Francisco de São Luís


Francisco de São Luís, O.S.B. , religious name of Francisco Manuel Justiniano Saraiva and today more commonly known as Cardinal Saraiva, was a Portuguese Cardinal of the Catholic Church, who was the eighth Patriarch of Lisbon from 1840 to 1845.
An eminent figure of Portuguese society in his day, he became politically active after the French invasion during the Peninsular War, and became one of the founders of the liberal regime. During the Constitutional Monarchy, he occupied several important political offices, such as that of President of the Chamber of Deputies, Minister of the Kingdom, and Peer of the Realm.
As a researcher and author, Cardinal Saraiva was an authority in the fields of Philology and History: his ten-volume Complete Works were standard reference works for more than a century.

Biography

Francisco Manuel Justiniano Saraiva was the son of notary Manuel José Saraiva and his wife Leonor Maria Teodora Correia; born on 26 January 1766 in Rua das Flores, Ponte de Lima, he was baptized on 9 February in the town's Parish Church of Our Lady of the Angels.
At age 14, he joined the Monastery of São Martinho de Tibães, mother house of the Benedictines in Portugal, due to his "gifts of organ and plainsong". He made his religious vows on 29 January 1782, adopting the religious name Francisco de São Luís. He was transferred to the to carry on his studies in Philosophy. He earned a degree in Theology from the University of Coimbra in 1791, and soon after started teaching there.
Saraiva was an advocate of the ideals of Liberalism and Enlightenment. While it is often said that he had become a Freemason, Saraiva himself has left texts denying any association.
In 1808, following the French invasion of Portugal, he was named part of the patriotic Junta that was established to administer the Minho region while the Council of Regency was not re-established in Lisbon. In 1820, as the Liberal Revolution erupted in the city of Porto, calling for a constitutional monarchy and the return of King John VI from Brazil, Francisco de São Luís was called to be part of the revolutionary :pt:Junta Provisional do Governo Supremo do Reino|Provisional Junta of the Supreme Government of the Kingdom and its successor, the :pt:Regência de 1821|1821 Regency named by the elected General and Extraordinary Cortes.
As a result of the political instability of the time, the 1822 Constitution was suspended just one year later, following the Vilafrancada uprising. Saraiva renounced his public and ecclesiastical offices and retired to the Batalha Monastery. He would only return to politics in 1826, after the King granted a new Constitutional Charter, having been again elected to the Chamber of Deputies. When the absolutist Miguel I seized power in 1828, Saraiva once again retreated to monastic life, in the Convent of Serra de Ossa in the Alentejo, where he remained until the end of the Portuguese Civil War.
After the civil war ended in 1834 and constitutional monarchy was established, Saraiva was once again actively envolved in politics: he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1834, 1836, and 1838; from 1834 to 1835 he was made Minister of the Kingdom in the Duke of Palmela's first constitutional cabinet.
In the aftermath of the civil war the liberal regime stripped many privileges away from the Church, and Saraiva had an important role in the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with the Holy See. Saraiva was appointed Patriarch of Lisbon by Queen Maria II in 1840; the appointment was preconised by Pope Gregory XVI by the bull Onerosa pastoralis on 3 April 1843. Later that same year, on 19 June 1843, Saraiva was made a Cardinal.

Distinctions

National orders