SANCTIFYING OFFICE
Spirituality and the Liturgy
In a 2015 interview Cardinal Tolentino Mendonça said that for his generation, the Second Vatican Council was “the normal way of looking at the Church and the world,” and that he did not think Francis’ pontificate was any more disputed than its predecessors. What was new, he said, was to see a pope contested by a “more conservative wing,” and by some “important names, even cardinals, who in some ways are willing to put traditionalism above tradition.”
Liturgically, Cardinal Tolentino Mendonça is certainly no traditionalist, and nothing in his past would hint at any proximity to, or sympathy for, traditionalist causes. This is not to say that he despises tradition, however, in the sense of at least recognizing the contribution of Catholic tradition to the cultural world over the centuries.
His own liturgical celebrations have always been solemn and respectful, with an attention to detail just short of obsession, and he prepares homilies even for weekday Masses with only a handful of parishioners.
His spirituality and understanding of the Church and the Eucharist come forth in his preaching and writing. In a homily at the closing Mass for the Eucharistic Congress in the northern Portuguese city of Braga in 2024, he called for a more Eucharistic Church, in opposition to a clericalist Church, using examples that could have been penned by Francis himself. “A Eucharistic Church is the opposite of a clericalist Church: it is a Church configured to synodality, which values the participation of all the baptized, recognizing the role of the ordained minister, caring for and nurturing its pastors, investing in lay ministry, a Church which promotes an ecclesial culture of co-responsibility and has a prophetic vision of the role of women in the Church. The Eucharistic Church is a Church of ‘open doors’, which presents itself more as an experience of loving service to life, than with the rigidity of judgments that exclude.”
In the same homily he preached about the importance of the Church being Marian, quoting Hans Urs von Balthasar, who said that “without Mariology, Christianity runs the risk of inadvertent dehumanization.”
One of the qualities for which he is best known is his ability to find spiritual nuggets in the secular. In 2005 he teamed up with Assírio & Alvim, a renowned Portuguese publisher, to curate a collection of books under the title “Theophanies”, which included books by Simone Weil, Cristina Campo, Kirkegaard, Aquinas and even the best Father Brown stories by Chesterton. One of the most curious authors in the collection is Etty Hillesum, a Dutch Jew who volunteered to go to a concentration camp to accompany those who were being persecuted; she was killed in Birkenau at the age of 29. Hillesum never converted to Christianity, but her diaries show a very deep spirituality, and she is clearly a favorite of Tolentino Mendonça, who quotes her repeatedly in his public addresses and writings.
His ability to discover spiritual insights in secular art and literature were on display in several of Pope Francis’ speeches during World Youth Day in Lisbon, 2023, which clearly bore Tolentino’s mark.
Such a variety of influences points to a spirit that will seek inspiration anywhere it can find it, even if outside of the Catholic tradition. With Assírio he also oversaw the publication of The Prayer of Men – An anthology of spiritual traditions, a collection of spiritual snippets and prayers from the earliest civilizations to Christianity, and which includes prayers from African animist traditions, Amazonian tribes, Judaism, and Islam.
Though Tolentino has not been directly involved with ecumenical or interreligious dialogue from a pastoral point of view, his academic and cultural activities have brought him into close contact with people of different religions and Christian traditions whom he befriended.
Bridging the Worlds of Church and Culture
Cardinal Tolentino Mendonça is viewed by some in Portugal as a man of the Church in the world of high culture. His literary work, his thought and public interventions, but above all his personal friendships and vast cultural knowledge have led to his being well respected in a world that in Portugal and more generally, had become estranged from the Church.
Tolentino is not seen by artists, poets and performers as some foreign element trying desperately to establish a clerical foothold in their world, but rather as one of their own who happens to be a priest. Although his style cannot be described as proselytist, he has attracted many people in the world of culture who have had a spiritual longing but harbored a deep suspicion of the Catholic Church as an institution. Many important cultural figures either drew close to the Catholic Church or were reconciled to it through his influence.1For instance, actor and playwright Luís Miguel Cintra, artist Ilda David, and actress and comedian Maria Rueff.
