Joaquim Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti

Who was Joaquim Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti?

Joaquim Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti was the first Cardinal to be born in Latin America and the first cardinal from any South American diocese. He was also the first Brazilian national to be made a Cardinal, the first Cardinal born in the Southern Hemisphere, and the second Cardinal to serve as ordinary of a See located south of the equator. He was known as "Cardeal Arcoverde".

Born into a prominent family in Cimbres, province of Pernambuco, in the Northeast of Brazil, he showed an early vocation for the priesthood but the absence of local seminaries meant that he did all his studies prior to becoming a priest in Rome. However, after being ordained in 1874, Arcoverde returned to Olinda to become rector of the new seminary there. He was nominated a bishop by Pope Leo XIII in 1888 but refused; however, when Pope Leo, obviously believing very firmly in his ability, nominated him again three years later to the diocese of Goiás he accepted his nomination very willingly.

In 1897 Arcoverde was promoted to the archiepiscopal see of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro, then clearly the highest position on the Latin American Church. Although Leo did not name him a cardinal, Pope Pius X did so in his second consistory on December 11, 1905. He was only the second cardinal to serve as ordinary of a diocese located in the Southern Hemisphere behind Francis Patrick Moran, the Irish-born Archbishop of Sydney who had been elevated in 1885. Arcoverde was the first Cardinal to be born in the Southern Hemisphere.