Pope Benedict XVI named Brazilian
Archbishop Joao Braz de Aviz of Brasilia, not a member of a religious
order, to head the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and
Societies of Apostolic Life.
The 63-year-old archbishop succeeds Cardinal Franc Rode, the 76-year-old
Vincentian who held the post for almost seven years. The normal
retirement age for curia officials is 75.
Since 1973, prelates ordained for religious orders and for dioceses have
alternated in holding the post of prefect of the congregation
overseeing religious life in the Catholic Church. In the past 100 years,
11 of the 18 prefects did not belong to a religious order.
Archbishop Braz de Aviz was born in Mafra in 1947 and did his initial
seminary studies in Brazil before being sent to Rome, where he earned
degrees from the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Pontifical
Lateran University.
Ordained to the priesthood in 1972 for the Diocese of Apucarana, he
served as a parish priest, as a professor of dogmatic theology in a
seminary and as rector of the seminaries in Apucarana and Londrina.
In 1994, he was named auxiliary bishop of Vitoria. Four years later, he
became bishop of Ponta Grossa. In 2002, he was named archbishop of
Maringa and in 2004 was named archbishop of Brasilia.
Cardinal Rode's tenure at the congregation has been marked by strong
support for religious congregations -- especially new communities --
that emphasize what many consider to be a very traditional style of
religious life and by criticism of orders seen as having gone too far in
adapting to modern life since the Second Vatican Council.
The Slovenian cardinal has blamed much of the drop in numbers of
consecrated men and women on the secularization of society and of
religious orders themselves.
"The secularized culture has penetrated into the minds and hearts of
some consecrated persons and some communities, where it is seen as an
opening to modernity and a way of approaching the contemporary world,"
he said in a speech in Naples, Italy, last February.
In January 2009, Cardinal Rode ordered an apostolic visitation of women's orders in the United States.
Cardinal Rode said the visitation was designed "to encourage vocations
and assure a better future for women religious" in the United States by
responding to concerns involving "some irregularities or omissions in
American religious life. Most of all, you could say, it involves a
certain secular mentality that has spread in these religious families
and, perhaps, also a certain 'feminist' spirit."
SIC: CNS/INT'L