Francisco de São Luís Saraiva

Frei Francisco de São Luís, O.S.B. (26 January 1766 – 7 May 1845), religious name of Francisco Manuel Justiniano Saraiva and today more commonly known as Cardinal Saraiva , was a Portuguese Cardinal of the Catholic Church, who was the eighth Patriarch of Lisbon from 1840 (only preconised by the Holy See in 1843) to 1845.

An eminent figure of Portuguese society in his day, he became politically active after the French invasion during the Peninsular War, and became one of the founders of the liberal regime. During the Constitutional Monarchy, he occupied several important political offices, such as that of President of the Chamber of Deputies (1826-1828; 1834), Minister of the Kingdom (1834-1835), and Peer of the Realm (from 1835).

As a researcher and author, Cardinal Saraiva was an authority in the fields of philology and history: his ten-volume Complete Works (published posthumously in 1856-1878) were standard reference works for more than a century.

Biography Francisco Manuel Justiniano Saraiva was the son of notary Manuel José Saraiva and his wife Leonor Maria Teodora Correia; born on 26 January 1766 in Rua das Flores, Ponte de Lima, he was baptized on 9 February in the town's Parish Church of Our Lady of the Angels (Nossa Senhora dos Anjos).

At age 14, he joined the Monastery of São Martinho de Tibães, mother house of the Benedictines in Portugal, due to his "gifts of organ and plainsong". He made his religious vows on 29 January 1782, adopting the religious name Francisco de São Luís (Francis of Saint Louis). He was transferred to the to carry on his studies in Philosophy. He earned a degree in Theology from the University of Coimbra in 1791, and soon after started teaching there.

Saraiva was an advocate of the ideals of Liberalism and Enlightenment. While it is often said that he had become a Freemason (historian Oliveira Marques has written that Saraiva was initiated in a Coimbra lodge sometime before 1821, having adopted Condorcet as his symbolic name), Saraiva himself has left texts denying any association. The appointment was preconised by Gregory XVI in his bull Onerosa pastoralis, issued on 3 April 1843. Later that same year, on 19 June 1843, Saraiva was made a Cardinal.