֎Orani João Cardinal Tempesta (elevated 2014)

IMAGE CREDIT
Marinha do Brasil, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
LINKS Vatican bio of Cardinal Orani João TEMPESTA:

https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/documentation/cardinali_biografie/cardinali_bio_tempesta_oj.html       

Orani João TEMPESTA on FIU's Cardinals Database (by Salvador Miranda):

https://cardinals.fiu.edu/bios2014.htm#Tempesta    

Cardinal Orani João TEMPESTA on Gcatholic.org:

https://gcatholic.org/p/5693                       

Cardinal Orani João TEMPESTA on Catholic-Hierarchy.org:

https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/btempesta.html  

Archdiocese of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro on Gcatholic.org:

https://gcatholic.org/dioceses/diocese/zseb0.htm?tab=info       

Archdiocese of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro on Catholic-Hierarchy.org:

https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dsase.html

Abbey of Nossa Senhora de São Bernardo (Portuguese):

https://www.cistercienses.org.br/en/mosteiros-da-ordem-cisterciense/abadia-de-nossa-senhora-de-s%C3%A3o-bernardo

“Currently inhabited monasteries” on Cistopedia.org 

https://www.cistopedia.org/index.php?id=580 2013 The Guardian reporting on World Youth Day in Rio:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/28/pope-world-youth-day-mass-rio

2016 Sim Sou Católico blog firefight coverage:

https://www.simsoucatolico.com.br/2016/06/cardeal-tempesta-fica-preso-em-tiroteio-no-rio-de-janeiro.html?m=1 

The Guardian coverage of 2014 robbery:   

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/16/brazil-armed-robbers-rio-de-janeiro-archbishop 

 

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TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to Popeular History, a library of Catholic knowledge and insights.

 

Check out the show notes for sources, further reading, and a transcript.

 

Today we're discussing another current Cardinal of the Catholic Church, one of the 120 or so people who will choose the next Pope when the time comes.

 

The youngest of nine, Orani João TEMPESTA, who typically drops the Orani part, was born on June 23, 1950 in São José do Rio Pardo, in the São Paulo state in southeastern Brazil.

 

We've had like a Brazilian Brazilian cardinals, so I'll skip the national details. And ok, just four, which is fewer than I was thinking, but I'm keeping the joke in anyways because it amuses me.

 

João joined the Cistercian Order in 1968 at the ripe old age of 17, entering the monastery of Nossa Senhora de São Bernardo, all without leaving his hometown, which must have been very convent. I mean convenient. Simple vows followed in ‘69, followed by a period of study with the ever popular combo of philosophy and theology, and then in 1972 he did his solemn profession.

 

As we'll see, it sometimes seems like João has a schedule to keep, and so like clockwork the next year he was made a deacon, and the year after that, 1974 if you've lost count, João Tempesta was ordained as a priest for the order by the local diocesan bishop, a fairly standard arrangement but hold that thought for later.

 

From 1974 to 1984, Father Tempesta served as the Vice-Prior of the monastery, which may have been the plan all along as they prepped him for the priesthood, given the nature of that as a sort of a vocation within the vocation in his religious life. In the same period, it's worth noting, he also served as vicar of the parish in town, which basically means he was second in command of both buildings. In 1984, he became first in command in both, starting with his elevation to Prior of the monastery in July, and then becoming pastor of the parish on December 7th, which incidentally was also the 10th anniversary of his priestly ordination.

 

By this point he was getting out more, he had actually already done some additional studying in the next state over that I glossed over, and at some point here he became a professor in the seminary in the cathedral city of São João da Boa Vista.

 

Father Tempesta’s time as Prior came to an end in 1993, but the best was yet to come. In ‘96 the monastery was promoted from a Priory to an Abbey, which is sort of kind of like a Diocese going to an Archdiocese, though I'm sure that analogy has its flaws. In any event, Tempesta the prior Prior was elected as its first abbot. Admittedly I'm more secure in my knowledge on the diocesan end, in part because the specific workings of religious orders vary from one order to the next and there are a LOT of different orders, but that's just as well, because Father Tempesta barely had time to get his special abbatial blessing before his white phone rang and he was chosen as the bishop of São José do Rio Preto. Seriously, it was about two and a half months from one to the other.

