Lobo (Dom João)

He was the first bishop to come to this island. The colonisation of the archipelago had begun more than 80 years earlier, yet no prelate had yet performed episcopal functions there. The Vicar of Tomar (vigário de Tomar, head of the Order of Christ (Ordem de Cristo)'s spiritual jurisdiction overseas) – or rather the mastership of the Order of Christ, to which Madeira belonged in spiritual matters – sent Bishop João Lobo in 1508, and he visited all the churches and principal chapels of this island. The bishopric of Funchal was created in 1514, so João Lobo confined his religious mission solely to the exercise of episcopal functions: confirming, ordaining clergy, blessing vestments and liturgical vessels, consecrating churches, etc. He had no part in the administration of ecclesiastical affairs, the observance of canon discipline or the suppression of abuses. These belonged only to the diocesan bishop, who did not yet exist, and that charge therefore fell to the representative of the Order of Christ, who at that time was already Nuno Cão (see I-243), a brother (freire) of the Order. The first consecrated church on this island (and few are consecrated, most being merely blessed) was the chapel of the Lombada do Esmeraldo, in the parish (freguesia) of Ponta do Sol (‘point of the sun’), and to this day the following inscription can be read on one of the interior walls of the building: ‘This church was consecrated by Dom João Lobo, Bishop of Taiere, on 27 August 1508.’ This prelate returned to Portugal after spending little more than a year on this island. It was after his visit that the need to create a diocese in this archipelago was more fully recognised; it was established only in 1514, as stated above. In Vieira Guimarães’s excellent book A Ordem de Cristo, published in 1901, we read the following: ‘As early as 1508, to satisfy the wishes of these petitioners (the creation of the bishopric of Funchal), the Vicar of Tomar sent them the titular bishop (bispo de anel) Dom João Lobo, who was awaited on the island by the master, Friar Nuno Cão, with all the clergy, and they held many celebrations for him.’