Óscar Andrés Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga, S.D.B., (born December 29 1942) is a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and that church's Archbishop of Tegucigalpa , Honduras. In the run-up to the April 2005 papal conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI, he was considered by some to be a possible successor to Pope John Paul II.

Rodríguez was born in Tegucigalpa. As a boy, he dreamed of playing the saxophone in a dance band or becoming a pilot. Instead, he entered the religious life. He joined the Pious Society of St. Francis de Sales (Salesians of Don Bosco) on May 3, 1961. He holds degrees in philosophy and theology and is trained in classical piano. Multilingual, he speaks English, French, Italian, German, and Portuguese in addition to his native Spanish. He received a doctorate in theology at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome, and also holds a diploma in clinical psychology and psychotherapy from Leopold Franz University in Innsbruck, Austria. He graduated as a teacher in El Salvador in 1962. He then taught chemistry, physics, and music at Salesian colleges in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala as a Salesian over the next 15 years. During this time he also became a professor of moral theology and ecclesiology at Salesian Theological Institute in Guatemala. He was ordained as a priest on 28 July, 1970 in Guatemala City, and was named bishop's assistant in Tegucigalpa in the same year. He was rector for thre years at Guatemala's Francisco Marroquín University from 1975. On October 28 1978 he was made a bishop, and on January 8 1993 he became Archibishop of Tegucigalpa.

On January 21 2001 he was incardinated in a consistory titled "Our Lady of Hope" by Pope John Paul II. He was given the newly created presbyteral title of Cardinal Priest of Santa Maria della Speranza. He is the first cardinal from Honduras. Widely viewed as a moderate, he is considered a rising star in the Latin American church. His campaign for human rights and the poor have won widespread praise. Cardinal Rodríguez is further admired as a dynamic pastor who brokered peace accords with rebels and led rebuilding efforts after a natural disaster. He is an outspoken proponent for the cancellation of Third World debt.

In addition to his episcopal duties, he is currently the President of the Episcopal Conference of Honduras.

External links

• National Catholic Reporter interview with Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga
• New cardinal symbolizes direction of global Catholicism
• Biography at catholic-pages.com
• Why it is not good to call Rodríguez papabile? In Spanish