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Alexandre José Maria dos Santos

Catholic cardinal (1924–2021)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ546787 ↗
Source-derived summary

Alexandre José Maria dos Santos (18 March 1924 – 29 September 2021) was a Mozambican Roman Catholic cardinal. He was the first native cardinal of Mozambique.

Ecclesiastical career

Dos Santos was born in Zavala, Mozambique. He studied in Nyasaland and Lisbon before being ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1953, becoming the first black Mozambican to receive the distinction. In 1973 he became the first African to run a seminary in Mozambique. He was archbishop of Maputo, between 1975 and 2003. On 26 June 1988, he was created a cardinal by Pope John Paul II, and given the titular church of San Frumenzio ai Prati Fiscali. He was instrumental in the peace process surrounding the end of the Mozambican Civil War. He did not participate in the conclaves of 2005 and 2013, because he was over the age limit by then.

References

External links

"Santos Card.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Alexandre José Maria dos Santos” as catholic cardinal (1924–2021). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1924, 2021, 1953, 1973—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1924-03-18. The account is most persuasive where Alexandre, José and Maria can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as catholic cardinal (1924–2021). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q546787. VIAF identifies the subject as 290646268. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1924, 2021, 1953 and 1973.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Alexandre José Maria dos Santos” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.