Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga

Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, S.D.B. (n. Tegucigalpa, December 29, 1942), Honduran cardinal of the Catholic Church and archbishop emeritus of Tegucigalpa.

Biography

Early years and training

Óscar Andrés was born on December 29, 1942, in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. He is the son of the marriage of Andrés Rodríguez and Raquel Maradiaga.

He completed his primary and secondary studies at the Instituto Salesiano San Miguel, graduating with a bachelor's degree, entering the Salesian Congregation or Salesians of Don Bosco (Society of San Francisco de Sales) in 1961, shortly before completing his teacher training; he studied theology and philosophy in the seminary, as well as classical music, his youthful passion: he has studies in piano, saxophone, harmony and composition and conducted an orchestra in the major seminary. He is also a leading intellectual, having received a doctorate in theology from the Salesian Pontifical University before studying clinical psychology and psychotherapy in Innsbruck. Between 1963 and 1975 he taught elementary school and later was a professor of chemistry, physics, sacred music, and finally moral theology and ecclesiology. He is fluent in five languages in addition to his native language: English, French, Italian, German and Portuguese, in addition to having the title of aeronautical pilot.

Priesthood

Ordained in 1970 in Guatemala; that same year he was appointed as assistant to the archbishop of Tegucigalpa.

Between 1975 and 1978, he served as Dean of the Faculty of Theology at the Francisco Marroquín University of Guatemala, until he was appointed bishop on December 8, 1978.

Episcopacy

In 1981 he was named Bishop of the Diocese of Santa Rosa de Copán, a position he administered until 1984. On January 8, 1993, he was named Archbishop of Tegucigalpa.

Cardinalate

In the consistory of February 21, 2001, Pope John Paul II named him Cardinal of Santa María de la Esperanza and he was the first Honduran to obtain this dignity. On the death of John Paul II he was cited as one of his possible successors on the pontifical throne. He received the Frankl Prize from the Vienna City Council in 2008 for his commitment to the poor.

In the Spanish-American church, his ability to combine modernity and tradition is generally recognized. In the days after the attack on Iraq at the end of March 2003, he declared that the true weapons of mass destruction are poverty and injustice, that it is necessary to rethink the principles of international law and that smaller countries, such as those of Latin America, they cannot negotiate as vassals of an empire.

He is a member of the Congregation for the Clergy, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, the Pontifical Commission for Latin America and the Special Council for America of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops; On June 5, 2007, Benedict XVI named him President of Caritas Internationalis for four years. Since 1996 he has directed the Honduran Episcopal Conference.

He was one of the eight cardinals chosen by Pope Francis to form and preside over the Council of Cardinals that seeks to help him govern the Church and reform the Roman Curia.

On May 28, 2019, he was confirmed as a member of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life usque ad octogesimum annum.

On October 13, 2020, he was confirmed as coordinator of the Council of Cardinals to assist the Holy Father in the government of the universal Church and to study a draft revision of the apostolic constitution Pastor bonus on the Roman Curia usque ad octogesimum annum.

On January 26, 2023, his resignation from the pastoral government of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Tegucigalpa was accepted, due to age limit.

Criticism

In 2008, he criticized the Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin for having two twin children through the surrogate or surrogate procedure, declaring that “it is diminishing the dignity of the human person, because a life that begins cannot be fruit of a rent […] It is as if they were raising cattle”.

Former Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, in a conversation with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, heard that the Catholic Church should make Maradiaga pontiff, because "he is very popular and knew how to play the trumpet." Beyond Maradiaga's musical merits, he is considered by Pope Francis as one of the strongest interlocutors since, since 2003, he guides Catholic Latin America.

Controversies

During the 2009 coup against President Manuel Zelaya, Rodríguez Maradiaga sided with the de facto government. Cardinal Óscar Andrés appeared on television and radio stations to give his support to the new authorities and ensure that "the three branches of the State, Executive, Legislative and Judicial, were in legal force" and democratic according to the Constitution of the Republic".

Pope Francis ordered an investigation into the Honduran Church after an Italian magazine accused Honduran cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga of having collected large sums of money from a Catholic university for years. “There was an investigation ordered by the Holy Father himself,” Vatican press office spokesman Greg Burke said in a statement, without providing details. According to the magazine L'Espresso, the influential Central American cardinal received for years "half a million euros a year from the Catholic University of Tegucigalpa." The publication claims that Pope Francis was informed and ordered an investigation more than six months ago.

The wife of the former head of the Vatican Diplomatic Corps, Martha Alegría Reichmann denounced that she and her husband were victims of fraud by the Honduran cardinal, who suggested that they deposit their money in an investment fund in England belonging to a friend, named, Youssry Henien, who disappeared with the money.

During the post-electoral crisis that followed the highly contested re-election of Juan Orlando Hernández, the opposition organized a mass, for the deaths of many Hondurans at the hands of police forces and the army during protests against the re-elected government by Juan Orlando Hernandez. To which the cardinal described as "a shameful spectacle and described its leaders, the former president of Honduras, Manuel "Mel" Zelaya Rosales and Salvador Nasralla, as demons.

On September 2, 2018, during mass on Sunday, Rodríguez Maradiaga referred to social networks as fecal networks, and suggested that the Honduran people believe what the main media outlets in the country say, even though those be contrary to what they think.

Ancestors