Early life and ordination Ivan Dias was born in
Bandra, a suburb of
Bombay, to Carlos Nazaro Dias (d. 1953) and Maria Martins e Dias (d. 1991), both natives of
Goa. Dias' ancestral village is Velsao,
Salcete, Goa. His father was
undersecretary of the Home Department of the
government of Maharashtra. The second oldest of five children, he has four brothers:
Francis (a retired
lieutenant general in the
Indian military), Ralph, Paul and Olaf (a doctor). After graduating from the
Jesuit St. Stanislaus High School, he entered the
seminary of the
Archdiocese of Bombay and was later
ordained to the
priesthood by
Valerian Gracias on 8 December 1958. He then did pastoral work in Bombay as
curate at St. Stephen's Church until 1961, when he was sent to Rome to further his studies. He there attended the
Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy and the
Pontifical Lateran University, from where he obtained a
doctorate in canon law in 1964.
Secretariat of State Dias worked in the
Vatican Secretariat of State preparing the 1964 visit of
Pope Paul VI to India, during which he was raised to the rank of
Privy Chamberlain of His Holiness on 4 December. Dias was later named Apostolic Nuncio to
Korea on 20 June 1986, and
Apostolic Nuncio to Albania on 28 October 1991. In Albania, he was charged with rebuilding the
local church after nearly five decades of communist
rule, inviting foreign
missionaries to the country and working with the
Albanian government to recover Catholic churches and
schools.
Archbishop Recalled from the Vatican's diplomatic service, Dias was appointed the ninth
Archbishop of Bombay on 8 November 1996. He was an outspoken supporter of the controversial 2000 document of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Dominus Iesus, which declared that non-Catholics "are in a
gravely deficient situation in comparison with those who, in the Church, have the fullness of the means of salvation." Dias said the document was "a reaffirmation...[that] Jesus is the only savior of the world. We have a right to say who we are, and others can accept it or not." On 20 May 2006, he was appointed
Prefect of the
Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, the top post overseeing the
Catholic missions. He was also
ex officio the
Grand Chancellor of the
Pontifical Urbaniana University. He presented his resignation as required on reaching the age of 75. It was accepted on 10 May 2011 when he was succeeded as Prefect by
Fernando Filoni. Cardinal Dias was a member of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the
Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, the
Congregation for the Oriental Churches, the
Congregation for Catholic Education, the
Pontifical Council for Culture, the
Pontifical Council for the Laity, the
Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, the
Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, the
Pontifical Council for Social Communications, the
Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church and the
Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. Dias was one of the
cardinal electors who participated in the
2013 papal conclave that selected
Pope Francis. Dias died in Rome on 19 June 2017. ==Views==