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2004 Pueblo Dinner and Silent Auction |
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Featuring
His Eminence
Oscar
Cardinal Rodriguez |
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Cardinal Rodriguez
was born December 29, 1941. As a boy, he dreamed of playing the
saxophone in a dance band or becoming a pilot. Instead, he entere First ordained a priest in 1970, a Bishop in 1978, then the Archbishop of Tegucigalpa in 1993, Rodriguez Maradiaga was ordained Cardinal with the title of "St. Mary of Hope" on January 21, 2001. Multilingual, with degrees in philosophy and theology, a diploma in clinical psychology, and trained in classical piano, he is a rising star in the Latin American church. His campaign for human rights and the poor have won widespread praise. Cardinal Rodriguez is further admired as a dynamic pastor who brokered peace accords with rebels and led rebuilding efforts after a natural disaster. Cardinal Rodriguez served as President of the Conference of Latin American Bishops (CELAM) from 1995 to 1999. Prior to that, he was Secretary General of the Latin American Episcopal Conference (CELAM) from 1987 to 1991. He has been a member of several Pontifical Councils, including the Council for Social Communications; the Council for Justice and Peace; and the Commission for Latin America. He was the Vatican's spokesperson with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank on the issue of Third World debt. Rodriguez was also on the writing team for Ecclesia in America, which was the document presented by Pope John Paul II in 1999 based on the Special Synod for America. In addition, he is the founder of the Catholic University of Honduras, "Our Lady Queen of Peace," and has been the recipient of many awards and honors, including the Central American Parliamentary decoration "Francisco Morazan." He also holds honorary degrees from Don Bosco University in San Salvador and the Catholic University of Taiwan in Kaohsiung. Cardinal Rodriguez is currently the President of the Episcopal Conference of Honduras, a post he will hold until 2002. As President of CELAM in the late 1900s, he used the forum to denounce the region's foreign debt burden. He tends to stress the pope's distrust of extreme free market policies. "The colonialsim of the past was based on warships and the new colonialism on money," he said. Like other cardinals, he was repeatedly spoken out agains abortion and destruction of embryos in scientific work, but is considered less rigidly conservative than other Latin Americans elevated by John Paul. The election of the Polish pope 23 years ago broke a 455-year-long Italian monopoly, and this time, the field is open for another surprise -- a Third World pope. In an interview on German radio a year ago, Cardinal Karl Lehmann stated outright that those looking for John Paul's successor were considering prelates from Latin America. Italians still are the largest contingent, but no cardinal has emerged as a candidate to rally around. Latin Americans make up the largest geographic bloc after the Europeans (holding 26 votes in the conclave in contrast to Italy's 24) and they minister to half the world's one billion Roman Catholics. A favorite of the Latin American bloc, Rodriguez is considered a strong candidate for the next papacy. He has spoken at Notre Dame on issues of Third World debt relief and has visited the University a number of time.
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