Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, Prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, was born in Funchal, in the island of Madeira, on 15 December 1965. In 1986 he began to attend the Catholic University of Portugal in the capital, where in 1989 he obtained a licentiate in theology.

He was ordained a priest for his home diocese on 28 July 1990, and in the same year he enrolled at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, where he obtained a licentiate in biblical sciences in 1992. In 2004, again at the Catholic University of Portugal in Lisbon, he completed his formation with a doctorate summa cum laude in biblical theology with a text on the Gospel of Luke (7:36-50, the scene of the encounter between Jesus and the sinful woman in the house of Simon, the Pharisee), under the supervision of the Jesuit exegete Jean-Noël Aletti. He then carried out research at the Straus Institute for the Advanced Study of Law and Justice in New York (2011-2012).

During the first three years of his presbyterate, he continued to live in Funchal, where he taught at the diocesan seminary and continued to collaborate with the parish of Nossa Senhora do Livramento. In 1995 he moved to the capital of Portugal, where he spent five years as chaplain of the Catholic University. In 2001, he was sent to Rome as rector of the Pontifical Portuguese College for two years, and after completing his doctorate, he became professor of New Testament and Aesthetic Theology at the Faculty of Theology of the Catholic University of Portugal in Lisbon (2004-2018). Meanwhile, he edited the journal of theological studies Didaskalia (2005-2012), directed the Centre the Study of Religions and Cultures (2012-2017) of the same Athenaeum, and was rector of the chapel of Nossa Senhora da Bonança (2010-2018).

Appointed in 2011 as consultor of the Pontifical Council for Culture, the following year he became vice-rector of the Catholic University of Portugal, also carrying out teaching activities as a visitor in Brazil at the Catholic universities of Pernambuco and Rio de Janeiro, and at the Jesuit Faculty of Philosophy and Theology in Belo Horizonte.

He has published numerous volumes and articles in the theological and exegetical fields, as well as various poetic works, also drawing on literary and philosophical language. An expert in the relationship between literature and theology, in 2014 he represented Portugal in the World Poetry Day and for several years he has edited a weekly column in the newspaper Expresso entitled “What clouds are.”

In 2018, Pope Francis first chose him to preach the spiritual exercises for the Roman Curia in Ariccia, from 18 to 23 February, on the theme “In praise of thirst”; then, on 26 June, he appointed him as Archivist and Librarian of the Holy Roman Church, assigning him at the same time to the Titular See of Suava, with the dignity of archbishop.

After receiving episcopal ordination in Lisbon on 28 July 2018, from Cardinal Patriarch Manuel Clemente – conconsecrated by Cardinal António Augusto dos Santos Marto, ordinary of Leiria-Fátima, and the bishop emeritus of Funchal, Teodoro de Faría – he chose Considerate lilia agri, “Consider the lilies of the field” as his motto, taken from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6: 28).

On 1 September 2018 he initiated his new role and on 4 December he received the Pope during a visit to the Vatican Apostolic Library and the Vatican Apostolic Archives.

On 26 September 2022, The Holy Father appointed Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, until then Archivist and Librarian of the Holy Roman Church, as Prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education.

He was created and proclaimed cardinal by Pope Francis in the Consistory of 5 October 2019, and was assigned deaconry of Santi Domenico e Sisto.

Member of:

• Dicasteries: for Bishops; for the Causes of Saints; for Evangelization, Section for Fundamental Questions regarding Evangelization in the World; for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments; for the Doctrine of the Faith.