Aloísio Lorscheider

infobox cardinalstyles
cardinal name=Aloísio Leo Arlindo Cardinal Lorscheider
dipstyle=His Eminence
offstyle=Your Eminence
relstyle=Cardinal
deathstyle=not applicable
See=Aparecida (emeritus)|

Aloísio Leo Arlindo Cardinal Lorscheider, O.F.M. (October 8 1924 – December 23 2007) was a prominent cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church in Brazil during the 1970s and 1980s. He was renowned as an advocate of liberation theology in the 1970s and was seen by some observers as a serious candidate for the papacy in the two conclaves of 1978.

Lorscheider was of German descent, born Estrela, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and he entered the local Franciscan minor seminary of Taquari at the tender age of nine years. He began his novitiate in December 1942 and was fully ordained as a priest on August 22 1948. He taught a number of subjects - German, mathematics, Latin - but it was not long before he went to Rome to study dogmatic theology. Lorscheider graduated in 1952, and returned to Brazil to teach that same subject at the Franciscan Seminary of Divinopolis.

In 1958 Lorscheider was called back to Rome to teach, and in 1962 he was rewarded for his service in this area by being made Bishop of the local diocese of Santo Ângelo. Lorscheider attended the Second Vatican Council between 1962 and 1965 but it was not until he was moved from this local diocese to the Archdiocese of Fortaleza in the northeastern state of Ceará.

It was as a result of this move that Lorscheider developed his outspoken stance on the appalling poverty that blighted the region. He believed that the Church was obliged to take a firm stand against this poverty and his hardworking and personable character allowed him to develop links with the poor that he observed to be lacking in previous generations of priests. He was a vehement critic of Brazil's military regime and its torture of political opponents and favoured a flexible approach to church structure.

As Lorscheider grew in popularity with his flock and his ability as a prelate was recognised, Pope Paul VI gave him a cardinal's hat in May 1976. Although at the time he was the fourth-youngest cardinal in the college, Lorscheider already doubted his own health. However, he was considered by observers such as Ladbrokes (who had him at odds of 33 to 1) as a serious "papabile" in the August 1978 conclave and many sources say Lorscheider received as many as twelve votes on the first two ballots of that conclave. It is also thought Lorscheider was one of the most vital supporters of Albino Luciani's rise to the papacy, and also of Karol Wojtyła's in the October 1978 conclave.

However, it was around this time that Cardinal Lorscheider's influence reached its apogee. With the crackdown on dissent in the Wojtyła papacy, especially after Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) became prefect of the Congregation For The Doctrine Of The Faith in 1981, he often found himself opposing brother cardinals whom he had been very firmly associated with during the Montini papacy. He defended Leonardo Boff when that theologian was brought to heel by Ratzinger in the 1980s, and continued his strong social activism - being jailed briefly in 1993 as a result of participating in a protest against government policy. In 1995 Lorscheider, declining in health much further than was observed during the 1970s, was transferred to the diocese of Aparecida in São Paulo State, but he remained extremely critical of what he believed to be the excessive "Eurocentrism" of Vatican powerbrokers.

After John Paul II died he said that the European cardinals' "sense of superiority" would not allow them to elect a non-European pope. Fact|date=June 2007 He resigned the pastoral government of the Aparecida archdiocese at the beginning of 2004. Ineligible to vote (over the age of 80) and in poor health, Lorscheider did not attend the pre-conclave discussions for the 2005 conclave that elected Ratzinger as John Paul II's successor.

He died on December 23 2007 in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

External links

* [http://www.fiu.edu/~mirandas/bios-l.htm Biography (scroll down about two-thirds of the way)]
* [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/23/AR2007122300638.html Influential Brazilian Cardinal, 83 Dies]
* [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3181159.ece Obituary in "The Times", January 14, 2008]