Luís Gonzaga Ferreira da Silva, S.J. (2 April 1923 – 7 August 2013) was a Portuguese

Prelate A prelate () is a high-ranking member of the Minister (Christianity), Christian clergy who is an Ordinary (church officer), ordinary or who ranks in precedence with ordinaries. The word derives from the Latin , the past participle of , which me ...

of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

. Silva was born in Rebordões, Portugal and ordained a priest on 11 July 1953 from the religious order of the

Society of Jesus The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 ...

. He was appointed bishop of the Diocese of Lichinga on 10 November 1972 and ordained on 17 December 1972. He retired from the Diocese of Lichinga on 25 January 2003. After his retirement he returned to the Angonia district on the other side of the

Lake Malawi Lake Malawi, also known as Lake Nyasa in Tanzania and Lago Niassa in Mozambique, () is an African Great Lakes, African Great Lake and the southernmost lake in the East African Rift system, located between Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. It is ...

, where he came from Portugal as a missionary priest from the

in the 1950s. He served as assistant parish priest among the Christian communities there. He died on 7 August 2013, a week after a heart attack.

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Catholic-Hierarchy

20th-century Roman Catholic bishops in Mozambique 21st-century Roman Catholic bishops in Mozambique 20th-century Portuguese Jesuits Portuguese Roman Catholic bishops in Africa 1923 births 2013 deaths Jesuit bishops Jesuit missionaries Portuguese Roman Catholic missionaries People from Santo Tirso Roman Catholic bishops of Lichinga Portuguese expatriates in Mozambique 21st-century Portuguese Jesuits {{Portugal-RC-bishop-stub