Júlio Maria de Lombaerde

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Lombaerde, parish priest of Manhumirim

Jules-Émile-Albert De Lombaerde MSF (7 January 1878 – 24 December 1944), better known by the religious name of Júlio Maria, was a Belgian Roman Catholic priest and missionary who became a naturalised citizen of Brazil and religious of the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Holy Family. He founded the Daughters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Missionaries of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament and the Sacramentine Sisters of Our Lady.

Biography

Jules-Émile-Albert De Lombaerde was born in Beveren, Waregem. At the age of 15, he went to study at the St Joseph Institute in Torhout, a school for the training of teachers run by diocesan priests. There, he regained his desire to be a missionary and read the missionary magazines assiduously. His decision to become a missionary was spurred on by a visit from a bishop who was working in the African missions. Faced with the bishop's preaching and the needs of the African peoples, the young Jules-Émile-Albert set off for Boxtel in the Netherlands to begin his missionary life. On 19 October 1895, he left for the Maison Carrée in Algeria, North Africa, wearing the habit of a white brother, with the name of Optato Maria.

As a result of fevers, he returned to Europe and, feeling called to the priesthood, entered the Congregation of the Holy Family in Grave to collect late vocations. He was ordained on 13 January 1908. In 1912, he was sent to Brazil where he used to sign himself as Friar Julio Maria, a way of showing his filial devotion to the Virgin Mary. He arrived at the port of Recife on 15 October 1912. He then left for the parish of Macapá, where he arrived in 1913, after a spell in Natal. He spent 16 years in the north and north-east of Brazil, preaching missions, working as a parish priest and founding a religious congregation. He also dedicated himself to education and basic sanitation as a way of improving the health conditions of the local population.

In 1928, he left for Manhumirim, in the east of Minas Gerais, with the full support of Carloto Fernandes da Silva Távora of Bishop of Caratinga. He spent the last 16 years of his life there, as parish priest, seminary formator and teacher of his religious congregations. He also dedicated himself to the press, with his newspaper O Lutador and hundreds of publications in a wide variety of styles: spirituality, homiletics, dogmatic theology, Eucharist, Mariology, polemics, among others. In this region of recent immigration, some of it German, he clashed with Protestants, Freemasons and Kardecists and launched his diatribes in his newspaper and in pamphlets such as O Diabo, Lutero e o Protestantismo (The Devil, Luther and Protestantism), which were distributed throughout Brazil.

At first he had a nephew as an assistant for three years, Hyppolite De Poorter, and in 1931 he was visited by Brother Achille, a missionary in Mongolia.

He founded three religious congregations: the Daughters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Missionaries of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament and the Sacramentine Sisters of Our Lady.

Father Maria de Lombaerde died with a reputation for holiness on 24 December 1944, on Christmas Eve, in a car accident in the district of Vargem Grande, which today is called Padre Júlio Maria and belongs to the parish of Alto Jequitibá-MG. The Catholic Church authorised the opening of the beatification process, so he is currently in the first phase of this process, which has granted him the title of Servant of God. His mortal remains reside in the sanctuary of Senhor Bom Jesus of Manhumirim.

See also

• Catholic Church in Brazil

Works

• O Anjo das Trevas
• O Diabo, Lutero e o Protestantismo
• O Cristo, o Papa e a Igreja
• Ataques Protestantes às Verdades Católicas: Com as respectivas respostas irrefutáveis
• Luz nas Trevas — Erros e Objeções Protestantes
• O Fim do Mundo Está Próximo?
• São Gabriel, Maomé e o Islamismo
• A Mulher Bendita Diante dos Ataques Protestantes
• Deus e o Homem
• Os Segredos do Espiritismo
• A Virgem de Nazaré
• Espiritismo: Doutrina e Prática Desmascaradas
• Balbúrdia Protestante
• Nossa Senhora diante dos Ataques Protestantes

References

• Guariza, N. M. (2016). "Modelos para leigas e religiosas: os livros do pe. Júlio Maria De Lombaerde (1878-1944)," Revista Brasileira de História das Religiões, Vol. IX, No. 27, pp. 21–34.
• Isaia, Artur Cesar (2006). "Espiritismo, catolicismo e saber médico psiquiátrico: a presença de Charcot na obra do Padre Júlio Maria de Lombaerde". In: Orixás e espíritos: o debate interdisdiplinar na pesquisa contemporânea. Uberlândia: EDUFU, pp. 305–24.
• Miranda, Antônio Afonso de (1957). Padre Júlio Maria, sua vida e sua missão. Belo Horizonte: Imprensa Oficial.
• Simões, Daniel Soares (30 de setembro de 2006). "Antiprotestantismo, Neocristandade e Paradigma Tridentino na Obra "O Anjo das Trevas" (1936)," Cadernos de História, Vol. I, No. 2, pp. 1–12.
• Soares, Fabrício Emerick (31 de agosto de 2015). "Discurso Religioso, Laicidade e Espaço Público: notas sobre a Atuação Política e Missionária do Padre Júlio Maria de Lombaerde (1928-1944)," Interações, Vol. X, No. 17, pp. 143–61.

External links

• Works by Júlio Maria de Lombaerde at Gallica
• O rebanho de Pedro e os filhos de Lutero: o Pe. Júlio Maria De Lombaerde e a polêmica antiprotestante no Brasil (1928–1944)