Monsignor João Scognamiglio Clá Dias commits his soul to God.
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Now it remains for me to receive the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that day” (II Tim 4:7-8).
Newsroom (01/11/2024 15:18, Gaudium Press) At around 2:30 a.m. today, November 1, comforted by the Sacraments of the Holy Church and surrounded by his spiritual children, Bishop João Scognamiglio Clá Dias, EP, at the age of 85, serenely surrendered his soul to God in Franco da Rocha, in Greater São Paulo, after 14 years of suffering from a stroke. As founder of the Heralds of the Gospel, he leaves a legacy of the holiness of life to millions of Catholics linked to the institution on five continents.
João was born in São Paulo, Brazil, on August 15, 1939, to an Italian mother and a Spanish father. From his youth, he aspired to bring young people together to form them and lead them to God. For this mission, he dreamed of finding a man who was entirely good and selfless, amid the pride and lust of the world (cf. I Jn 2:16). On July 7, 1956, he met Dr. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, one of Brazil’s most distinguished Catholic leaders of the 20th century, whose ardent disciple and faithful interpreter he became. He joined him as a member of the Third Order of Carmo and, after a few years, the Brazilian Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property.
In 1958 he served in the Brazilian Army, where he was awarded the most distinguished military honor in the field of training, the Marechal Hermes medal. This period of his life considerably influenced the martial note that he would later give to the Heralds of the Gospel.
After studying law at the Faculty of Largo São Francisco in São Paulo, he was trained by eminent Dominican professors from the Thomist school in Salamanca, Spain, such as Father Victorino Rodríguez y Rodríguez, Father Antonio Royo Marín, Father Arturo Alonso Lobo, Father Estéban Gómez, among others. He later obtained degrees in Psychology and Humanities, as well as a doctorate in Canon Law from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome, and Theology.
He founded the Aristotelian-Thomist Philosophical Institute and the St. Thomas Aquinas Theological Institute, as well as the scientific magazine Lumen Veritatis and the Catholic culture magazine Heralds of the Gospel. He has written 27 works, several of which have been translated into up to seven languages and some of which have been printed in more than 2 million copies. These include Fatima, the dawn of the third millennium; Mary Most Holy!; God’s Paradise Revealed to Men; Saint Joseph, Who Knows Him?; The Unpublished Gospels; Dona Lucilia and The Gift of Wisdom in the Mind; and Life and Work of Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira.
Discerning Dr. Plinio’s desire to set up an association of a religious nature, approved by the Holy Church and at her service, in the 1970s he sowed, as in the parable of the mustard seed (cf. Mt 13:31), an experiment in community life, in an old Benedictine building in São Paulo. After Dr. Plinio died in 1995, the Holy Spirit irrigated this initiative with new graces, causing the three pontifical entities founded by Msgr. João to germinate: the International Private Association of the Faithful Heralds of the Gospel, approved in 2001 by Pope John Paul II, the Clerical Society of Apostolic Life Virgo Flos Carmeli and the Feminine Society of Apostolic Life Regina Virginum, both approved by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009.
Solicitous towards the whole Church (cf. II Cor 11:28), his apostolic work spread throughout the world, especially after the pontifical approval of the Heralds of the Gospel. He founded more than 50 choirs and orchestras and encouraged the building of almost thirty churches and oratories – two of which have been given the title of basilica – in Brazil and various nations in America, Europe, and Africa.
The millions of members and adherents of the Heralds – priests, associate brothers and sisters, cooperating members or solidarity participants – today work in more than 70 countries, undertaking many social and evangelization works, following the paths blazed by their founder.
On a spiritual level, Msgr. John spread devotion to Our Lady through ceremonies of consecration as a slave of love, according to the method of St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, reaching almost three million faithful in 178 countries remotely. He also instituted and encouraged Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in the main houses of the institutions he founded.
In 2008, three years after his priestly ordination, Benedict XVI appointed him Apostolic Prothonotary and Honorary Canon of the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. He has received various decorations and honors, in Brazil and abroad, including the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice Medal, for his zeal on behalf of the Holy Church and the Supreme Pontiff. In 2009, he published the booklet On the Occasion of the Year for Priests, suggestions from the Heralds of the Gospel to the Congregation for the Clergy, written at the request of the then Prefect of this Congregation, and in 2010, the essay The Church is Immaculate and Indefectible, in which he denounces the root causes of abuse committed against minors or the vulnerable.
Another pillar of his apostolate was sentire cum Ecclesia – to feel with the Church – even when it was unjustly vilified. In fact, with the growth of the institutions he founded, it wasn’t long before the enemies of the Mystical Bride of Christ and good began to slander them and their founder, especially since 2017. As a son of the Church, Msgr. John always sought to re-establish the truth about her, her works, and himself. In this way, he has come through the waves of falsehoods and defamation that have come against him unscathed, either by accepting the retractions of the accusers with benevolence – ratified by the courts – or by amassing countless procedural victories, enshrined in sentences and the closing of investigations, both in the civil and ecclesiastical spheres. It is no coincidence that he had a special devotion to St. Ferdinand of Castile: it is said that the Spanish king was never defeated on the battlefield.
Those who know ecclesiastical history see in these setbacks not a failure of the Church or of the works that are part of her immortality, but only the confirmation of Jesus’ words: “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (Jn 15:20). Nothing new under the sun: this was the path trodden by so many champions of the Faith, such as St. Teresa of Avila, St. Louis Orione or St. Pio of Pietrelcina. From this perspective, the words that Cardinal Franc Rodé, then Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, addressed to Bishop John on August 15, 2009, are well understood: “You are from the lineage of heroes and saints!”
The biographies of providential men do not end on this earth. Rather, their passage through this vale of tears is only the preamble to many more chapters to come. St. Therese of the Child Jesus rightly proclaimed: “I do not die, I enter life” and “I will spend my heaven doing good on earth”.
Inspired by Msgr. João’s many achievements, under the influence of the Paraclete and the unfailing support of Mary Most Holy, his spiritual children will continue their mission for the Holy Church and civil society with serenity, enthusiasm, and concord, but also with vigilance and fearlessness.
Compiled by Dominic Joseph