Dadeus Grings

Dadeus Grings was a Brazilian Roman Catholic archbishop, theologian and prolific writer who led the Archdiocese of Porto Alegre from 2001 to 2013 and later lived as its archbishop emeritus. He died on the morning of 21 September 2026 at Hospital Dom Joao Becker in Gravatai, Rio Grande do Sul, at the age of 90, after an ischemic stroke that had hospitalised him since the previous Thursday. The Archdiocese of Porto Alegre, Vatican News and the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB) announced his death the same day.

He was born Tadeu Grings in Nova Petropolis, Rio Grande do Sul, on 7 September 1936. At eighteen, preparing a passport for studies in Rome, he discovered that a clerical error on his birth certificate had registered him as Dadeus. He kept the name, later saying that the Church's mission was to "give God" (dar Deus). He studied at the Sao Jose Minor Seminary in Gravatai, then at the Pontifical Brazilian College and the Gregorian University in Rome. He was ordained a priest in Rome in 1961 for the Archdiocese of Porto Alegre.

As a priest he served as parochial vicar, parish priest, seminary rector, professor and judge of the regional ecclesiastical tribunal, and he also worked briefly with the Vatican Secretariat of State. On 23 January 1991 he was appointed Bishop of Sao Joao da Boa Vista in Sao Paulo state and was ordained bishop in Porto Alegre's Metropolitan Cathedral. His episcopal motto was drawn from John 8:32: "The truth will set you free." Within the CNBB he sat on the Episcopal Commission for Doctrine (1995-2001), worked with seminary formators in Sao Paulo, and later chaired the South 3 regional conference.

Appointed coadjutor archbishop of Porto Alegre on 12 April 2000, he succeeded Archbishop Altamiro Rossato on 7 February 2001 and governed the archdiocese for twelve years. Pope Francis accepted his resignation in 2013; Grings remained apostolic administrator until Cardinal Jaime Spengler took possession, then retired as archbishop emeritus. He was also chancellor of the Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul and published dozens of books on doctrine, liturgy, moral theology and social thought, including a three-volume prayer series titled Meu coloquio com Deus. In later years he lived at the Lar Sacerdotal in Gravatai.

In May 2010 remarks he made about clergy sexual abuse and society drew international criticism and a distancing statement from a CNBB spokesman; English-language reports also disputed how his comments on reporting priests to police had been summarised. Brazilian church authorities remembered him in 2026 for pastoral service and writing. Lying in state began at the Sao Jose Seminary chapel in Gravatai on 21 September, moved to Porto Alegre's Metropolitan Cathedral Madre de Deus that afternoon, with the funeral Mass and burial in the cathedral set for 22 September under Cardinal Spengler.