His Eminence Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga | |
|---|---|
| Cardinal Archbishop Emeritus of Tegucigalpa | |
 | |
| Church | Catholic |
| Archdiocese | Tegucigalpa |
| Appointed | 8 January 1993 |
| Term ended | 26 January 2023 |
| Predecessor | Héctor Enrique Santos Hernández [es] |
| Successor | José Vicente Nácher Tatay |
| Other post | Cardinal-Priest ofSanta Maria della Speranza |
| Previous posts |
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| Orders | |
| Ordination | 28 June 1970 by Girolamo Prigione |
| Consecration | 8 December 1978 by Gabriel Montalvo Higuera |
| Created cardinal | 21 February 2001 byPope John Paul II |
| Rank | Cardinal-Priest |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga (1942-12-29)29 December 1942 (age 82) |
| Motto |
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| Coat of arms |  |
| Styles of Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga | |
|---|---|
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| Reference style | His Eminence |
| Spoken style | Your Eminence |
| Informal style | Cardinal |
| See | Tegucigalpa |
Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga,S.D.B. (born 29 December 1942) is aHonduran prelate of theCatholic Church who wasArchbishop of Tegucigalpa from 1993 to 2023. He was president ofCaritas Internationalis and served as president of theLatin American Episcopal Conference (CELAM) from 1995 to 1999.
Rodríguez was elevated to the rank ofcardinal in 2001. He has been theVatican's spokesman with theInternational Monetary Fund and theWorld Bank, on the issue ofThird World debt.[2] He is a member of theSalesians.
He was born inTegucigalpa in Honduras, the third of the four children of Andrés Rodríguez Palacios and Raquel Maradiaga. As a boy, he dreamed of playing thesaxophone in a dance band or becoming apilot. Instead, he received an internal call for the religious life and joined theSalesians on 3 May 1961.
He earneddoctorates inphilosophy from the Institute "Don Rua" inEl Salvador, intheology from theSalesian Pontifical University inRome andmoral theology from thePontifical Lateran University. From theAustrianUniversity of Innsbruck Rodríguez received adiploma inclinical psychology andpsychotherapy.
He wasordained apriest on 28 July 1970, by Archbishop Girolamo Prigione inGuatemala City. Rodríguez was named the bishop's assistant in Tegucigalpa in the same year. He wasdean of the Theology Department for three years at Guatemala'sFrancisco Marroquín University from 1975.
He then taughtchemistry,physics, andmusic at Salesian colleges in El Salvador, Honduras, andGuatemala over the next fifteen years. During this time he also became a professor of moral theology andecclesiology at the Salesian Theological Institute inGuatemala. He was also trained in classicalpiano and did studies in music inEl Salvador,Guatemala, and theUnited States.
He speaksEnglish,French,Italian,German, andPortuguese in addition to his nativeSpanish.[citation needed]
On 28 October 1978, Rodríguez was namedauxiliary bishop ofTegucigalpa andtitular bishop ofPudentiana. He received hisepiscopal consecration on the following 8 December from ArchbishopGabriel Montalvo, with archbishopsHéctor Enrique Santos Hernández [es] andMiguel Obando y Bravo serving as co-consecrators.
Rodríguez was named Archbishop of Tegucigalpa on 8 January 1993.[3]
Rodríguez was createdCardinal-Priest ofSanta Maria della Speranza byPope John Paul II in theconsistory of 21 February 2001.[4] He is the first cardinal from Honduras.[5]
He was president of theEpiscopal Conference of Honduras from 1996 to 2016.[6] Rodríguez was one of thecardinal electors who participated in the2005 papal conclave that selectedPope Benedict XVI.[6]
On 5 June 2007 Rodríguez was elected president ofCaritas International by the Caritas Confederation members at their 18th General Assembly in Vatican City. He was reelected to a second four-year term on 24 May 2011[7] and served until 2015.[6]
On 12 June 2012, Rodriguez was appointed a member of theCongregation for Catholic Education for a five-year renewable term.[8]
He was one of thecardinal electors who participated in the2013 papal conclave that electedPope Francis.[6][9]
On 13 April 2013, he was appointed to theCouncil of Cardinal Advisers, a group of cardinals established byPope Francis to advise him and to study a plan for revisingPastor Bonus, the Apostolic Constitution on theRoman Curia.[10]
In 2013 an interview with Salt and Light, he said, "It is not just taking the constitutionPastor Bonus and trying to change this and that," referring to the 1988 papal constitution governing the organization of the Roman Curia. "No, that constitution is over," he said. "Now it is something different. We need to write something different."[11]
Reflecting on the reorganisation of the Roman Curia, his advisory role to the pope and Catholic response to climate change. The cardinal made the comment in a 23 September interview with Catholic News Service in New York, where he was participating in interreligious meetings in his capacity as president of Caritas Internationalis. Reformation of the Roman Curia, the church's central administrative offices, is a normal response to changing times, has a significant 20th-century precedent, and was a focus of the pre-conclave meetings before Pope Francis was elected, Cardinal Rodriguez said. “Many people do not look back at history and they think now it's a revolution. No! This is a normal process… that takes place in order to answer to the new signs of the times,” he said.[12]
