegre . Porto Alegre: Editora da Universidade (UFRGS) / Prefeitura Municipal. 1988.
• Valter Antônio Noal Filho and Sérgio da Costa Franco: Os Viajantes Olham Porto Alegre / 1890–1941 . Santa Maria: Anaterra, 2004.
• Walter F. Piazza: A Igreja em Santa Catarina. Notas para sua História . Florianópolis: IOESC, 1977.

See also

• Dom João Becker Hospital in Gravataí , whose name is a dedication to the bishop.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Vatican: Apostolicae Sedis Commentarium Officiale. Annus IV, Series I, Vol. IV. P. 643. Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1912, accessed June 4, 2018 (Latin). 
2. ↑ Carlos Eduardo de Almeida Barata, Colégio Brasileiro de Genealogia (CBG): Subsídios para um Catálogo dos Títulos de Nobreza concedidos pela Santa Sé aos Brasileiros. (No longer available online.) Colégio Brasileiro de Genealogia (CBG), archived from the original on March 3, 2016 ; Retrieved June 4, 2018 (Brazilian Portuguese). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.