Bahian medium Divaldo Franco died on the night of this Tuesday (13), at 98 years old, in Salvador.
According to the Mansão do Caminho, the spiritist institution founded by him in 1952, he passed away at 9:45 PM.
The wake will be held this Wednesday (14), at the Mansão do Caminho Gymnasium, from 9 AM to 8 PM, in the Bahian capital.
The burial will be on Thursday (15), at 10 AM, at the Bosque da Paz Cemetery, in the same city.
Who was Divaldo Franco
Divaldo Pereira Franco was born on May 5, 1927, in the city of Feira de Santana, Bahia, and has communicated with Spirits since childhood. He attended the Feira de Santana Rural Normal School, receiving his primary school teacher diploma in 1943.
At 18 years old, in 1945, he moved to Salvador and joined IPASE (Institute of Pension and Assistance for State Public Servants), retiring in 1980.
On September 7, 1947, together with his friend Nilson de Souza Pereira, he founded the Centro Espírita Caminho da Redenção and on August 15, 1952, started the social work Mansão do Caminho, to serve people in situations of social vulnerability.
Dedicated educator with more than 600 adopted children and more than 200 grandchildren, currently serving around 3,000 children, adolescents, and young people from low-income families per day, in semi-boarding and day regimes.
Currently, Mansão do Caminho is an educational complex with 83,000 m² and 50 buildings located at Rua Jaime Vieira Lima, No. 1, Pau da Lima, one of the neediest peripheral neighborhoods in Salvador, where more than 30,000 children have passed through its various courses and workshops.
Divaldo is recognized as one of the greatest spiritist mediums and speakers of the present day. He is also considered today the greatest disseminator of the Spiritist Doctrine worldwide, having delivered more than 11,000 lectures in more than 2,000 cities across Brazil and dozens of countries.
In 1964, under the guidance of the Spirit Joanna de Ângelis, he selected several messages authored by the mentor and compiled them into the book “Messe de Amor”, which became the first book psychographed by Divaldo. Since then, he has psychographed more than 200 works, and the books sold have reached more than seven million copies, of which 104 titles have been translated into 16 languages.
Since 1947, he has been delivering lectures in Brazil and abroad, where he has visited more than sixty countries on the five continents, giving to date more than 12,000 talks.
Creator of the You and Peace Movement, Divaldo has been visiting the populous neighborhoods of the city of Salvador for ten years, bringing them the precious message of peace. This movement crossed borders and reached several European countries such as Portugal, France, and Spain, the United States, and Paraguay, thus bringing the urgent proposal of peace to all nations.
Sources: Agência Brasil and www.feesp.com.br