Patriarch of Lisboa
Rui Manuel Sousa Valério was born on December 24, 1964, in Urqueira, in the municipality of Ourém. He entered the novitiate of the Montfort Fathers congregation in 1984 in Santeramo in Colle, Italy, and a year later moved to Rome, where he pursued studies in philosophy and, starting in 1987, theology. He made his perpetual profession in October 1990 and was ordained a priest on March 23, 1991. In 1995, he began a course in spirituality at the *Centre International Montfortain*. Upon returning to Portugal, he enrolled at the Catholic University of Portugal in Lisbon. From a pastoral perspective, his work was primarily focused at the parish level. He served twice in Castro Verde, in the Diocese of Beja (Baixo Alentejo), and twice as a collaborator at the Parish of Póvoa de Santo Adrião, in the Vicariate of Loures-Odivelas (Patriarchate of Lisbon). Between 2008 and 2011, he served as a military chaplain for the Navy at the Naval School. On September 25, 2011, he assumed the role of parish priest at Póvoa de Santo Adrião, and in 2016—the Year of Mercy—he was one of the 1,071 priests sent by the Pope as "Missionaries of Mercy" during the Extraordinary Jubilee. On October 27, 2018, Pope Francis appointed him Bishop of the Armed Forces and Security Forces of Portugal; he received episcopal ordination on November 25, 2018, at the Jerónimos Monastery in Lisbon, in a ceremony presided over by the then-Cardinal-Patriarch of Lisbon, Manuel Clemente. From that date, he concluded his duties as parish priest of Póvoa de Santo Adrião. On December 3, 2018, he took office as the chief chaplain for the Catholic Church. On several occasions, he accompanied international missions of the Portuguese Armed Forces and security forces deployed to countries such as São Tomé and Príncipe, Guinea-Bissau, the Central African Republic, Romania, and Lithuania. On December 3, 2021, D. Rui Valério was awarded the Saint George Cross Medal (1st Class) by the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces. Prior to that, on June 26, 2020, the new Patriarch of Lisbon had received the highest decoration of the National Republican Guard (GNR), the D. Nuno Álvares Pereira Medal (1st Class). D. Rui Valério also serves as the Portuguese Episcopal Conference’s delegate for relations between bishops and consecrated life and is a member of the Episcopal Commission for Mission and New Evangelization.