António Rego, a Catholic Priest, was honored by the President of the Republic with the rank of Commander of the Order of Prince Henry the Navigator.
At the ceremony to award the honorary insignia, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa highlighted Father António Rego’s “close” communication and ability to give “wise, senatorial, prudent advice.”
Father António Rego received the award with feelings of “gratitude to the communities”, for his services and even for what “remains to be done”.
“I express my gratitude to the communities I have accompanied, to the services I have rendered and to what has been left undone and which in my heart I have had the ardent desire to accomplish,” he told Agência ECCLESIA.
“I have great gratitude in my heart that God has held me in his generous hand, every minute of my existence, so that I would never give up or underestimate this mystery of my vocation, first as a baptized man and then as a priest,” added the priest, who celebrates 60 years of ordination this year.
Canon António Rego said he was not a “model”, recalling the communities he had the opportunity to “visit, inform and evangelize”.
According to the information on the website of the Presidency of the Republic, “the Order of Prince Henry the Navigator is intended to distinguish those who have rendered relevant services to Portugal, at home and abroad, as well as services in the expansion of Portuguese culture or for knowledge of Portugal, its history and its values.”
On Friday, Canon António Rego was honored by the National Secretariat for Social Communications of the Portuguese Episcopal Conference in a session entitled ‘António Rego: 60 years of priesthood and journalism’, which took place on the afternoon of the second day of the National Social Communication Days, in Fatima, at the Domus Carmeli.
The tribute included a Dialogue of Father António Rego with Carlos Liz and José Lopes Araújo, respectively, the former director of Marketing at TVI and the former director of Institutional Relations and Archives at RTP, moderated by Paulo Rocha, director of the ECCLESIA Agency. The tribute to Father António Rego began with a speech by the National Secretariat for Social Communications director and Msgr. Nuno Brás, the Episcopal Commission for Culture, Cultural Goods, and Social Communications president, closed the session held at JNCS2024.
Canon António Rego, together with the late Canon João Aguiar Campos, who was also the director of the National Secretariat for Social Communications (2011-2016), received the D. Manuel Falcão Journalism Award during the presentation session for the 50th World Communications Day on May 5, 2016. PR

From Capelas to the Catholic world and journalism

Born in Capelas, on the island of São Miguel, in 1941, Father António Rego was ordained a priest on June 21, 1964. He began his ministry in Angra do Heroísmo until he was sent to work in the media in Lisbon.
During more than 50 years as a priest and journalist, Father Rego was the author of the programs “Hoje é domingo”, “Nota do Dia”, “Meditando”, “Diálogo com os que Sofrem”, “Esquema XIII”, “Verdade e Vida”, “Andar faz caminho”, “Toda a Gente é Pessoa”, “O homem sem tempo”, “Alfa e Omega”, “70×7”, “Palavra entre palavras”, “Reflexo”, “Oitavo Dia”.
First in radio and newspapers in the Diocese of Angra, the priest worked at Renascença between 1968 and 1975 and, until 1992, in national newspapers, national radio channels, public television, cinema, audiovisual cooperatives, and the National Secretariat for Social Communications.
Invited to the TVI project from the start, he began as information director of the station, broadcasting in February 1993. He continued there as coordinator of religious programs, broadcasting Mass, and then as author, producer, and director of the program “Oitavo Dia.”
His return to the head of the National Secretariat for Social Communications in 1996 also marked the conclusion of the dialogue between the religious denominations based in Portugal for a joint presence on public radio and television, with the program “A Fé dos Homens,” first on RTP2, from September 15, 1997, and then on Antena, from November 1, 2009.
After 23 years of collaboration with TVI and 52 years of pastoral work carried out from the Diocese of Lisbon, where he was incardinated and was canon of the Patriarchal See, Father António Rego returned to the Azores in February 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, and is now living with his family.

Editor’s Note: Father Rego’s radio program Toda a Gente é Pessoa was broadcast in the early 1980s on a local Portuguese closed-circuit radio station in the Central Valley Radio Clube Comunidade.