Cícero Romão Batista (24 March 1844 – 20 July 1934) also known as "Padre Cícero", was a Brazilian

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

priest who became a spiritual leader to the people of

Northeastern Brazil The Northeast Region of Brazil ( pt, Região Nordeste do Brasil; ) is one of the five official and political regions of Brazil, regions of the country according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. Of Brazil's twenty-six state ...

. In the course of his ministry, he was accused of

heresy Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...

by Catholic Church officials, eventually becoming suspended but not formally

excommunicated Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to end or at least regulate the communion of a member of a congregation with other members of the religious institution who are in normal communion with each other. The purpose ...

. Batista has been declared a

saint In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of Q-D-Š, holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and Christian denomination, denominat ...

by the

Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church , image =Emblema da Igreja Católica Apostólica Brasileira.png , imagewidth = , caption =Emblem of the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church , main_classification = Western Christian , orientation =Independent Catholic , polity = Episcopa ...

. He was listed in the ''Top 100 Greatest Brazilians of All Time'' in July 2012. The official reconciliation with the Catholic Church happened in December 2015 and his beatification process opened on August 20, 2022 after the

Dicastery for the Causes of Saints In the Catholic Church, the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, previously named the Congregation for the Causes of Saints (), is the dicastery of the Roman Curia that oversees the complex process that leads to the canonization of saints, pass ...

issued the official "

nihil obstat ''Nihil obstat'' (Latin for "nothing hinders" or "nothing stands in the way") is a declaration of no objection that warrants censoring of a book, e.g., Catholic published books, to an initiative, or an appointment. Publishing The phrase ''ni ...

" (no objections to the cause) edict and titled him as a

servant of God "Servant of God" is a title used in the Catholic Church to indicate that an individual is on the first step toward possible canonization as a saint. Terminology The expression "servant of God" appears nine times in the Bible, the first five in th ...

Biography

Politician

His relationship with politics began in 1901 with the visit of Count von de Brule, on a mission from the Secretariat of the Interior of Ceará, to land he owned in Crato, in the town of Taboca, where there was knowledge of oil shale outcrops of economic importance. Only in 1919, the then governor of Ceará, João Tomé de Saboia e Silva, would visit the outcrops and order the construction of galleries, who would later be named Mina Santa Rosa. Due to excessive heat and poor ventilation, work was interrupted for two years. In 1921, the Federal Inspectorate of Works against Drought financed drilling in this land and in October 1922, the chemist, geologist and mineralogist Sylvio Froes Abreu, then aged nineteen, reported that the bituminous shale contained potential for the production of lubricating oils and fuels. Batista was actively involved in the politics of his time and was a member of the

Conservative Republican Party The Conservative Republican Party (Portuguese language, Portuguese: ''Partido Republicano Conservador'', PRC) was a Brazilian political party founded in October 1910 to represent the republican and oligarchic ideals of agrarian elites of states di ...

of Brazil. When Juazeiro was raised to the status of a municipality in 1911, he was appointed its first mayor. He governed the city in this capacity for most of the next twenty years. In 1926 he was elected federal deputy, but he did not take office. On October 4, 1911, he and sixteen other political leaders from the region met in Juazeiro and signed a mutual cooperation agreement, as well as a commitment to support Governor Antônio Pinto Nogueira Accioli. The meeting was nicknamed the Pact of Colonels, being considered an important passage in the history of Brazilian

coronelismo Coronelism, from the term ''Coronelismo'' () was the Brazilian political machine during the Old Republic (1889–1930), also known as the "rule of the coronels", responsible for the centralization of the political power in the hands of a loca ...

. In 1913, he was removed from office by Governor Marcos Franco Rabelo, returning to power in 1914, when Franco Rabelo was deposed in the event that became known as the Juazeiro Sedition. He was also elected vice-governor of Ceará, in the Government of General Benjamin Liberato Barroso. At the end of the 1920s, Padre Cícero began to lose his political strength, which practically ended after the

Revolution of 1930 The Revolution of 1930 () was an armed insurrection across Brazil that ended the Old Republic. The revolution replaced incumbent President Washington Luís with defeated presidential candidate and revolutionary leader Getúlio Vargas, concludi ...

. His prestige as a miracle worker however, would increase even more. Despite some attempts to relate Batista to communism and, much later, to

Liberation Theology Liberation theology is a Christian theological approach emphasizing the liberation of the oppressed. In certain contexts, it engages socio-economic analyses, with "social concern for the poor and political liberation for oppressed peoples". In ...

, he was deeply anti-communist. In an interview given in 1931, he stated: "Communism was started by the Devil. Lucifer is his name and the dissemination of his doctrine is the war of the Devil against God. I know communism and I know that it's evil. It's the continuation of the war of the fallen angels against the Creator and His children."

Legacy

Today, a large statue of Batista stands in

Juazeiro do Norte Juazeiro do Norte is a city in the state of Ceará state in northeastern Brazil. It is located 491 km south of the state capital Fortaleza in the semiarid sertão. The municipality has a population of 276,264 (2020 official estimate) and cov ...

, where he is considered to be the patron saint of the city. A pilgrimage to this statue takes place in his honour every November, attracting hundreds of thousands of followers. Batista was

canonized Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christianity, Christian communion declaring a person worthy of Cult (religious practice), public veneration and enterin ...

by the

, an Independent Catholic church. He is not recognized as a saint by the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

, though

Pope Benedict XVI Pope Benedict XVI ( la, Benedictus XVI; it, Benedetto XVI; german: link=no, Benedikt XVI.; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, , on 16 April 1927) is a retired prelate of the Catholic church who served as the head of the Church and the sovereign ...

proposed a study on Batista as a candidate for canonization. On 13 December 2015, as part of the opening ceremonies of the

Holy Year A jubilee is a special year of remission of sins and universal pardon. In ''Leviticus'', a Jubilee (biblical), jubilee year ( he, יובל ''yūḇāl'') is mentioned to occur every 50th year; during which slaves and prisoners would be freed, deb ...

proclaimed by

Pope Francis Pope Francis ( la, Franciscus; it, Francesco; es, link=, Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 17 December 1936) is the head of the Catholic Church. He has been the bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State since 13 March 2013. ...

, the Bishop of Crato, Fernando Panico, declared the rehabilitation of Batista's status with the Roman Catholic Church. He further declared Batista to have been a man of extraordinary virtues, formally reconciling him with the church.

Beatification process

On August 20, 2022, during a

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

held in Largo da Capela do Socorro, in Juazeiro do Norte, the bishop of the Diocese of Crato, , announced that he had received a letter from the

, the Vatican body responsible for beatification and canonization processes, informing about the authorization of

for the opening of the beatification process of Batista.

Biography

Politician

Legacy

Beatification process

References

Further reading