Alfredo Vicente Scherer

The memorial for Dom Alfredo Vicente Scherer in Bom Princípio.

The memorial plaque on which Dom Vicente is honored as a “man of the 20th century”.

Coat of arms of Alfredo Vicente Cardinal Scherer

Cardinal Alfredo Vicente Scherer (born February 5, 1903 in Bom Princípio as Alfred Vinzenz Scherer, † March 9, 1996 in Porto Alegre ) was Archbishop of Porto Alegre .

family

The German-Brazilian Alfredo Vicente Scherer was a descendant of immigrants from Theley (today Tholey municipality , St. Wendel district ) in the Saarland . His father, the wheelwright Peter Scherer, born on April 5, 1857 in Theley, immigrated to Brazil in the state of Rio Grande do Sul in 1879 , where he married Anna Oppermann in 1881.

Alfredo Vicente Scherer was born on February 5, 1903 as the twelfth child of the family in Bom Princípio in the district of Santa Terezinha.

One of his nephews is Cardinal Odilo Pedro Scherer , who is now Archbishop of São Paulo . Another nephew, Irineu Roque Scherer , also became a Roman Catholic bishop .

Life

Alfredo Scherer studied in Porto Alegre and Rome the subjects philosophy and Catholic theology . He received on April 3, 1926 in Rome, the sacrament of Holy Orders and long then worked for seven years as a personal secretary to Dom Joao Batista Becker , Archbishop of Porto Alegre. João Becker had also come to Brazil from the St. Wendel district. He was born in Winterbach (today the town of St. Wendel ) in 1870 and emigrated to Brazil with his parents as a child.

From 1933 to 1946 he performed various tasks as a community chaplain. In June 1946 Pope Pius XII appointed him . the auxiliary bishop in the diocese of Porto Alegre and appointed him titular bishop of Hemeria . In December of the same year he was appointed Archbishop of Porto Alegre. He received his episcopal ordination on February 23, 1947, the Apostolic Nuncio in Brazil Cardinal Carlo Chiarlo ; Co- consecrators were José Baréa , Bishop of Caxias do Sul , and José Newton de Almeida Baptista , Bishop of Uruguaiana . Alfredo Vicente Scherer attended the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965 . Pope Paul VI accepted him on April 28, 1969 as a cardinal priest with the titular church Nostra Signora de La Salette in the college of cardinals .

Scherer became known around the world in January 1980 when strangers kidnapped, robbed and finally released him. He resigned the leadership of the Archdiocese of Porto Alegre on August 29, 1981 for reasons of age. He died on March 9, 1996 in Aparecida and was buried in the Cathedral of Porto Alegre .

In 2003, a memorial was set up in his birthplace, Bom Princípio, where Vicente Scherer's childhood home was also built. A hospital was named after him in Porto Alegre.

Web links

• Scherer, Alfredo Vicente. In: Salvador Miranda : The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. ( Florida International University website), accessed January 9, 2017.
• Entry on Alfredo Vicente Scherer on catholic-hierarchy.org ; accessed on January 9, 2017.

predecessor	Office	successor
João Batista Becker	Archbishop of Porto Alegre 1946–1981	João Cláudio Colling