Dulce Lopes Pontes

Brazilian Franciscan sister, mother of the poor of Bahia. Born Maria Rita Lopes Pontes in Salvador da Bahia, she felt called to serve the poor at thirteen, after seeing the destitute slums beside her family's house. She entered the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God in 1933, taking the name Dulce. From 1949 she gathered the homeless of Salvador in a chicken coop next to her convent, which over decades grew into the immense Obras Sociais Irmã Dulce — schools, hospitals, hospices, and rehabilitation centres serving millions, the largest social-philanthropic complex of Brazil. Worn out by lung disease, she died in Salvador. Beatified in 2011 and canonized by Pope Francis in 2019, the first female Brazilian saint. Feast day August 13.