Appointment of the Secretary of the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family and the Life

The Holy Father has appointed Rev. Father Alexandre Awi Mello Secretary of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life, I. Sch., National Director of the Schönstatt Movement in Brazil.

Rev. Father Alexandre Awi Mello, I. Sch., was born on January 17, 1971, in Rio de Janeiro.

He was ordained a priest on 7 July 2001, as a member of the Secular Institute of the Schönstatt Fathers, and he has occupied the following positions: Parish Vicar of Nossa Senhora das Dores in Santa Maria, in the State of Rio Grande do Sul; Councilor of Apostolic Youth of Schönstatt for the Southeast and the South of Brazil; National Director of the Schönstatt Movement in Brazil.

He completed studies of philosophy and theology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Santiago de Chile; he, then, obtained the license in theology at the Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule Vallendar (Federal Republic of Germany, 2000), and he is now completing the Ph.D. in Mariology at the University of Dayton International Marian Research Institute, in Ohio (United States of America).

He served as Professor of Pastoral and Systematic Theology at Londrina, at the Institute Paolo VI (2002 2004) and at Pontifical Catholic University of Parana (2005-2009). Since 2012, he has been teaching in São Paulo, at the Salesian University Center and the São Bento Faculty.

In 2007, he collaborated with the Redactional Secretariat of the Aparecida Conference.

Director of the magazine Tabor, he has published several articles in journals specialized in the fields of catechesis and pastoral care.