Cipriano Calderón Polo

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Cipriano Calderón Polo (born December 1, 1927 in Plasencia , Spain , † February 4, 2009 in Rome ) was a Spanish Curia Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church . He was the Vatican's Spanish - speaking spokesman for many years, an important Vatican expert on Latin America from the 1970s to 1990s, and Vice-President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America from 1988 to 2003 .

Life

Cipriano Calderón Polo joined Pope Pius XI at the age of 13 soon after the death . into the boys' seminary in his home diocese of Plasencia . During his training as a priest, he first studied at the Pontifical University of Comillas in Santander and in 1948 went to Rome as an alumne of the Pontifical Spanish College of St. Joseph , where he obtained his degree in philosophy and theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University . He also studied journalism in Rome at the International College for Social Studies “Pro Deo” . On March 19, 1953, he received the sacrament of ordination and held his primacy in his extreme homeland. He again completed his doctoral studies in Rome at the Lateran University .

Since the beginning of the 1950s he worked alongside his studies as a Vatican correspondent for various, mostly church-based Spanish and Latin American magazines and agencies, including the Catholic newspaper YA from Madrid, the Logos agency , the Spanish Catholic press agency Prensa Asociada and numerous Spanish provincial church newspapers . As a Vatican correspondent, he also wrote for secular newspapers such as La Vanguardia from Barcelona and La Gaceta del Norte from Bilbao . In Spain, after completing his doctorate, he worked as a lecturer at the Archbishop's Seminary in Zaragoza and as Spiritual Director at the Seminary in Segovia before returning to Rome to the Pontifical Spanish College, of which he became Vice-Rector. In 1958 he spent a semester abroad as a lecturer in Catholic social teaching at the University of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic .

At the beginning of the Second Vatican Council he was rector of the Spanish Pontifical College in Rome and was appointed head of the Spanish press room from 1962 to 1965 as an employee of the Vatican State Secretariat , so that he was perceived as the “official Spanish voice” of the Vatican during the council . As an official observer, he attended all council sessions. As a council journalist, Calderón Polo wrote a biography of the then Archbishop of Milan , Giovanni Battista Montini, who was named Paul VI before the manuscript was finished . was elected Pope , so that the book, which will appear immediately after the papal election, met with great interest. Calderón was a close companion of the Vatican diplomat Giovanni Benelli , who was active at the Nunciature in Madrid at the time and from 1967, as a substitute for the Cardinal Secretary of State, shaped the Vatican policy on Spain and initiated the Church's departure from the Franco regime .

Calderón Polo published the first Spanish edition of L'Osservatore Romano on behalf of the Pope in 1968 and accompanied Paul VI. on his trip to Colombia , the first intercontinental trip by a Pope in history. In Medellín , the Pope opened the Second General Assembly of Latin American and Caribbean Bishops on this trip on August 24, 1968, in which Calderón Polo took part as papal rapporteur. In the same year Calderón became editor of the Spanish-language edition of L'Osservatore Romano , which appeared regularly from 1969. It was widely accepted, especially in Latin America, and played an important role in the dissemination of the Council's resolutions there. The office of the Spanish-language editorship of the Vatican in-house newspaper developed under Calderón's direction into a meeting place for Latin American bishops and church representatives on their visits to Rome and became an important hub for the Catholic Church in this region of the world. Entrusted with the Spanish-language public relations work of the Vatican, Calderón accompanied Pope Paul VI. as a Vatican press representative on all trips abroad of his pontificate and from 1967 to 1987 he participated as press spokesman and author of the Spanish press releases and communiquées in all general assemblies of the Roman Synod of Bishops . Calderón was sent as rapporteur to episcopal conferences and ecclesiastical meetings in Latin America and also took part in the Third CELAM General Assembly opened by Pope John Paul II in December 1979 in Puebla .

On December 3, 1988, Pope John Paul II made him titular bishop of Thagora and appointed him vice-president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America . In this function, which he held until his retirement in 2003, he coordinated the Vatican activities in Latin America together with the superordinate Congregation for the Bishops . The episcopal ordination donated him John Paul II on 6 January 1989. St. Peter's Basilica ; Co-consecrators were the Curial Archbishops Edward Idris Cassidy , then substitute in the Vatican State Secretariat, and José Sánchez , then Secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples . Calderón Polo accompanied the Pope on all Latin America trips and took part in his company at the IV General Assembly of the Episcopal Conferences of Latin America and the Caribbean in Santo Domingo in 1992 , which he significantly prepared. He was also a participant in the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for America in December 1997 in the Vatican and in 1999 hosted the Latin American Continental Synod in the Casa Santa Marta in Rome, which was combined with a two-week symposium to commemorate the first meeting of Latin American bishops in 1899.

On October 4, 2003, Pope John Paul II accepted Calderón Polo's resignation because of his age. His successor in the office of Vice-President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America was the Mexican Archbishop Luis Robles Díaz for the first time a clergyman from Latin America himself. In the last years of his life, Calderón Polo remained a consultor for the Congregation for Bishops, of which he had been a member since 1989.

Cipriano Calderón Polo died at the age of 81 after several days in hospital in Rome with his close relatives. The exequies took place on February 6, 2009 in the chapel of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome and were held by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re . He is buried in his hometown of Plasencia in the parish church of El Salvador . Calderón Polo was considered the most important Latin America expert of Popes Paul VI. and John Paul II and has been referred to as "the Pope's man for Latin America". The Vatican Commission on Latin America, which was reorganized by John Paul II in 1988 and which he headed until his retirement, was tailored to his person.

Honors

In 1998 he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit Bernardo O'Higgins by Chilean President Eduardo Frei . In 2003 he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Spanish Order of Isabella the Catholic . He has also had awards from Colombia, Venezuela , Argentina , El Salvador and Guatemala .

In November 2006 he was given honorary citizenship in his hometown of Plasencia. On June 28, 2013, a plaque was unveiled at the house where he was born in the city.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Cipriano Calderón: Montini, Papa. Editorial Sígueme, Salamanca 1963. 370 p. With numerous illustrations.
  2. ^ Bob Nardini: Issues in Vendor / Library Relations - "I Am the Only Bay of Pigs Librarian" , in: Against the Grain , Vol. 22, Issue 2, Article 39, pp. 80f. (Interview with Salvador Miranda , 2010).
  3. ↑ Ernesto Cavassa SJ : On the Trail of Aparecida Jorge Bergoglio and the Latin American ecclesial tradition. In: America Magazine , October 30, 2013, accessed on 10 June 2019 (English).
  4. ↑ Death report in La Nación (Costa Rica) from February 5, 2009 ( memento from November 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on December 3, 2018.
  5. ↑ a b Homenaje en Plasencia a monseñor Cipriano Calderón Polo. Article in Ecclesia Digital magazine dated June 27, 2013, accessed on December 2, 2016.
  6. ↑ Carmen Elena Villa: Fallce el obispo Cipriano Calderón, fue el hombre del Papa para Latinoamérica. Article on the death of Calderón from February 5, 2009 on the Zenit news platform , accessed on November 27, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Calderón Polo, Cipriano
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish Curia Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church
DATE OF BIRTH December 1, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Plasencia , Spain
DATE OF DEATH February 4, 2009
Place of death Rome