“True wisdom must have the ability to speak to everyone,” Cardinal Tolentino told the Jesuit-run America Magazine in 2024. “This has been a concern all along in my ministry, that of finding a language that can speak to everyone, to be understood by everyone. That’s also why I chose as the motto of my episcopate, ‘Look at the lilies of the field,’ because it’s one of those phrases of Jesus that a gardener, but also a theologian, can understand.”
Such an approach drew the attention of the hierarchy in Rome, firstly through Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, at the time head of the Pontifical Council for Culture. But the springboard for Cardinal Tolentino’s international career may well have been Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Portugal in 2010. One of the highlights of that trip was a meeting with representatives of the world of culture, held at the riverside Belém Cultural Centre, in Lisbon. The event, entirely planned by Tolentino, was attended by the best and brightest of cultural figures in Portugal, with the renowned 102-year-old film director Manoel de Oliveira chosen to address the Pope on their behalf. The images of the then 83-year-old Pope and Oliveira gently grasping each other’s hands became an instant hit, and the event was considered a great success. A year later, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Tolentino as a consultant for the Pontifical Council for Culture.
Tolentino’s prominence grew under Francis, who invited him to lead the Lenten spiritual exercises for the Roman Curia in 2018. After the retreat, Pope Francis thanked him for “reminding us that the Church is not a cage for the Holy Spirit, that the Spirit flies and works also on the outside”. At that retreat, Cardinal Tolentino advised priests to go to the movies.2The cardinal reportedly often uses the cinema, literature, the humanities, psychoanalysis along with theology, ecclesiology, spirituality in his retreats. “A priest must be an expert in humanity, and all our experiences of humanity are limited,” he told America Magazine in 2024. “Cinema allows us to create relationships of empathy, of listening to figures and to life situations very different from our own.” He said it is “absolutely necessary” for priests “to understand the complexity of the human soul” in order to “serve in the way Pope Francis repeatedly calls us to do.” “It is very easy to reduce even ministry to an ideological or theoretical attitude,” he said. “Cinema, on the other hand, is a form of knowing reality at levels that help us to think, to understand, to find, to attend to different worlds.”
He has said in previous interviews that he greatly values the creativity of the classroom and prefers to live “in that kind of periphery that is the world of culture.” If he is “too immersed in the ecclesiastical world,” he said in the 2015 interview, “I feel like a fish out of water.”
In the same interview, he said he believes “theology needs the world,” which is why he is “very interested” in how modern culture uses the Bible.
“I’m very interested in what Bruce Springsteen does with the Bible, what [Andrei] Tarkovsky’s cinema or popular culture does,” he said. The relationship between Christianity and culture is at the heart of his many writings, which have won him a number of literary prizes and awards. He also firmly believes Francis is bringing disaffected Catholics back to the Church.
GOVERNING OFFICE
Record on Handling Sexual Abuse
Never having been a diocesan bishop, Cardinal Tolentino Mendonça has no track record on dealing with cases of clerical sexual abuse. But when Portugal’s abuse crisis came to light, he was asked about it and called it a “devastation” and “tragedy”, saying that this is a problem the Church could not handle on its own, and that requires everybody’s help to “reconcile with society”.3 Jorge Freitas de Sousa, “D. Tolentino Mendonça comenta a ‘devastação’ e ‘tragédia’ dos abusos sexuais na Igreja”, RTP, 8 April 2023.
Seminary Formation
Although Tolentino entered minor seminary at an early age, he does not recommend others doing so. “I think vocational discernment should be done in a more integrated form in families at an older age,” he has said. “But those were the times, the paradigm that I grew up in.”
“Super Minister of Culture and Education”
In 2022, Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Mendonça as the head of the newly formed “Super Dicastery” for Culture and Education, tasked with promoting Catholic education and cultural dialogue worldwide. This position effectively gives him oversight of every Catholic university in the world.
He once described his daily work routine in Rome in this way: “Every day I reserve some time for Mass and prayer, and the rest of the day is dedicated to my work for the Dicastery of Culture and Education, which I admit enthuses me. But I still go to the cinema, theatre or concerts, I do so at least once a week. For pleasure and out of duty.”
Under his leadership, in June 2023 the Dicastery of Culture and Education organized a significant meeting between Pope Francis and two hundred representatives from the world of culture, as part of the fiftieth anniversary of the Modern Art Collection housed in the Vatican Museums. The event took place in the Sistine Chapel.
