Bishop of Óbidos
Bishop Bernardo Johannes Bahlmann, O.F.M., Bishop of Óbidos, Pará, Brazil, was born on 10 December 1960 in Visbek, Germany. At the vocational school of Wildeshausen he studied economics, agronomy, and animal husbandry. He arrived in Brazil when he was 22 years old and entered the postulancy of the Order of Friars Minor in Guaratinguetá, then the novitiate in Rodeio. He studied philosophy at the São Boaventura Institute in Campo Largo and theology at the Franciscan Theological Institute in Petrópolis. He made religious profession in the Order of Friars Minor on 4 October 1991 and was ordained a priest on 12 July 1997 in Visbek. He subsequently served as parochial vicar; president of the Terra Santa Educational Center in Petrópolis from 1998 to 2007; member of the presbyteral council of the diocese of Petrópolis; several times guardian of houses of the Friars Minor; general visitor of the Franciscan Custody of São Benedito of the Amazon; head of the Albergue São Francisco Project and the Centro Franciscano de Re-inserção Social in São Paulo; and provincial coordinator of the Campaign for the Elimination of Leprosy.