Paulo Evaristo Arns

Paulo Evaristo Arns OFM (Brazilian Portuguese: [ˈpawlu evaˈɾistu ˈaʁns]; 14 September 1921 – 14 December 2016) was a Brazilian Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of São Paulo from 1970 to 1998. He was named a cardinal in 1973 and later became protopriest. He was a member of the Order of Friars Minor.

His ministry began with a twenty-year academic career, and as Archbishop of Sao Paulo Archdiocese was a relentless opponent of Brazil's military dictatorship and its use of torture. He was also an advocate for the poor and a vocal defender of liberation theology. In his later years he openly criticized the way Pope John Paul II governed the Catholic Church through the Roman Curia and questioned his teaching on priestly celibacy and other issues.

Early life and education

Paulo Steiner Arns was born as the fifth of thirteen children of the German immigrants Gabriel and Helana (née Steiner) Arns. Three of his sisters would later become nuns and one of his brothers a Franciscan. One of his sisters, Zilda Arns Neumann, a pediatrician who founded the Brazilian bishops' children's commission, was killed in the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

On 10 December 1943, Arns joined the Franciscans; he was ordained a priest on 30 November 1945.

From 1941 to 1943 Arns studied philosophy in Curitiba and then theology from 1944 to 1947 in Petrópolis. Then he attended the Sorbonne in Paris studying literature, Latin, Greek, Syriac at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, and ancient history. He graduated with a doctorate in classical languages in 1946. Arns later returned to the Sorbonne to study for a Doctor of Letters which he obtained in 1950, writing a dissertation titled "La technique du livre d'après Saint Jérome".