Joaquim Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti

infobox cardinalstyles
cardinal name=Joaquim Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti
dipstyle=His Eminence
offstyle=Your Eminence
See=São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro|

Joaquim Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cardinal Cavalcanti (born January 17, 1850, Cimbres, Pernambuco, Brazil; died April 18, 1930, Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) was the first Cardinal to be born in the Americas and the first cardinal from any South American diocese (Spanish prelates who served dioceses in the West Indies had been appointed cardinals for many years prior to Cavalcanti's elevation).

Born into a prominent family in the Northeast of Brazil, he showed an early vocation for the priesthood but the absence of local seminaries meant that he did all his studied prior to becoming a priest in Rome. However, after being ordained in 1874, Cavalcanti returned to Olinda to become rector of the new seminary there. He was nominated a bishop by Pope Leo XIII in 1888 but refused; however, when Pope Leo, obviously believing very firmly in his ability, nominated him again three years later to the diocese of Goiás he accepted his nomination very willingly.

In 1897 Cavalcanti was promoted to the see of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro, then clearly the highest position on the Latin American Church. Although Leo did not name him a cardinal, Pope Pius X did so in his second consistory on December 11, 1905. He was only the second cardinal from the Southern Hemisphere behind Francis Patrick Moran, who had been elevated in 1885.

He participated in the conclave in 1914 but decided voluntarily not to make the journey to Rome for the 1922 conclave - something that Pius XI effectively outlawed by increasing the time between the death of a Pope and the start of a conclave.

External links

* [http://www.fiu.edu/~mirandas/bios-c.htm#Cavalcanti Biography]
* [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13466b.htm São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro]