Print Issue: May 30, 2002

Brazilian Priest To Serve Ethnic Communities At St. Jude

By Gretchen Keiser, Staff Writer

ATLANTA - A Brazilian priest, Father Sebastian Andrade, has begun serving at St. Jude the Apostle Church where there is both a Hispanic community and a Brazilian, Portuguese-speaking community.

Father Andrade, who started May 20, said his home diocese is Guaxupe in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Ordained in 1959, he will celebrate 43 years in the priesthood June 29. He said he served in Brazil for 20 years, then studied for his doctorate in Rome, Italy, and was assigned to Toronto, Canada, where he spent 15 years in ministry to Brazilian and other immigrants living in the Toronto area. His work included hospital chaplaincy.

St. Jude's has a large Hispanic community, now being served by Father Pedro Poloche Rodriguez, who has been assigned to Transfiguration Church in Marietta in July. The parish also has a substantial Brazilian community with about 500 coming to Mass, Father Andrade said. They are well-organized, with lay leadership and various ministries, but have long desired a priest to serve the community.

Father Poloche Rodriguez, Msgr. David Talley, then chancellor of the archdiocese, and Father Jack Vessels, SJ, who served in Brazil for many years before coming to Ignatius Retreat House in Atlanta, worked to bring Father Andrade to the archdiocese, Msgr. Talley said. St. Jude's is located at 7171 Glenridge Drive, NE, in the Sandy Springs area of Atlanta.

"I will take care of the Hispanic community as well when Father Pedro leaves here" for his new assignment July 8, Father Andrade said. "The Hispanic community is larger than the Portuguese community."

He said he can communicate well with Spanish-speaking people, but is also working to improve his Spanish. He also speaks Italian and some French.

Mass is celebrated in Spanish every Sunday at the parish at 1:30 p.m. Mass is celebrated in Portuguese every Sunday at the parish at 7:30 p.m.

It is celebrated in the "Brazilian way," he said. "The language is Portuguese, but the culture is Brazil."