Honorary Award 2007
Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga
Óscar Andrés Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga, SDB
(born December 29, 1942) is a Honduran
prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the current Archbishop of Tegucigalpa and was
President of the Latin American Episcopal Conference (CELAM) from 1995 to 1999.
Maradiaga was elevated to the cardinalate in 2001.
He was born in Tegucigalpa in Honduras, the third of the four children of
Andrés Rodríguez Palacios and Raquel Maradiaga. As a boy, he dreamed of playing the
saxophone in a dance band or becoming a pilot. Instead, he entered the religious
life, and joined the Salesians on May 3, 1961. He earned doctorates in philosophy
from the Institute "Don Rua" in El Salvador, in theology from the Salesian Pontifical
University in Rome, and moral theology from the Pontifical Lateran University.
From the Austrian University of Innsbruck Maradiaga received a diploma in clinical
psychology and psychotherapy.
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