Bishop Moacir Aparecido de Freitas

Bishop Moacir Aparecido de Freitas, Bishop of Votuporanga, was born on August 22, 1962, in Ibirá, in the Diocese of Catanduva and in the Brazilian state of São Paulo, and he was baptized in the parish of São Lourenço at Urupês on December 2, 1962. He received his schooling at Urupês and at José Bonifácio, studied philosophy at the Sagrado Coração de Jesus major seminary in São José do Rio Preto from 1981 to 1982 and began theology there in 1983, and completed his theological studies at the Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas from 1984 to 1987, taking a licentiate in philosophy at the Salesian faculty of philosophy, sciences and letters in Lorena in the same year. He was ordained a deacon in the parish of São Lourenço at Urupês on October 24, 1987, and he was ordained a priest on December 11, 1987, both ordinations conferred by Constantino Amstalden, Bishop of São Carlos. In 1988 he was parochial vicar of Nossa Senhora do Patrocínio Parish in Jaú and chaplain of the Santa Casa hospital there; from 1989 to 1990 he was parish priest of Nossa Senhora Aparecida Parish in Américo Brasiliense; from 1991 to 1992 he was co-parish priest of Senhor Bom Jesus Parish in Ibitinga; and from 1993 to 2016 he was parish priest of Santa Teresa de Ávila Parish in Ibitinga. In the Diocese of São Carlos he served as a representative on the presbyteral council in 1989, as coordinator of catechetical ministry for the fourth pastoral region from 1992 to 1996, as diocesan coordinator of the witness commission for the Towards the New Millennium project from 1997 to 1999, as coordinator of the school of theology for pastoral workers in the fourth pastoral region from 2001 to 2004, and as spiritual director at the São Carlos house of formation in Campinas from 2008 to 2016. On July 20, 2016, the Diocese of Votuporanga was erected and he was appointed its first bishop. He received episcopal ordination on October 11, 2016, at Patrimônio Novo, with Paulo Cezar Costa as principal consecrator and Airton José dos Santos and Moacir Silva as co-consecrators, and he was installed on October 22, 2016. His episcopal motto is Verbum panis factum est, "The Word became bread."