WORLD MISSION SUNDAY

(Editor's note: Bishop Elias James Manning, OFM, Conv., died on Oct. 13)

The cliché goes that whenever you’re in a difficult situation, it’s like being up a creek without a paddle. Well, just wait until the station wagon you were driving ends up smack in the middle of that creek! That’s what happened to Bishop Elias James Manning, OFM Conv., during his first week in Brazil as a missionary. 

“There was no bridge across one of the rivers … it was a smaller river but the man (with me) said, ‘No, you go right through the water.’ So what happened? We got halfway through and got stuck in the middle of the river,” he said.

Bishop Manning laughed to himself, recalling the memory. “This was my first experience as a missionary.”

For the past 57 years, Bishop Manning, 81, has been living out his call to missionary life in Brazil. He’s traveled across rivers and dirt roads, slept in parish garages, and said Mass in soccer fields, all as ways to minister to his people. 

For many — including Bishop Manning at one time — becoming a missionary sounds like a daunting task. But after serving as a priest in Brazil for over 50 years, and as Bishop for the Diocese of Valenca for 30, the country doesn’t seem foreign anymore, he said, it feels like home. 

“The Brazilian style of life, the culture, I fit in a way where I don’t think about going back to the states,” he said. “There’s a tomb ready for me in the cathedral (here).”

At 24 years old, while still in seminary, Bishop Manning volunteered to finish his studies in Brazil. His order with the Franciscans Conventuals offered a project for seminarians to finish their studies in the archdiocesan seminary in Rio de Janeiro while learning Portuguese. (By the way, he’s mastered the language to the point where Bishop Manning literally thinks in Portuguese.) After ordination, the men would stay on as missionaries in the country. 

“I wanted to be a missionary at the time,” he said. So he approached the provincial and said he was interested in going. His request was approved, and he was set to go abroad with three other seminarians in his order. Bishop Manning noted that he had one thing to accomplish before going to Brazil: voting. 

“The only time I voted in my life was for (John F.) Kennedy, so it’s a while ago,” he said. “In 1962, I made my solemn vows, I voted for Kennedy, and shortly after I got on the boat in New York City (heading for Brazil and) … I’ve been there since.”

“In no way do I have something against the states,” he added. “My roots are there. I had my upbringing in the states, so it’s not that I’m against (the U.S.).” It’s just that with Brazil, “the shoe fits.”

A native of South Troy, Bishop Manning grew up with his brother and sister attending Mass at St. Michael the Archangel Church and going to school at St. Joseph’s, both in Troy. The bishop said coming from a religious family and having strong ties to his parish helped draw him to the Franciscan brotherhood. He got his first job at the parish working on the grounds when many friars would come by for Mass on the weekends: “There was something that I saw in the Franciscans and I liked them.”

After graduating from St. Jo­seph’s, Bishop Manning started attending La Salle Institute. He was already thinking about missionary life during his sophomore year.

“I thought do I have the courage to leave the country, learn another language, eat different food?” he said. “I was a kid, maybe 16 years old at the time, and I figured no, I don’t know if I would want to do that.” 

That all changed once Bishop Manning graduated from La Salle and entered the seminary. In 1959, during his first year at St. Anthony-on-Hudson Seminary in Rensselaer, Bishop Manning traveled to Puerto Rico with other friars to study Spanish for a summer: “When I saw the reality of missions, on weekends we go out to the missions in the mountains of Puerto Rico, and that just convinced me: I wanted to be a missionary.”

A few years later, Bishop Manning shipped off to Brazil. In 1965, Bishop Manning was ordained in the states and assigned to his first mission town (where his station wagon tried and failed to take on the local river.) He served there for five years before being transferred to Rio de Janeiro. After nine years in Rio, and another stop in between, he was then re-stationed in Araruama, a little town on the coast. In 1990, while serving in Araruama, he got a letter saying he was appointed Bishop of the Diocese of Valenca.

“I read the letter and went to get a map of the state to find out where Valenca is,” he laughed. The diocese, located near the city of Salvador, contained nine counties, 25 parishes, and over 200 small communities.

“I figured if they put my name there, so why refuse,” said Bishop Manning. “So I came to where I am now. I’ve been here for 29 years.”
Despite retiring in 2014, Bishop Manning is still active in his ministry in Valenca: “With our vocation, if you’re serious there’s no retirement involved.”

“People have asked me, am I Brazilian or am I American? And the feeling is I’m somewhere out in the middle of the Atlantic,” he said. “I think that’s the true idea of being Catholic: Catholic means universal and I think in our vocation, especially as missionaries, you have to try and be at home where you are. Feel at home where you are. And I feel at home here.”