25 may, 2012
| Message of Fatima is very present in the Diocese of Bragança-Miranda The Most Rev. José Manuel Garcia Cordeiro, Bishop of Bragança-Miranda, presides over the International Anniversary Pilgrimage of June 12/13. Bishop Cordeiro is the 44th bishop of the Diocese of Bragança-Miranda. In declarations to the Shrine of Fatima, he spoke of the Marian devotion in his diocese and revealed the message he is bringing to Fatima. While mentioning the “great joy and honor” he felt for being invited to preside over the pilgrimage, Bishop Cordeiro stressed the love the people of Northern Portugal nurture for Mary: “The geography of the Diocese of Bragança-Miranda is deeply Marian; it has more than 70 shrines and some 64 parishes dedicated to Our Lady. The Message of Fatima is very present also, as evidenced by the diocesan Shrine of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in Cerejais, Alfândega da Fé, which celebrates this year the 50th anniversary of its foundation”. This year’s Anniversary Pilgrimage of the second apparition of Our Lady at Fatima has as motto: “What shall I do to attain eternal life?” Bishop Cordeiro goes on to say that, at Cova da Iria, he will speak about “a message of Hope, the message so old and always new of the Gospel of Hope, which I serve. Under the theme of the Shrine (of Fatima) and looking at Mary, the wonderful woman of Hope, I’ll invite all to give their lives as an offering to God and others at this moment in history”. Bishop Cordeiro was named Bishop of Bragança-Miranda on July 18, 2011 and ordained bishop on October 2 of the same year, at the Cathedral of Bragança. Asked to give a balance of his first seven months at the service of this diocese, he says: “The balance of these first months as Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ, which peregrinates in Bragança-Miranda, is wonderfully positive and continues to be a challenge. I have already listened to many appeals and faced many challenges, and, in prayer, work and in interpersonal relations, experienced the blooming cross of Easter in this Eastern region of Trás-os-Montes, as being like many hills of Hope”. |