One year later, Tolentino organized a similar meeting between Pope Francis and comedians from all over the world, a number of whom were well known for their vulgarity, debauchery and, at times, anti-Catholicism. The American comedians were assembled by the controversial American homosexualist Jesuit, Father James Martin.
This event can be seen as characteristic of Cardinal Tolentino’s style, and was hardly a first for him, as he had engaged in public dialogue with leading Portuguese comedians before, notably with Ricardo Araújo Pereira. Pereira, an atheist, studied at the Catholic University when Fr Tolentino was chaplain, and the two met at the time. Tolentino presided at his wedding and the two have remained friends. When Araújo Pereira became famous, Tolentino invited him to speak at a series of conferences called: “God: a question for believers and non-believers”. Ricardo Araújo Pereira displayed a good knowledge of the Bible and spoke about humor and religion, a topic the Cardinal has also addressed in public.
It was therefore no surprise that Cardinal Tolentino was sitting at the Pope’s side when over one hundred comedians showed up for an audience at the Vatican in June 2024, many of them admitting to being utterly bemused that they had been invited at all. This is precisely Tolentino’s modus operandi: to bring into the Church—in this case into the Vatican itself—even those who would never have imagined themselves being there, to address them on their own terms, and make them feel valued.
As Ricardo Araújo Pereira, who also attended the Vatican event, once said: “He is a very soothing person. When I am near him, I always feel a little calmer. I have always been impressed by the way he manages to blend culture and the idea of God, and by how tolerant he is with regard to unbelievers like myself”.
Administration
The cardinal reputedly has rather poor administrative skills, which were evident during his tenure as head of the Portuguese Pontifical College, and later in his years in university administration. “A brilliant mind he may have, but it is one more given to study and literature than to the smooth running of institutions,” said a source close to him. He likes to do things his own way, and in most of the fields in which he has worked in his life, he has often been given free rein to do so. But those who have worked with him are among the first to stress how challenging it can be, and this has already led to some resistance to him among fellow cardinals in Rome.
Views on Synodality
Cardinal Tolentino embraces synodality, and sees the Synod on Synodality as “very important” and synodality in general as something that “will mark the Church of the future.” He envisages as the outcome of the Synod “a more communal Church, with more shared responsibilities, where the Eucharist is at the center, but also a Church that is the starting point for a real commitment of serene and joyful witness in dialogue with the world.”
“I think the Church will gain ever more by asking for help instead of feeling self-sufficient, and not saying ‘I can go the course alone, I can make the structures,’ because that is a way of remaining in a monologue,” Cardinal Tolentino has said. “The Church has to engage in dialogue [with the world] and has to start this dialogue within itself, and for that synodality will be fundamental.”
In an interview in August 2024, he said the Synod on Synodality was “very important” because the question of synodality would “mark the Church of the future.” He added: “Pope Francis had a great vision in promoting this synod, because the Church must grow. But to grow it must do so through a dialogue with itself, activating all the mediations and the participation of the baptised.” He said it is from this participation that “many other things will be born, but we must make being together a resource and we must see the Church not in a pyramidal way, but as a body.”
He believes the synod will help to see this clearly. “More than one theme or another, it is precisely the participation and vocation of the baptised that gives the Church a synodal face, which I think will have a great impact in the future,” he said.
Alliance With Pope Francis
Tolentino’s engagement with culture and disdain for dogma and rigid doctrine is very much in consistent with the approach of Pope Francis.
He said in 2024 that he was “very impressed” by Francis’ intelligence. “It’s striking, brilliant. When one asks him a question, he responds with intelligence and with depth, and many times in a surprising way takes the issue beyond what you have asked.”
The Cardinal added: “I am also struck by his Gospel simplicity. There is in that man the smell of the Gospel; it is deeply touching. I feel I am in front of a man for whom the truth is the truth.” In the interview with America Magazine, he said that he thought Francis was an “extraordinary pope, and we have to support him in every way in what he is doing to help the Church to be more missionary, more prophetic.”
