António Joaquim de Medeiros

The Most Reverend
António Joaquim de Medeiros
明德祿
Bishop of Macau
Church Roman Catholic Church
See Macau
Appointed 4 September 1884
Term ended 7 January 1897
Predecessor Manuel Bernardo de Sousa Enes
Successor José Manuel de Carvalho
Orders
Ordination 1871
Consecration 15 August 1883
Se Cathedral, Old Goa
by Archbishop António Sebastião Valente
Personal details
Born 15 October 1846
Vilar de Nantes, Kingdom of Portugal
Died 7 January 1897 (aged 50)
Lahane, Portuguese Timor
Parents Augusto Luís Medeiros
Teresa de Jesus Carneiro
Motto Christus heri et hodie
Christ is the same yesterday and today
(from Hebrews 13:8)

António Joaquim de Medeiros (Chinese: 明德祿; 15 October 1846 – 7 January 1897) was a Portuguese prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He was born in Portugal, and ordained in 1871. By the mid-1870s he was working in Macau, and in 1877 he traveled to Portuguese Timor to serve in the Catholic missions there. In 1882, he was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Goa, and in 1884 he was selected Bishop of Macau. He served in that position until his death in 1897.

Biography

Early life and priesthoood

Medeiros was born on 15 October 1846 in the village of Vilar de Nantes, Portugal, near the city of Chaves. He was the only son of Augusto Luís Medeiros and Teresa de Jesus Carneiro.

Medeiros was ordained a priest in 1871. Following ordination he became a professor at St. Joseph's Seminary in Macau[1] I1873, he was appointed prefect, and two years later, dean, of the seminary. Also in 1875, he was appointed visitor of the Catholic missions in Portuguese Timor, and two years later rose to the position of vicar general.

Missionary work in Timor

When he arrived in Dili in 1877, Medeiros and a team of nine Portuguese priests and one Chinese priest from Macau, all trained at the Seminary of Bonjardim in Portugal.[2] He set about evangelizing the people, and reforming the mission. This was prompted by a visit Medeiros made to Timor two years earlier, in which he concernedly wrote to the Bishop of Macau, Manuel Bernardo de Sousa Enes, regarding the state of Timorese Christianity and social institutions, particularly the "primitive" and "immoral" state of marriage and the family.[2] Medeiros wrote:

"They don't know about family ties. The simplest principles of Natural and Moral Law, the social relationships that create a family amongst men: everything is ignorance, everything is misery amongst these unfortunate people."[2]

When Medeiros took over the missions, the priests set out evangelizing and combating "anti-Christian" institutions, and were fervent in their targeting of the barlake (Portuguese: barlaque) system, in which the chiefs of ruling houses would exchange wives as gifts.[2] "The Devil," as one priest dubbed it, was "always seeking the loss of souls," a "superstitious" institution that was seen by the missionaries as the main threat to the establishment of Christianity as the mainstream faith of Timorese society, because it encouraged polygyny and concubinage.[2] To combat this, Medeiros sent written instructions to his missionaries emphasizing the need to celebrate marriages and baptisms amongst the families of the tribal elite.[2]

In addition to the native resistance to the missionaries' efforts, Medeiros placed blame on the Portuguese colonial authorities, stemming from his belief in their tolerance and even complicity in the native practices, including barlake: He wrote:

In Timor there circulates as a commonplace the idea that the authorities are forced to respect the manners and customs of the natives, and therefore they have nothing to do with the pagan marriages between Christians. If they simply would do this, it would not be too bad, because the missionaries would rectify in practice such an absurd error; however, cases have occurred that demonstrate with clear evidence the very intolerable abuses of some hinterland authorities who fight against Catholic matrimony between Christian natives."[2]

