Luís Flávio Cappio

Luís Flavio Cappio

Luís Flavio Cappio OFM (born October 4, 1946 in Guaratinguetá , São Paulo , Brazil ) is a Roman Catholic religious and bishop of Barra . He became known as an environmental activist .

Life

Luís Flavio Cappio was born on October 4th, 1946, the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi . After completing his theology and economic studies, he left his wealthy family and joined the religious order of the Franciscans in. He was ordained a priest on December 19, 1971. He worked in the pastoral care of workers in São Paulo until 1974, when he left for the semi-arid region of the state of Bahia. At that time he only left for the poor region of the northeast with the clothes he was wearing.

On April 16, 1997, Pope John Paul II appointed him Bishop of Barra , a diocese in a very poor area on the central reaches of the Rio São Francisco in northeast Brazil. He was ordained bishop on July 6, 1997 by the Archbishop of Aparecida , Cardinal Aloísio Lorscheider OFM; Co- consecrators were Paulo Evaristo Cardinal Arns OFM, Archbishop of São Paulo , and his predecessor Itamar Navildo Vian OFMCap , Bishop of Feira de Santana .

Environmental commitment

Bishop Cappio (Dom free Luis) was known beyond the borders of Brazil, as along with three other activists, the sociologist Adriano Martins, Sister Conceição and the farmers Orlando de Araújo, a year-long one he on October 4, 1992 Pilgrimage of the Source to the mouth of the 2,700 km long Rio São Francisco . With this symbolic act, the pilgrims made the public aware of the serious problems of the river valley and its people. In a service at the spring at the beginning of the pilgrimage, Bishop Cappio summed up the following: “The desperate situation in the São Francisco Valley is part of a global crisis. It makes us aware that the blind belief in progress has led to the underdevelopment of many peoples and threatens the life of the whole earth. It is up to us to continue following the path of death or to stand up for life. "

Since 2005, the Lula government has been promoting a project to divert parts of the river water. In view of this, Dom Luís Flávio saw the tradition of non-violent protest by Mahatma Gandhi in a hunger strike as the last chance of resistance. On September 26, 2005, he began fasting and praying in Cabrobó, the place where the water intake for the north canal was to be built. Thousands of people came to Cabrobó to show their solidarity, and people from all over the world sent letters to support the resistance.

After eleven days, he ended his fast on the promise of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva that a comprehensive dialogue process with the population about the diversion project would be carried out and that the revitalization of the river would be a priority. This agreement was not respected by the president, which sparked a series of protests and legal appeals against the project. Instead, the Brazilian military was hired to begin construction work in late May. Two years of unsuccessful attempts by civil society organizations to achieve a democratic, transparent and participatory dialogue about the project have passed. Now Bishop Cappio decided to continue his hunger strike as a sign of peaceful resistance against the destruction of the Rio São Francisco. He resumed fasting on the morning of November 27, 2007 in the São Francisco Chapel in the parish of Sobradinho (Bahia) on the banks of the Sobradinho Reservoir, until he had to stop it on December 20, 2007 after a fit of weakness; he had learned that the government had decided to continue building the river project. In Sobradinho, the serious condition of the Rio São Francisco and its lack of water capacity is particularly evident.

In Europe he has numerous supporters, including the Franciscan Mission Center and the Episcopal Works Adveniat and Misereor .

honors and awards

• Pax Christi Peace Prize 2008 for his work on behalf of the rural population against the diversion of the San Francisco River
• Freiburg foundation for the promotion of a Kantian cosmopolitan ethos 2009 ("Kant-Weltbürgerpreis"), together with Jeff Halper , for his "courageous advocacy for politically and socially marginalized population groups"
• 1995 Romero Prize from “Be so free”, the development policy campaign of the Catholic men's movement

Individual evidence

1. ↑ peace award 2008 for Bishop Cappio
2. ^ Awarding of the Kant World Citizenship Prize to Dom Luiz Cappio

Web links

• Entry on Luís Flávio Cappio on catholic-hierarchy.org
• Collection of articles on Bishop Frei Luís Flávio Cappio

predecessor	Office	successor
Itamar Navildo Vian	Bishop of Barra since 1997	...