He said that, speaking as a poet, “Pope Francis brings with him extraordinary poetry” and fills the world “with a hope that is a poetic hope for so many women and men of culture, even nonbelievers, who appreciate him very much for his gestures, for his freedom, for his humor, for the surprising elements in his personality.”
Tolentino values Francis’ missionary impulse, of being aware that “the Christian experience cannot just remain fixed in a type of language inherited from the past” and that the Church must respond to the “missionary challenge” Francis has set forth of “reaching everyone.”
He has also said that he views the current time “with hope” because he sees “so many men and women ready to give a second chance to the Church,” thanks to Pope Francis’ leadership. He believes Francis is “reaching so many artists and different persons with very complex life paths” who are ready “to give Christianity a second chance.” He also thinks Christianity “also has to give a second chance to the world and to so many people.”
Tolentino also sees in the Curia “the continuation of the broad lines of [Pope Francis’] magisterium and that missionary dimension that is called for in the apostolic constitution ‘Praedicate Evangelium.’” He added that he values what he calls a “missionary consciousness” in the current Curia, “serving the Petrine ministry and the local churches.”
Valuing Africa
Due to the experience of his early years growing up in Angola, Cardinal Tolentino has a fondness for the continent. He says he values the “passion for those people, their spontaneity, and the high human quality that Africans culturally have,” although he doesn’t seem to explicitly attribute this to faith or to anything spiritual. He esteems “the youth of Africa” who give hope “but also a huge challenge” in terms of education and migration, and is concerned about social justice there. Other nations, he says, must help Africa “because the level of poverty and social inequality there is massive,” and the West must “think of alternative forms of building greater real social justice.”
Africa is likely to have an impact on his governance as prefect: Cardinal Tolentino hopes that the Dicastery for Culture and Education can help Africa by strengthening its university network, and he would like to increase the inclusion of African artists and theologians in dicastery committees. He appreciates “the enthusiasm of African theology” and has said he believes the Church in Africa “has had a prophetic role,” but is concerned about its level of material development that is lower than that of First World countries. “They have anthropological resources, future resources, beyond our own,” he has said. “That we promote the dialogue, the collaboration, the integration of Africa in everything we do and think is so important.”
Pontifical Oriental Institute
In June 2024, Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Tolentino chancellor of the Pontifical Oriental Institute partly due to his extensive background in theology, education, and culture, which aligns with the goals of the institution, and the fact that he is prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education.
TEACHING OFFICE
Education for the “Art of Being”
Cardinal Mendonça’s association with the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development reflects his progressive vision for the role of education, but one that critics see as incompatible with apostolic tradition.
This vision prioritizes fostering global solidarity, inclusivity, and social justice over traditional Church doctrine and catechesis. António Guterres, Secretary General of the UN, shares Mendonça’s Portuguese heritage, suggesting a unique alignment and collaboration between Rome and New York under their leadership. This convergence raises concerns about the extent to which Cardinal Mendonça’s progressive views may influence and potentially shift the focus of the Vatican’s educational focus, especially if he emerges as the future pope.
The cardinal certainly does not see Catholic education simply as a vehicle for transmitting formal knowledge and instilling doctrine. In an address delivered in Portugal in 2022, he claimed that “education is a relationship” and that a Catholic school should not “merely commit to competently and efficiently transmitting different fields of knowledge” but take each person into account individually “and help each of its students to fully live what they are.” Using terms that likely went over the heads of the secondary students in his audience, he explainedthe importance of building a “polyhedric, dilated and interdisciplinary vision of life” in service to the “art of being”.
Working With Those on the Margins
For many years during his time in Lisbon, Tolentino Mendonça was coadjutor pastor of the Church of Saint Elizabeth, under its parish priest, Father José Manuel Pereira de Almeida, himself a doctor, ethicist and professor of moral theology. The Church was very popular and also served as an outpost for meetings with those considered to be on the margins of Church life. The two priests ran support groups for couples in irregular situations and Catholic homosexuals, with cardinal Tolentino focusing particularly on the accompaniment of the latter.
On Homosexuality
Though widely known, his work with persons with same-sex attraction and who are living an active homosexual lifestyle has been discreet, and his public words about reconciling homosexuality with life in the Church are sparse. In private he has admitted to having encouraged these persons to follow the Church’s teachings regarding chastity; controversially, however, when they told him this was untenable and they were in relationships, he encouraged them to at least be faithful to their partners.
