La Republica points out that Portuguese, from Francisco’s same current of thought, is “among the best known cardinals, with a strong cultural profile and the ability to reach a vast public”
The Italian newspaper La Republica puts Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, 59, as one of the strongest candidates for Papa.
The publication points out that Portuguese, from Francisco’s same thinking stream, is “among the best known cardinals, with a strong cultural profile and the ability to reach a vast public”.
Tolentino de Mendonça’s name comes up with others much spoken in the international press, such as Filipino Luis Antonio Tagle, current mayor of Dicthary for Evangelization, Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, and Peter Erddo, Budapest Archbishop.
Tolentino de Mendonça is the current mayor of the Dicker for culture and education. Poet awarded the person award in 2023, essayist, playwright, academic and theologian, was raised to cardinal in 2019.
Born in 1965 in Machico, Madeira, he lived in Angola until he was nine years old and was ordered a priest in 1990 by the Diocese of Funchal, concluding the master’s degree in Bible Sciences in 1992 and obtaining the degree of doctor in 2004, in Bible Theology from the Portuguese Catholic University, where he taught when he lived to Lisbon.
In 2010 he was appointed dean of the chapel of the rat, a place of prestige of the Patriarchate of Lisbon, a work that reconciled with his career of university teacher – was vice -rector of the Portuguese Catholic University – and writer, with a vast work published.
In 2011, it was to Rome, at the invitation of Bento XVI, that he appointed him consultant for the Pontifical Council for Culture and, in 2018, already with Francisco, was elected to Bishop, rising the cardinal the following year.
In 2020, the cardinal received the European award Helena Vaz da Silva and organized the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of the Vatican Modern Art collection.
Two years later, after the renovation of the Roman Curia, he assumed the position of mayor of the newly created Dicastery for Culture and Education, a body that resulted from the unification of the Congregation for Catholic Education and the Pontifical Council for Culture.