 

Perhaps surprisingly for a monk, as Bishop, Tempesta was rather engaged with media, being elected as member of the superior council of the Brazilian Institute of Christian Communications that oversees the #1 Catholic TV station in the country-and keep in mind this is the country with the most Catholics, period. Eventually, he would become that organization's president.

 

Ok, so now remember that thought I told you to hold about how it's fairly standard for a diocesan bishop to be involved in the running of local monasteries? Well, that wasn't always the case everywhere, though it *has* always been a thing… there's a lot I could get into here, and a lot I *will* get into in the main narrative of Popeular History about this, but suffice to say the model of monasteries as part of a larger diocese isn't the only model. There are also what's called territorial abbeys, where the Abbot actually has jurisdiction outside the Abbey itself over a certain geographic area, functioning as the Ordinary and canonical equivalent of a bishop over that surrounding area, not to mention over the Abbey itself. I'm bringing this up now because in 1999, Bishop Tempesta added Territorial Abbot of the Cistercian Abbey of Claraval to his duties. Unfortunately, that fairly unique setup was not to last, as in 2002 Claraval lost its status  as a Territorial Abbey, becoming part of the local diocese. My sense is that Tempesta, being a friendly Cistercian face but also a diocesan bishop, was chosen for the final Territorial Abbot role to help ease the transition.

 

I went down a bit of a rabbit hole myself to see if Claraval is still active- it became a Priory after losing its Territorial Abbacy status, and I did track down the name of a prior after Bishop-Abbot Tempesta, but their web presence doesn't seem to have been maintained [I said “on the mainland”, man I was tired recording this]. I did find an entry on them on Cistopedia, which is a resource I was happy to learn exists, and they’re listed there as an active monastery,  but I wasn't able to conform to my satisfaction that that list itself was current.

 

Anyways, back to Bishop Tempesta, who is no doubt feeling the loss of what may well have been the last active territorial abbacy outside Europe, not counting a defunct one in North Korea, which remains active on the books as its own kind of statement.

 

In 2003, Tempesta was elected president of the Episcopal Commission for Culture, Education and Social Communications, a role which he held until 2011. Like I said, a surprisingly media-oriented monk.

 

In 2004 he became an archbishop, being promoted to the metropolitan see of Belém do Pará, well to the north of the country. Later that same year, he was made a titular member of National Council of Social Communications of the Federal Senate, whatever that is. But he refused to settle for the rank of titular member and became President of that council too in 2012. The man never met a council he didn't become president of.

 

In 2008 he got an honorary doctorate, which must have been nice, and in 2009 he was transferred to another see again, this time the top dog spot in the Archdiocese of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro. I know these Brazilian names can get a lot of names on them, but I bet you've heard of the town's shorter name, Rio. A city of six million with the giant hilltop Jesus statue I'm also willing to bet you're familiar with, Rio is neither Brazil’s capital nor it's largest city, but it's the place to be, especially if the year is 2013 and you're a Catholic, because then Rio was the host city of the much balleyhooed World Youth Day, a periodic mega gathering of young Catholics that often sets crowd record sizes for the Papal masses. The 2013 edition was attended by over 3 million people. Ok, the source I checked said “three million” for the final mass, not “over three million”, but I'm assuming there was at least one attendee that decided to skip the final mass that I can still include in the overall event tally, right?

 

Anyways, can you guess why I'm bringing all this up? Because the host was, of course, the local Archbishop, our friend, Tempesta.

 

Ok, I just looked at my word count and all I can say is oops. We better make Tempesta a Cardinal NOW. And so Pope Francis did, in his 2014 consistory.

 

In 2016, Cardinal Tempesta had to hide behind his car for 10 minutes when his trip was interrupted by a firefight between law enforcement and armed robbers. Just throwing that in in case you were wondering whether any cardinals have had to do *that*. Oh, for what it's worth, he had already personally been the victim of two armed robberies by that point, one in 2014, one in 2015. Like I said, clockwork. In 2014 they stole his ring, his crucifix, and his pen, that last one just seems petty.

 

In addition to everything else he’s up to, Cardinal Tempesta is currently a member of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, as well as the following Dicasteries-

 

-For Culture and Education,

-For Evangelization, and 

-For Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

Orani João Cardinal TEMPESTA is eligible to participate in future conclaves until he turns 80 in 2030.

 

Today's episode is part of Cardinal Numbers. Stay tuned to see if today's Cardinal gets selected for a deeper dive in the next round! Thank you for listening; God bless you all!