Medeiros accused Portuguese officers of "spreading doctrines contrary [to Catholic teachings]" and of blocking missionary efforts.[2] This culminated in 1881 when Medeiros denounced the rape of two young native girls by a Portuguese military commandant and a Timorese noble, further accusing the officer of ordering a native chief to give him his daughters.[2] He also scathing denounced several military officers who ordered a tribal leader to hand over his young daughter, whom the men had seen in church.[2] Also around this time, comparable accusations of missionary priests having sexual relations with Timorese noblewomen were made by military officers.[2] These counter-accusations culminated around the same time when the Governor of Portuguese Timor, Celestino da Silva, wrote scathing letters to Medeiros as well as the Bishop of Macau, denouncing "scandalous" cases involving the priests.[2] The tension was so strong between the missionaries and the colonial authorities that Medeiros did at least once consider terminating the mission.[2] Medeiros wrote to the Bishop of Macau in 1881:

"[The missionaries] cannot baptize or marry even one régulo, without, for this reason, suffering threats from the military and even from the Governor; because of all this they [the missionaries] beg Your Excellency to order their withdrawal from Timor and their return to Portugal. As for myself I beg the same, and my wish is to accompany them and go away."[2]

Although the Bishop did not appear to heed these requests, the next year Medeiros did indeed leave the missions, leaving a remarkable and widely recognized legacy of a well-established Catholic faith, and education system, in Portuguese Timor.[2][3]

Episcopacy

On 29 August 1882, Pope Leo XIII appointed Medeiros Titular Bishop of Thermopylae and Auxiliary Bishop of Goa.[4] His consecration took place on 15 August 1883, and was presided over by Archbishop António Sebastião Valente, Archbishop of Goa.[4]

On 4 September 1884, Medeiros was selected Bishop of Macau, and was confirmed on 13 November of that same year.[4] In 1887, he served as principal consecrator of Bishop João Gomes Ferreira.[4] He was known to support the work of the Canossians in the diocese, and in 1890 he handed leadership of St. Joseph's Seminary to the Society of Jesus. He spent much of his time visiting far-flung parishes of the diocese, including St. Joseph Church in Singapore and St. Peter Church in Malacca, as well as regular trips to the parishes and missions of Timor.[5][5][6][7]

Death and legacy

He died on 7 January 1897, in Lahane, a small town near the city of Dili, Portuguese Timor, at the age of 50.[4]

In Macau, his memory lives on in the form of a street that bears his name.[8] In 1997, on the 100th anniversary of Medeiros' death, former seminarians of the Diocese of Díli's Our Lady of Fatima Minor Seminary organized the Fundaçao Bispo de Medeiros (English: Bishop de Medeiros Foundation), the aim of which is to continue Medeiros' work to preserve Timorese culture and promote human resources development.[3]

Episcopal lineage

Further reading

References

  1. ↑ Chinese Recorder. Presbyterian Mission Press. 1889-01-01.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Roque, Ricardo (2012). Marriage Traps: Colonial Interactions with Indigenous Marriage Ties in East Timor. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-726524-6. ISSN 0068-1202.
  3. 1 2 "former seminarians set up foundation and cultural center - ucanews.com". Retrieved 2016-08-05.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Cheney, David M. "Bishop Antônio Joaquim de Medeiros [Catholic-Hierarchy]". www.catholic-hierarchy.org. Retrieved 2016-08-03.
  5. 1 2 Monsenhor Manuel Teixeira, "Bispos, Missionários, Igrejas e Escolas: no IV Centenário da Diocese de Macau" (Macau e a sua Diocese, Vol. 12), Macau, Tipografia da Missão do Padroado, 1976; págs. 38, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81 e 82
  6. ↑ Monsenhor Manuel Teixeira, "Bispos, Missionários, Igrejas e Escolas: no IV Centenário da Diocese de Macau" (Macau e a sua Diocese, Vol. 12), Macau, Tipografia da Missão do Padroado, 1976; pág. 40, 41 e 42
  7. ↑ Tse Tak Ian（Domingos Lam as the original author）; Lao Yuk Heng; Ho Lao Yat Sing (2006). 天主教澳門教區主教簡介 (in Chinese). Macau: Macau Diocese Social Communication Center. ISBN 9993787701.
  8. ↑ Gunn, Geoffrey C. (2000-01-01). New World Hegemony in the Malay World. The Red Sea Press. ISBN 9781569021354.


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