On 10 March 2015, Rodriguez received theUniversity of Dayton's ArchbishopOscar Romero Human Rights Award for his humanitarian work. Romero, who was beatified as a martyr on 23 May 2015 and is honored in a few other Christian denominations, was Archbishop of theRoman Catholic Archdiocese of San Salvador inSan Salvador,El Salvador, when he was assassinated on 24 March 1980, in a hospital chapel while saying Mass, by a death squad assassin.[13]
On 15 October 2020, Pope Francis renewed Rodríguez' appointment as Coordinator of the Council of Cardinal Advisers.[14]
Rodríguez was diagnosed withCOVID-19 on 4 February 2021.[15]
On 26 January 2023, Pope Francis accepted Rodriguez' resignation as Archbishop of Tegucigalpa.[16]
Rodríguez was theHoly See's spokesman with theInternational Monetary Fund and theWorld Bank on the issue ofThird World debt, and he has encouraged countries to give development aid.[2]
In 2009, Rodríguez agreed with the pope that distributing condoms was no solution to the HIV/AIDS crisis.[17]
In a May 2002 interview, Rodríguez said "It gave me considerable food for thought that, at a time of total media focus on developments in the Middle East with all the injustices being perpetrated against the Palestinian people, U.S. television and press people were obsessed with sex scandals of 30 or 40 years ago." TheAnti-Defamation League expressed "outage" at his remarks and then reported that after being told he had been "offensive", Rodríguez "apologized, said he never meant his remarks to be taken that way, and indicated that he would never say it again".[18]
Rodríguez believes the Church must be "open" and in "constant dialogue", following the Second Vatican Council's example in rejecting attitudes of "arrogance and superiority".[19]
Rodríguez gave the keynote address at the 2014 conference title "The Catholic Case Against Libertarianism"[20]
In 2007, Rodríguez was appointed to head the new "Commission of Notables" on the study of the energy crisis as it impacted Honduras. When challenged in an international interview about being unqualified for such a task, he responded quietly that he was educated in chemical engineering in Texas and knew a thing or two about petroleum. His choice as leader, however, was not his technical knowledge but the national respect for his integrity and his neutrality towards political groups in the country.
In 2008, Rodríguez criticized PresidentManuel Zelaya for using public money to promote his plans instead of spending it on the poor. He stated: "We were good friends. But he changed drastically... It wasChávez."[21]
The Church, according to a spokesman, did not favor either the deposed Zelaya's alleged re-election plans or the coup a against him. In a televised speech, Rodríguez warned that the return of Zelaya could lead to a bloodbath. He also called on the new government to promote national reconciliation and let aside revenge, pursuit, violence, and corruption. He further urged theOrganization of American States to investigate all illegal deeds that happened during the rule of Zelaya.[22][23]
Rodríguez was later accused by Zelaya of conspiring and collaborating with the coup leaders.[24]
The Italian magazineL'espresso reported that Pope Francis assigned retired Argentine Bishop Jorge Casaretto to undertake an investigation of Rodríguez' financial management in 2017 and that his report suggested that Rodríguez may have been involved in mismanaging Church funds, and may also have accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Catholic University of Tegucigalpa. Other charges included mismanaged investments and practices that appeared irregular rather than illegal. Reports noted that Rodríguez was soon to reach retirement age, and the pope might consider that in evaluating the report.[25][26]
In a 2018 book, Martha Alegría Reichmann De Valladeres, widow of former Honduran ambassador to the Holy See Alejandro Valladares Lanza, accused Rodríguez of maintaining an abusive and mafia-like regime in Honduras for decades, promoting false investment schemes, diverting money from the local university and from the government to shadowy and immoral purposes.[27] She also accused him of protecting his auxiliary bishopJuan José Pineda Fasquelle [de],[28] who was forced to resign in 2018 following accusations of sexually abusing seminarians.[29]
| Catholic Church titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Titular Bishop of Pudentiana 28 October 1978 – 8 January 1993 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | General Secretary of the Latin American Episcopal Council 1987 – 1991 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Archbishop of Tegucigalpa 8 January 1993 – 26 January 2023 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | President of the Latin American Episcopal Council 1995 – 1999 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | President of theEpiscopal Conference of Honduras 1996 – 13 June 2016 | Succeeded by |
| Titular church established | Cardinal Priest of Santa Maria della Speranza 21 February 2001 – | Incumbent |
| Preceded by Denis Viénot | President of Caritas Internationalis 5 June 2007 – 15 May 2015 | Succeeded by |
