EUROPE/PORTUGAL – Father Manuel Augusto Lopes Ferreira, MCCJ, new National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies

Vatican City – Cardinal Luis Antonio G. Tagle, Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization , appointed Father Manuel Augusto Lopes Ferreira, MCCJ, as National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in Portugal for a five-year term on February 12, 2026.
Father Manuel Augusto was born in Arcozelo das Maias in the diocese of Viseu. He completed his studies at the Comboni Seminary in Viseu and Maia, his novitiate in Spain in Moncada , and his theological studies in Rome at the Gregorian University .
He was ordained a priest in Arcozelo das Maias on July 18, 1976. He was director of the Comboni missionary magazines in Lisbon from 1976 to 1983, and then director of World Mission, a magazine published by the Comboni Missionaries in Manila, in the Philippines from 1988 to 1996. He served as a missionary in Kenya, where he directed the International Center for Brothers in Nairobi , and in the Philippines, where he was Superior General of the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus from 1997 to 2003. He directed Studium Combonianum, the Comboni Missionaries’ Office for Historical Research, from 2015 to 2025 in Italy, first in Limone sul Garda and then in Rome.
He has published: Missionários que eu conheci, Lisbon 2007; Comboni Missionaries. 150 Years of History and Mission, Rome 2017; and Uma História Singular. Missionários Combonianos em Portugal, Lisboa 2017; Meetings. A Vocação nos Evangelhos, Lisboa 2021.

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