Pope bids farewell to Portuguese ambassador
The Pope received this Thursday, at the Vatican, the Portuguese ambassador to the Holy See, António de Almeida Lima, on a farewell visit, after the diplomat’s dismissal and appointment as Portugal’s representative in The Hague.
The private audience was announced by the Holy See’s press room in a statement.
The Portuguese Government appointed itself in December 2021, as the new ambassador to the Holy See, Domingos Fezas Vital, until now Portugal’s representative in the USA.
António de Almeida Lima, 65 years old, initiated in the Vatican in September 2017; Graduated in Law from the Catholic University of Lisbon, he spent his diplomatic career in London, Brussels, Maputo, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Rio de Janeiro and the Agency for Investment and Foreign Trade of Portugal – AICEP, having also been head of the Protocol of Portugal Estado, with the degree of ambassador.
The diplomat was exonerated from the post of Portuguese ambassador to the Holy See by decree 96/2021 of the President of the Republic, with data from December 16, 2021.
António de Almeida Lima highlights, in the beautiful that opens the page of the embassy, national that “Portugal is one of the countries with the oldest official relations with the Holy See”, marked in its origin by the bull “Manifestis probatum est”, of 1179, which Pope Alexander III recognizes the independence of the Portuguese County.
The new ambassador, Domingos Fezas Vital, was appointed by decree 103/2021 of the President of the Republic, on December 16, 2021, at the proposal of the Government.
The official was born on September 27, 1958, in Luanda, and began his diplomatic career in 1984; along this path, he passed through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Brussels, Macau and Brazil.
Domingos Fezas Vital was Portugal’s permanent representative to the European Union, in Brussels, and was, since 2015, Portuguese ambassador to the United States of America.