Brasilia, Brazil (Monday, 04/20/2015, Gaudium Press) The new president of the Brazilian Catholic Bishops Conference (CNBB) is the Archbishop of Brasilia, His Excellency Sergio da Rocha (55), elected today on the first ballot, succeeding Cardinal Raymundo Damasceno.
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During the course of the 53rd National Assembly of the Brazilian Catholic Bishop, held in Aparecida Do Norte, Archbishop Sergio da Rocha received 215 votes, that is 19 votes more than the two-thirds required to be elected.
Born October 21, 1959, in Matao in the state of São Paulo, one the most important states of the country, he was ordained a priest in the Church of Senhor Bom Jesus de Matão, on December 14, 1984.
Later, in 2001, he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Fortaleza, in the state of Ceará, by Saint Pope John Paul II, and his Episcopal ordination was held in August of that year, in the Cathedral of São Carlos in the State of Sao Paulo.
In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him as Coadjutor Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Teresina, State of Piauí, and in 2011, as metropolitan archbishop of Brasilia, Brazil’s capital.
Having studied philosophy at the San Carlos Seminary, in São Paulo, and theology at the Pontifical University of Campinas, Archbishop Sergio da Rocha has a master in Moral Theology from the Pontifical Faculty of Theology Our Lady of the Assumption and a doctorate from the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. (LMI, ANH)
From the Editor’s Desk at Gaudium Press, with information from the CNBB
