Geraldo Leite Bastos

Geraldo Leite Bastos, better known as Padre Geraldo (Moreno, december, 12, 1934 — Escada, april, 19, 1987) was a brazilian priest and writer.
Biography and Priestly Activity
Born in the city of Moreno (PE) in 1934, he was ordained priest in the Archdiocese of Olinda and Recife on December 8, 1961, and assigned to the community of Ponte dos Carvalhos, district of the municipality of Cabo de Santo Agostinho, on the outskirts of the Great Recife, being the first parish priest there. At the beginning of 1962, he began the construction of a Mother Church, which until then operated in an improvised place, next to which he later built the current headquarters on the banks of BR-101, with the help of the faithful. He was parish priest of Ponte dos Carvalhos from 1962 to 1980.
In 1972, Geraldo paid a visit to the Taizé Community in France, and later in 1974, with a group of 12 people doing a long tour in European lands: communities of France, And Italy. His action was also significant in the international exchange between Churches, as in the Dioceses of Freiburg (Germany) and Naples (Italy) and Taizé (France).
Geraldo's pastoral work was not limited to the office of the priesthood, but he also dedicated himself to liturgical singing. It develops a pioneering experience of inculturation in Brazilian lands: author of several hymns based on the Psalms of the bible, it manages to unite the old liturgical tradition of the Church with the cultural manifestations of the people. His gift to other fields of the arts elevates him to "the best and most gifted priests of the Roman Catholic clergy of Recife" (Dom Sebastião Armando in FELIX FILHO, 2013). Geraldo's "gifts" were extended to the theater, stained glass, the making of sacred images, painting, dance, architecture, liturgical implements. He left his mark on numerous artists, among whom the renowned brazilian singer Nando Cordel, former member of the choir of the church of the Ponte, the glazier Fernando da Escada and sacred craftsman Deacon Genival Lima.
In 1975, Geraldo assumed, for 2 years, the leadership of the newly created Parish of Morro da Conceição, in Recife, but he kept his work in Ponte dos Carvalhos.
From 1980, he was parish priest in the city of Escada, (where he idealized and wrote the staging of the Via Sacra in a public square), until the date of his death, At the age of 52, on April 19, 1987, a Sunday of Resurrection of Christ (Easter Sunday).
It currently names a school in the municipality of Escada, and a maternity hospital in Ponte dos Carvalhos, Cabo de Santo Agostinho.
Political Activity
In Ponte dos Carvalhos, then a village inhabited mainly by fishermen, small farmers and workers, Father Geraldo, even before the Second Vatican Council, which inspired the experience "Church of the Poor", and supported by Dom Helder Camara, ex Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, stimulated popular organization and the struggle for better living conditions. Under his leadership, the parish obtained by donation a land and built with the faithful the new temple, and the villages Esperança and Nation do Divino, until now inhabited, in a system of communal work.

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