Bishop António José da Rocha Couto

Bishop António José da Rocha Couto, Bishop of Lamego, was born on April 18, 1952, at Vila Boa do Bispo, in Marco de Canaveses and in the Diocese of Porto. On October 2, 1963, he entered the seminary of Tomar of the Portuguese Society for the Missions, now the Missionary Society of Boa Nova, and he made his first profession on August 1, 1971, and his perpetual profession on June 13, 1980. He was ordained a priest at Cucujães on December 3, 1980. He spent his first years of priesthood at the seminary of Tomar accompanying its senior students, and in the school year 1981 to 1982 he taught Catholic moral and religious education at the Santa Maria do Olival school in Tomar. In 1982 he completed the military chaplains' course at the Military Academy and was appointed a military chaplain. He then studied in Rome, obtaining a licentiate in sacred scripture in 1986, and spent a year in Jerusalem, where he took a degree in theology at the Franciscan Emmaus institute. He was professor of sacred scripture at Luanda, in Angola, where he also assisted in the pastoral work of a parish. Returning to Portugal, he was responsible for the formation of the theology students of the seminary of Valadares and was its rector from 1996 to 1999, and he taught at the Catholic University in Porto and in Lisbon. In 1999 he was designated vicar general of the Portuguese Society for the Missions, and on June 29, 2002, he was elected its superior general. On July 6, 2007, he was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Braga and Titular Bishop of Azura. He received episcopal ordination on September 23, 2007, at the seminary of the missions in Cucujães, with Jorge Ferreira da Costa Ortiga as principal consecrator and Manuel José Macário do Nascimento Clemente and António Augusto dos Santos Marto as co-consecrators. On November 19, 2011, he was appointed Bishop of Lamego, and he was installed on January 29, 2012. His episcopal motto is I see an almond branch.