Father Arturo Sosa, SJ, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, has appointed Father António Valério, SJ, as Provincial of Portugal. In this role, he becomes one of the 16 major superiors forming the Jesuit Conference of European Provincials (JCEP). He will take up the role in June 2026.

Fr Valério currently serves as General Director of Colégio das Caldinhas, a Jesuit secondary school in Santo Tirso, northern Portugal. He has previously served as Provincial Consultant and Rector of the Juniorate in Braga, and as national director of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network in Portugal, with earlier ministry in university chaplaincy.

He was born in 1977 and entered the Society in 1997. After his First Vows he completed his first period of studies in philosophy and humanities in Braga, before Regency in Porto and Santo Tirso, and theology in Bilbao and Rome. He was ordained in 2009.

Following the death of Pope Francis in April 2025, Fr Valério wrote in a public social media post recalling his meeting at the Vatican during the 175^th anniversary of the Apostleship of Prayer – now the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network – where he had served as national director in Portugal.

He recalls a personal encounter with the Pope at that meeting – how “Francis rose and came to greet me with an open and brotherly smile” – took him by the arm and said: “Thank you for your work. May God bless you.” They promised to pray for one another.

“I can still feel that hand holding me and encouraging me,” he wrote in his tribute, “giving me strength in the mission I now have, and certainly in those that will follow.” He could not have known, as he wrote those words, how apt they would prove less than a year later – as he prepares to lead the Province.