New cardinal profile: Patriarch Manuel Clemente
January 08, 2015
Second on the list of new cardinals announced by Pope Francis on January 4 is Patriarch Manuel José Macário do Nascimento Clemente, 66. The Lisbon prelate is one of the Church’s few Latin-rite patriarchs and will be created a cardinal on February 14.
The Archdiocese of Lisbon was raised to the dignity of a patriarchal see in 1716, and each of its patriarchs over the past three centuries has been a cardinal.
The future cardinal was born in 1948 in Torres Vedras, a western Portuguese city of 80,000 near Lisbon. After earning a degree in history at the University of Lisbon, he entered Lisbon’s seminary in 1973 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1979.
In 1989, he became the vice-rector of the Lisbon seminary and earned his doctorate in historical theology at the Catholic University of Portugal in 1992. His doctoral thesis was entitled “On the origins of the contemporary apostolate in Portugal: the ‘Catholic Society’ (1843-1853).”
Five years later, he was named the seminary’s rector. In 1999, St. John Paul II appointed him an auxiliary bishop of Lisbon.
In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI named him bishop of Porto, which vies with Lisbon in being the most populous of the nation’s 20 dioceses. As the author of dozens of books and other studies, the prelate became a leading figure in Portuguese Catholic intellectual life and in 2009 was the first cleric ever awarded the Pessoa Prize, the nation’s leading cultural award. In May 2013, Pope Francis named Bishop Clemente the patriarch of Lisbon.
Upon hearing that he was named a cardinal, Patriarch Clemente said that he “identified himself absolutely with [the Pope’s] pontificate and thought,” and the nation’s president said that the appointment confirmed the longtime ties between the Church and Portugal.
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Further information:
- Annuncio di Concistoro per la creazione di nuovi Cardinali (Holy See Press Office)
- D. Manuel Clemente sucede a D. José Policarpo como Patriarca de Lisboa (Patriarchate of Lisbon)
- “É um gosto colaborar ainda mais diretamente com o Papa Francisco” (Patriarchate of Lisbon)
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