D. Nélio Pita has been serving as the General Assistant of the Congregation of the Mission (CM – Vincentian Missionaries) in Rome since 2022.
A statement released by the Portuguese Episcopal Conference expressed “joy” at the appointment and wished Nélio Pita “a fruitful mission in service to the Archdiocese of Braga and active participation within the Episcopal Conference.”
The Portuguese Province of the Congregation of the Mission (PPCM) conveyed “immense joy and gratitude to the Lord” upon learning of the Pope’s appointment.
“D. Nélio Pereira Pita is a proud and dedicated son of the Church of Madeira, where he was baptized and began his vocational missionary path, and a member of the PPCM, where he took perpetual vows in 1999 and was ordained a priest on July 29, 2000. Since 2022, he has served as the General Assistant of the Congregation of the Mission,” PPCM stated.
The Congregation of the Mission (CM) is a Society of Apostolic Life formed by missionaries striving to live with humility, simplicity, gentleness, mortification, and zeal in the mission of following Christ, Evangelizer of the Poor.
“In the year celebrating the 4th Centenary of its foundation (1625), the selection of D. Nélio Pereira Pita as Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Braga is, for the CM, present in Portugal since 1717, another reason for joy and a renewed challenge to continue embodying, in every time and place, the Missionary Hope that God entrusted through St. Vincent de Paul,” the statement read.
The Archdiocese of Braga also expressed joy “and thanks to the Lord of the harvest for the appointment of D. Nélio Pereira Pita (Congregation of the Mission — Vincentian Fathers) as the titular Bishop of Garba and Auxiliary Bishop of Braga.”
The episcopal ordination will take place at the Sé Primaz de Braga at 16:00 on July 27.
The Archdiocese of Braga noted that D. Nélio Pita was born in Estreito de Câmara de Lobos, Madeira, on October 11, 1973, took vows in the Congregation of the Mission on March 25, 1999, and was ordained a priest at the Sé do Funchal on July 20, 2000.
The new bishop served as director of the Major Seminary of the Portuguese Province of the Congregation of the Mission from 2003 to 2008.
D. Nélio Pereira Pita was the parish priest of the Parish Church of São Tomás de Aquino, Lisbon, from September 2008 to September 2020.