Asked in 2015 how he found being chaplain at the Capela do Rato after five years of ministering to homosexuals, he said “very natural. I don’t choose the people with whom I have to walk. Since I don’t choose, I don’t judge. The attitude of the Church has to be one of welcome, of a normal accompaniment of what people live and are.”
A rare insight into these meetings was given by Luís Mah, a researcher from the Lisbon School of Economics and Management, and self-described “activist and revolutionary within the Church” who attended at the invitation of a friend. Speaking to Notícias Magazine he said: “When I arrived, I felt comfortable. There were others like me, a community. This was a time for us to be together, there was discussion, about faith, spirituality, politics and our day-to-day lives”. He went on to say that “Tolentino is essentially a sort of therapist. We felt that he had the gift of listening to us. And through the Bible he always found a way to help us remain in the community. This made me feel integrated in the Church. He’s one of a kind. He’ll be pope one day”.
Tolentino’s involvement in pastoral work with homosexuals has raised suspicion, especially outside of Portugal, but he has been careful to never publicly call for changing Church teaching on the issue. He has yet to speak publicly about Fiducia Supplicans and the blessing of same-sex couples, but he has expressed an openness to “welcoming all” in the Church, including those in irregular situations, and his position is likely to be supportive of the document.
Tolentino’s public stand in these areas can best be summed up in response to a 2022 interview with Catholic media group Renascença. “Nobody can be excluded from the love and mercy of Christ. And this experience of mercy must be taken to everybody. Whether remarried Christians, wounded by their experiences of marital shipwreck; the reality of new families, or homosexuals who need to find in the Church a space for listening, welcoming and mercy.”
Nobel Spats
In 2010 Mendonça was named chaplain of the Rato Chapel. In the final stages of the dictatorship, the small chapel had become a focal point for left-leaning Catholics and political dissidents, including figures like future United Nations secretary-general António Guterres. It retained this reputation over the years, and Cardinal Tolentino used it to host many of his cultural meetings, debates, conferences and other events, which often received significant media coverage.
Despite his excellent relationship and good-standing in the world of culture, or perhaps because of it, Cardinal Tolentino did not refrain from taking fellow artists and writers to task when he believed they were showing prejudice towards the Church or to religion in general. One striking example came in 2009 when Noble prize laureate José Saramago published a book called “Cain,” based on the Genesis story of Cain and Abel. At the book launch, Saramago, an atheist, said that “the Bible is a handbook of bad habits, a catalogue of cruelty and of the worst of human nature”.
Cardinal Tolentino, a biblical scholar by training, called the book “ordinary” and beneath the standard expected from an author like Saramago. “What is perplexing in his comments is how a great creator, an artisan of language, can look at the Bible – which is the heritage of many different cultures and a source of inspiration for so much literature – with such a degree of simplicity, and make these remarks,” he said in an interview. Saramago’s derogatory comments about the Bible were “an unacceptable reduction not only from the point of view of faith, but from a cultural perspective”, he said.
The cardinals did not shy away from a face-to-face meeting with the Nobel prize winner, at the invitation of a leading Portuguese newspaper, where the two discussed his recent book in friendly terms. Tolentino Mendonça began the conversation by saying: “I don’t see this as a duel, or as a confrontation. This is a territory where humility is deeply necessary. In the end, both the non-believer and the believer stand empty handed, though in a different way. They are both searchers, seekers. Faith is born from a question, an openness to the revelation of God and of one’s brother.”
Several years later he also confronted the classical linguist Frederico Lourenço, who had published a new translation of the Bible, over his choice of the term “Son of humanity” to refer to Christ, rather than traditional title, “Son of man.”
Cardinal Mendonça’s literary works and theological reflections have earned him numerous awards, especially in Portuguese-speaking countries.
Controversial Ties with Dissenting Sister
Cardinal Tolentino’s heterodoxy and views on social issues such as homosexuality or an alliance with a feminist woman religious have drawn considerable criticism.
