Pere Casaldàliga i Pla , known in Portuguese as Pedro Casaldáliga (16 February 19288 August 2020), was a Spanish-born Brazilian prelate of the Catholic Church who led the Territorial Prelature of São Félix, Brazil, from 1970 to 2005. A bishop since 1971, Casaldàliga was one of the best-known exponents of liberation theology. He received numerous awards, including the Catalonia International Prize in 2006. He was a forceful advocate in support of indigenous peoples and published several volumes of poetry. Biography Beginnings Pere Casaldàliga was born on 16 February 1928 in Balsareny, Catalonia, Spain, and grew up on his family's cattle ranch. He joined the Claretians, entering the Claretian Seminary of Vic at the age of nine. He was ordained a priest in Barcelona on 31 May 1952. Casaldàliga moved to Brazil as a missionary in 1968. On 27 April 1970, Pope Paul VI named him Apostolic Administrator of the Territorial Prelature of São Félix. On 27 August 1971, Pope Paul named him prelate of that jurisdiction and titular bishop of Altava. He received his episcopal consecration on 23 October from Fernando Gomes dos Santos, Archbishop of Goiânia. Brazilian dictatorship In the 1970s, the military regime ruling Brazil tried without success to force Casaldàliga to leave the country. His advocacy for indigenous peoples and peasants resulted in repeated death threats, and in 1976 a priest was killed standing alongside him at a march protesting the mistreatment of female prisoners. In the 1980s, he refused to make the required ad limina visits to Rome that bishops normally make every five years. He said he feared not being able to re-enter Brazil and said "The visits were bureaucratic and formal and did not lead to proper dialogue." Casaldàliga co-founded the in 1972, an organ of the Episcopal Conference of Brazil that fights for the right to cultural diversity of indigenous peoples to strengthen its autonomy. In 1986, Casaldàliga founded a pilgrimage, Romería de los Mártires, held every five years. It centers on the site where Jesuit João Bosco Bernier was killed at Casaldáliga's side on 11 October 1976, the Sanctuary of the Martyrs of the "Caminhada". Liberation theology movement and friction with the Vatican In June 1988, as part of a Vatican effort to place restrictions on the liberation theology movement and following its 1985 silencing of Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff, Casaldáliga was called to Rome to be examined by Cardinals Joseph Ratzinger