Padre Cícero
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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 ...
Cícero Romão Batista, known as Father Cícero ( pt, Padre Cícero) (March 24, 1844 – July 20, 1934), was a Brazilian Catholic 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. 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 Roman 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, pa ...
 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; 


Biography

Batista was born in the Municipality of
Crato, Ceará Crato is a city of 130,000 inhabitants on the banks of the river Granjeiro in the south of the state of Ceará, in the northeast of Brazil. It was founded on June 21, 1764 by the Capuchin friar Carlos Maria de Ferrara. Originally it was a small vi ...
, in 1844, the son of Joaquim Romão Batista and Joaquina Vicência Romana. When he was six years old, he started to study under Rufino de Alcântara Montezuma. In his youth, he took a vow of chastity, made when he was twelve years old. This was influenced by his reading the life of
Francis de Sales Francis de Sales (french: François de Sales; it, Francesco di Sales; 21 August 156728 December 1622) was a Bishop of Geneva and is revered as a saint in the Catholic Church. He became noted for his deep faith and his gentle approach to ...
. In 1860, Batista went to school in Cajazeiras, but because of the untimely death of his father in 1862, he had to return home to his mother and sisters. The death of his father, who was a small businessman in Crato, brought serious financial difficulties to his family. Batista was
ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform va ...
a priest on November 30, 1870. After his ordination he returned to Crato and taught Latin in the Colégio Padre Ibiapina, founded and directed by José Joaquim Teles Marrocos, his cousin and friend.


Juazeiro

For Christmas of 1871, invited by his teacher Simeão Correia de Macedo, Batista visited for the first time the small community of Juazeiro (which at the time was part of Crato) and celebrated the traditional ''Missa do galo'' (
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 ...
at Dawn). Batista, who was 28 years old, impressed the locals. And he was impressed by them. So after a few months, on April 11, 1872, he was back in Juazeiro with his family and suitcases, to stay there as a permanent resident. Many books state that Batista decided to stay in Juazeiro because of a dream or vision that he had. This supposed dream occurred after a long day of hearing confessions, when he looked for a room to rest in and fell asleep. According to his close friends, he saw Jesus Christ and the twelve apostles sitting at a table, similar to Leonardo da Vinci's ''Last Supper''. Suddenly, the place was full of poor Northeastern Brazilians. Christ, looking to the poor, said that he was upset with humanity, but that he was still willing to do the last sacrifice to save the world. But, if men didn't repent quickly, he was going to destroy everything at once. At that moment, he pointed to the poor and, said, "And you, Padre Cícero, take care of them!" In 1889, when Maria de Araujo received
Holy Communion The Eucharist (; from Greek , , ), also known as Holy Communion and the Lord's Supper, is a Christian rite that is considered a sacrament in most churches, and as an ordinance in others. According to the New Testament, the rite was instituted ...
from Batista, her mouth started to bleed. While the local people saw this as a miracle, church authorities suspected other causes. The
Holy Office The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) is the oldest among the departments of the Roman Curia. Its seat is the Palace of the Holy Office in Rome. It was founded to defend the Catholic Church from heresy and is the body responsible f ...
in
Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...
charged him with heresy and mystification. His faculties to celebrate Mass and the
sacraments A sacrament is a Christian rite that is recognized as being particularly important and significant. There are various views on the existence and meaning of such rites. Many Christians consider the sacraments to be a visible symbol of the real ...
were suspended in 1894, though he continued to celebrate Mass at his church. In 1898, he met with
Pope Leo XIII Pope Leo XIII ( it, Leone XIII; born Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci; 2 March 1810 – 20 July 1903) was the head of the Catholic Church from 20 February 1878 to his death in July 1903. Living until the age of 93, he was the second-old ...
in Rome, and he was granted a partial reprieve.


Apostleship

Batista initially started work on the small local chapel, getting different images with the offerings of the faithful. Afterwards, touched by the burning desire to win over the people that God confided into his care, he started intense preaching. He gave many counsels, and made many visits to homes, starting to exercise great leadership in the community. Also, he began to try to change the immoral customs of the people, personally getting rid of excessive drunkenness and prostitution. With harmony restored, the community started to grow. Many people from neighboring communities were attracted by the new large chapel.


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 Droughht 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: ''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 discontented with the d ...
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. 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."


Death

Batista died on July 20, 1934, in Juazeiro do Norte, Brazil, at the age of 90. He was buried in the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help.


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
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 ...
, 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
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, pa ...
, the Vatican body responsible for beatification and canonization processes, informing about the authorization of
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. ...
for the opening of the beatification process of Batista. With the authorization of the Vatican, Batista automatically receives the title of "
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 ...
".


References


External links


Pequena Biografia do Padre Cícero - O Cearense do Século



PORTAL PADRE CÍCERO
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cicero, Padre 1844 births 1934 deaths Brazilian Servants of God People from Juazeiro do Norte Folk saints 19th-century Brazilian Roman Catholic priests 19th-century venerated Christians 20th-century Brazilian Roman Catholic priests 20th-century venerated Christians