On January 12 Pope Benedict XVI named Archbishop Murilo Sebastiao Ramos Krieger, SCJ, of Florianopolis, Brazil, as archbishop of Sao Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. He succeeds Cardinal Geraldo Majella Agnelo, who submitted his resignation, as is Church practice, when he turned 75.
In his new position, Archbishop Ramos Krieger will serve as primate of Brazil.
Sao Salvador da Bahia has a population of 3,879,000, 2,737,000 of whom are Catholic. There are 295 priests, 78 permanent deacons and 1,106 religious.
Archbishop Ramos Krieger was born in 1943 in Brusque, in the Archdiocese of Florianópolis, Brazil. He professed first vows with the Priests of the Sacred Heart in 1964 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1969. He did his philosophical and theological studies at the SCJs’ seminaries in Brazil and earned a post-graduate degree in spirituality in Rome.
His first assignment as a priest was in Taubaté, Brazil, where he was assistant pastor at Sacred Heart Parish. He later served as superior of the Dehon Scholasticate and then as rector of the Dehonian Theological Institute in Taubaté, as well as superior of the South Brazilian Province.
As a young priest in Taubaté the archbishop also founded the Shalom Movement for young people.
On February 16, 1985, he was appointed titular bishop of Lysinia and auxiliary bishop of Florianópolis by Pope John Paul II. In 1991, he became bishop of Ponta Grossa, and, in May, 1997, he was named archbishop of Maringá. In February, 2002, he was appointed metropolitan archbishop of Florianópolis.
Archbishop Ramos Krieger will be installed in Sao Salvador da Bahia on March 25.
The SCJ archbishop is the author of several books, writes for magazines and newspapers, and has contributed to television programs as a means of evangelization.