In the 2010s he allied himself with Spanish Sister Maria Teresa Forcades I Vila, a progressive Benedictine with radical stances on issues such as abortion (she opposes legislation banning abortion and says all women should carry the “morning after” pill in their purses), women’s ordination, homosexuality and same-sex couples adopting children. She is a self-confessed proponent of a “Queer Revolution” in the Church, and authored the 2016 book, Siamo Tutti Diversi! Per una teologia queer [We are all different! For a queer theology].
Tolentino wrote the foreword to the Portuguese edition of her earlier volume, A teologia feminista na história [Feminist Theology in History] (2012). He praised it as an “astonishing work” and stressed how her apostolate must be taken as a model to “free” Christianity from the dogmatic bonds of the past and the present.
“Teresa Forcades i Vila is a name that, for many reasons, is worth honoring,” he wrote, praising her for “courageously pointing out contradictions and looking for alternatives of interpretation that support a break in meaning and civilization.” He added that “the essential thing” to recognize is that Jesus “neither codified nor standardized; Jesus lived, that is, he built an ethics of relationship.”
Sister Maria Teresa teamed up again with then-Father Tolentino in 2016 when she spoke at the launch of his new book, Vers una Spiritualitat dels Sentits (Through a Spirituality of Feelings).
The cardinal has never renounced his words of praise for her work, nor did he respond to questions about them in 2022. In private, however, he has expressed frustration that his alliance with Sister Marie Teresa is constantly brought up in reviews of his life achievements and work.
Approach to Amoris Laetitia and Communion for Remarried Divorcees
Cardinal Tolentino supported allowing Holy Communion for civilly remarried divorcees according to the changes instituted by Pope Francis in his apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia. Tolentino’s stance on the issue underscores his close kinship with Pope Francis: he believes in the Church as a welcoming and merciful space for all individuals, particularly those who have experienced marginalization.
Those close to him say that his closeness to figures who openly call for more radical reform should not necessarily be taken as a defense of their positions, but as a belief that these are conversations the Church needs to keep having.
His moderate and conciliatory tone tends to him being branded a centrist, though others believe he represents a distinctly modernist trend in the Church, a shift towards “post-Catholicism” that embraces secular values.4Abbé Claude Barthe, a notable French Catholic priest, journalist, liturgist and essayist argues that he is a “fake centrist.” Abbé Claude Barthe criticizes Tolentino’s approach, suggesting that he represents a shift towards a “post-Catholicism” that embraces secular values. Barthe highlights Tolentino’s alignment with Pope Francis’ vision, which includes liberalizing moral teachings and fostering inclusivity, such as with his support for the Declaration Fiducia Supplicans issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, which permits Catholic priests to bless individuals in same-sex unions, under specific circumstances.
One notable exception to his overall silence on hot-button issues has been euthanasia. Portuguese politicians have been trying to legalize euthanasia since 2015, with limited success. In 2020, at the height of the public debate, the cardinal wrote an op-ed for Expresso under the title “10 civil arguments against euthanasia.” Reason three was: “No life is worth more than another. No life is worth less. The life of the weak is worth as much as the life of the strong. The life of the poor is worth as much as the life of the powerful. The value of the life of the sick is identical to that of the healthy. The idea that there are lives which, in certain circumstances, are worth less than others is a principal that clashes with the universal values according to which we live.”
In a 2022 interview with Renascença, he again denounced euthanasia, calling the concept “a huge defeat for civilization, which saddens and worries believers and non-believers” and “a defeat for those values which place the person in the center.”
Positions on Women’s Ordination, Priestly Celibacy
Cardinal José Tolentino Mendonça is ambiguous when it comes to women’s ordination. While he says he aligns with the official stance of the Catholic Church opposing the ordination of women as priests, his broader views and alliances regarding women’s roles within the Church suggest otherwise.
In 2022 he wrote the foreword to Women Religious, Women Deacons: Questions and Answers by theologian and leading advocate for women’s ordination, Phyllis Zagano.5 Paulist Press, April 2022.
For Tolentino’s supporters, this kind of collaboration reflects an openness to dialogue and to exploring the historical and theological foundations of women’s roles in Church ministry.
Although he stopped short of advocating women priests, his work with Zagano could reflect a commitment to reexamining and potentially expanding women’s roles in the Church in ways that are consistent with historical practices and current pastoral needs, or perhaps his openness to ordaining women deacons.
