Concept

Aloísio Lorscheider

Summary
Aloísio Leo Arlindo Lorscheider, O.F.M. (8 October 1924 – 23 December 2007) was a Brazilian Roman Catholic cardinal during the 1970s and 1980s. He was known as an advocate of liberation theology in the 1970s and was seen by some observers as a serious candidate for the papacy in the two conclaves of 1978. Lorscheider was of German descent, born in Estrela, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. He entered the local Franciscan minor seminary of Taquari at the age of nine years. He began his novitiate in December 1942 and was ordained as a priest on 22 August 1948. He taught a number of subjects – German, mathematics, Latin – but it was not long before he went to Rome to study dogmatic theology. Lorscheider received his doctorate in 1952, and returned to Brazil to teach that same subject at the Franciscan Seminary of Divinopolis. In 1958 Lorscheider was called back to Rome to teach, and in 1962 made bishop of Santo Ângelo. Lorscheider attended the Second Vatican Council between 1962 and 1965, and he was named Archbishop of Fortaleza in the northeastern state of Ceará in 1973. After the first meeting between Church and Freemasonry which had been held on 11 April 1969 at the convent of the Divine Master in Ariccia, he was the protagonist of a series of public handshakes between high prelates of the Roman Catholic Church and the heads of Freemasonry. As Lorscheider grew in popularity with his flock and his ability as a prelate was recognised, Pope Paul VI gave him a cardinal's hat in May 1976, becoming Cardinal-Priest of S. Pietro in Montorio. Although at the time he was the fourth-youngest cardinal in the college, Lorscheider already doubted his own health. However, some oddsmakers with Ladbrokes (who had him at odds of 33 to 1) considered him a serious papabile in the August 1978 conclave. Lorscheider headed the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops from 1971 to 1978. He led the Latin American Episcopal Conference in 1976. In 1995, Pope John Paul II named Lorscheider Archbishop of Aparecida in São Paulo State.
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