NEW VENERABLE

 

On June 18, 2026, the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints promulgated the decree of Pope Leo XIV recognizing the heroic virtues of the Servant of God JULIO MARY De LOMBAERSE, making him Venerable.

He was a  Belgian Catholic missionary who became a naturalized Brazilian, of the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Holy Family, founder of the Daughters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary , the Missionaries of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament and the Sacramentarian Sisters of Our Lady.

Julio Emilio was born in Beveren-Leie, Belgium in 1878. At the age of seventeen, as a boarding student at St. Joseph’s College in Torhout, he heard a bishop’s sermon about the missions in Africa. 

As soon as he finished his studies, he joined the Society of the Missionaries of Africa, known as the White Fathers, and in 1895 he left for Algeria as a lay brother. Stricken with a fever that did not subside, he felt an inner urging to become a priest, promising Our Lady that if she granted him a cure, he would enter the seminary. The fever soon left him and he returned to Europe, joining the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Holy Family in Grave, Netherlands.

He was ordained on January 13, 1908. In 1912, he was sent to Brazil, where he would spend spent 16 years in the North and Northeast, preaching missions, serving as a parish priest, and founding a religious congregation. He also dedicated himself to education and basic sanitation as a way to improve the health conditions of the local population. 

“It really is the country of dreams. “Everything grows on trees here: bread, sugar, [cane] juice and even milk. There are only two things missing, perhaps I will discover them yet: a tree that produces ham, and another that produces eggs. After all this, and despite the heat, everyone will be shouting: long live Brazil!”

In 1928, he left for Manhumirin, in eastern Minas Gerais, with the full support ofDom Carloto Fernandes da Silva Tavora, bishop pf Caratinga. There he spent the last 16 years of his life, serving as parish priest, seminary formator, and master of its religious congregations. He also dedicated himself to journalism, with his newspaper O Lutador (Fighter). 

In many areas what really worried him was the state of souls: the practice of religion was restricted to certain ceremonies and external acts, without devotion or true piety, and there was a deep corruption of customs, which had become truly pagan and even anti-Christian. Furthermore, since there were no priests to instruct the people, men appeared who offered to preside over the ceremonies and prayers, drawn by the desire to profit at the expense of the needs of the faithful, thereby diverting them even further from the truth.

Fr. Julio Maria  visited the villages, teaching catechism to the children and personally attending to the sick. To better evangelize the youths who were given over to a meaningless life, he founded a school for boys. “He was the doctor. He was the pharmacist. He was the schoolmaster par excellence,” which quickly won him not only the trust of the people, who started attending church again, but also the recognition of the public authorities.

For the young women, he decided to finally realize an inspiration that he had long cherished in his heart: the foundation  of the Congregation of the Daughters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The new venerable died with a reputation for holiness on Christmas Eve,1944, in a car accident. His mortal remains reside in the sanctuary of Senhor Bom Jesus de Manhumir.