This progressive stance, emphasizing dialogue, suggests that Cardinal Tolentino supports ongoing discussion and discernment regarding women’s roles in Church ministry, and other issues such as celibacy and inclusion of those in same-sex relationships.
In an interview with Expresso in December 2023, the cardinal was asked directly if he defended the ordination of married men and of women. He deflected the question, preferring to talk about the importance of a more synodal Church, leading the journalist to ask if he was protecting himself by refusing to commit to opinions that might place him in the heterodox camp. “Above all, I feel called as a pastor to be with people, and not exclude anybody, being a witness to the fact that Christ’s message of love is for everyone, at any time, and in any situation. It is not about protecting myself, but making myself available for encounter and accompaniment. That is where I feel that I am most useful,” he replied.
Theology of Friendship, Non-Confrontation
Cardinal Tolentino’s general attitude speaks to a willingness to avoid confrontation, and to stress instead the importance of friendship. His book “No Journey Will Be Too Long”6Published in English by Paulist Press, January 2015. is, in his words, a “theology of friendship” in which he argues that in a society that has exhausted the word love, friendship has been undervalued and needs to be restored to its rightly place.
Those who know the Cardinals say they have seen these ideas in action. They say that Cardinal Tolentino is the sort of man who makes everyone he meets feel special and will constantly focus on what he and they have in common rather than on differences. They also note his “good sense of humor,” say that he is “charming, very sensitive, and almost invariably warm and personable,” although he can become temperamental when rubbed the wrong way.
His friendships cut across ideological and ecclesial divides and despite the fact that he tends to be the center of attention wherever he is – given his personality and status – he will almost always have a personal word of gratitude and friendship, or a specific compliment for his interlocutor.7His friends say he has an eagerness to please that can sometimes be something of an Achilles heel as he finds it difficult to say no to requests which are then left hanging when he simply does not have the ability to do all the things people expect of him, or that he has committed to doing.
Cardinal Tolentino Mendonça has a long list of awards and decorations, including being named “Portuguese Person of the Year” in 2019 and winning the prestigious Pessoa Prize in 2023. He is frequently invited to official state functions in Portugal and his work of forming a bridge between the Church and the secular world extends to the political sphere, where he is well regarded even by those who would generally be hostile to clerical figures.
- 1For instance, actor and playwright Luís Miguel Cintra, artist Ilda David, and actress and comedian Maria Rueff.
- 2The cardinal reportedly often uses the cinema, literature, the humanities, psychoanalysis along with theology, ecclesiology, spirituality in his retreats. “A priest must be an expert in humanity, and all our experiences of humanity are limited,” he told America Magazine in 2024. “Cinema allows us to create relationships of empathy, of listening to figures and to life situations very different from our own.” He said it is “absolutely necessary” for priests “to understand the complexity of the human soul” in order to “serve in the way Pope Francis repeatedly calls us to do.” “It is very easy to reduce even ministry to an ideological or theoretical attitude,” he said. “Cinema, on the other hand, is a form of knowing reality at levels that help us to think, to understand, to find, to attend to different worlds.”
- 3Jorge Freitas de Sousa, “D. Tolentino Mendonça comenta a ‘devastação’ e ‘tragédia’ dos abusos sexuais na Igreja”, RTP, 8 April 2023.
- 4Abbé Claude Barthe, a notable French Catholic priest, journalist, liturgist and essayist argues that he is a “fake centrist.” Abbé Claude Barthe criticizes Tolentino’s approach, suggesting that he represents a shift towards a “post-Catholicism” that embraces secular values. Barthe highlights Tolentino’s alignment with Pope Francis’ vision, which includes liberalizing moral teachings and fostering inclusivity, such as with his support for the Declaration Fiducia Supplicans issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, which permits Catholic priests to bless individuals in same-sex unions, under specific circumstances.
- 5Paulist Press, April 2022.
- 6Published in English by Paulist Press, January 2015.
- 7His friends say he has an eagerness to please that can sometimes be something of an Achilles heel as he finds it difficult to say no to requests which are then left hanging when he simply does not have the ability to do all the things people expect of him, or that he has committed to doing.
