֎Red Hat Fest '24: IV: Luis Gerardo CABRERA HERRERA, O.F.M.

The Popeular History Podcast

IMAGE
Romanuspontifex, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
LINKS

Luis Gerardo CABRERA HERRERA on Catholic-Hierarchy.org:

https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bcahe.html

Luis Gerardo CABRERA HERRERA on Gcatholic.org:

https://gcatholic.org/p/24679

2009 Vatican Biographical Summary of Luis Gerardo CABRERA HERRERA (Italian):

https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2009/04/20/0256/00600.html

Ecuadorian Bishops’ Conference bio of Luis Gerardo CABRERA HERRERA:

https://www.conferenciaepiscopal.ec/directiva/mons-luis-gerardo-cabrera-herrera-ofm.html

1909 Catholic Encyclopedia article on the Order of Friars Minor (often called the Franciscans), “OFM”:

https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06281a.htm

NOTE: If I recall correctly (and it’s possible I don’t, this was done in stages), free Adobe Podcast AI was used to help clean up some of the audio on this episode, as my setup and voice were both struggling this recording session but the show must go on. https://podcast.adobe.com/enhance#

TRANSCRIPT

Hello everyone, welcome to Cardinal Numbers, a rexypod reviewing and ranking all the Cardinals of the Catholic Church from the Catacombs to Kingdom Come. Today we’re looking at our fourth bishop from the list of new Cardinals Pope Francis will be officially elevating on December 7th 2024.

Luis Gerardo CABRERA HERRERA was born on October 11th, 1955 in Azogues, Ecuador, which is a bit southwest of the middle of the country, due west of the western terminus of the fascinatingly consistent curve of the southeast edge of the national border. I’m sure there’s a story there, but it’s not a story for us today. He is actually our first Ecuadorian Cardinal, so I’ll take a moment to note that Catholicism in Ecuador has generally followed the mold of Catholicism in Latin America more broadly, with the Church being established with the cooperation of Spanish colonial authorities and becoming the official religion up till the very tail end of the 19th century, when in 1899 liberal reforms began that significantly impacted the relationship between the Ecuadorian state and Church. Today a strong majority of Ecuadorians still identify as Catholic, though a smaller percentage than in generations past, and it seems the numbers are continuing to decline, though we’re still talking about three out of every four Ecuadorians identifying as Catholic, and I say about because I saw numbers ranging from 69% to 94%, perhaps the most impressive range yet.
Anyways, Luis was drawn to the Franciscan Order early, studying at their minor seminaries first in Azogues and then in the Ecuadorian capital of Quito. He entered their novitiate while still a teenager, then got his philosophy and theology degrees from the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, followed by a licentiate and then finally a doctorate in philosophy from the Antonianum, a Franciscan university in Rome named after Saint Anthony of Padua, an early Franciscan saint best known as the guy you pray to when you can’t find your keys.

Luis however was not lost, knowing where he was meant to be, and he took his final vows as a Franciscan in 1982 at the age of 26. The following year, he was ordained as a priest for the order, becoming Fr Cabrera. In the 80s, Fr. Cabrera served in several roles for the order including master of novices and member of the provincial council. The years 1990 to 1994 are listed on one source as “studies in Rome”, so it was probably then when he actually got his doctorate, given the normal timing of such things.
Within a few years of his return to Ecuador, Fr. Cabrera was directing not one but two institutions for the Franciscan order, first the Franciscan Studies Center of Ecuador, and then simultaneously the “Cardenal Bernardino Echeverría” Philosophical-Theological Institute, named after a Cardinal who was, notably, still alive at that point. I’m not sure whether the seminary already had the name or added it later. Anyways, I can’t get sidetracked with other Cardinals– Fr Cabrera also served as a professor at that institute, specifically professor of Franciscan Theology and Spirituality, and of course, more besides. In 2003, after serving as Provincial Minister of the Franciscans in Ecuador and the Executive Secretary of the Ecumenism Commission of the Ecuadorian Episcopal Conference, he went to Rome to serve as General Councillor of the Order of Franciscan Friars Minor and Head of the Franciscan Provinces of Latin America and the Caribbean.
By this point, his titles have gotten to the stage where you’re probably not too surprised to hear his phone ringing. Specifically, his white phone. Ring ring, it’s Pope Benedict, calling to make him Archbishop of Cuenca. That’s right, straight to Archbishop for Fr Cabrera, or rather, for Archbishop Cabrera, once he received his episcopal consecration in July 2009. Cuenca probably felt like home to Cabrera, namely because it was home; he was born in the Diocese of Cuenca a couple years before it was promoted to an Archdiocese, and though he was very clearly running in Franciscan circles for his career up to this point, still, there’s no place like home.
Cuenca’s Catholic population didn’t exactly boom when he was there, and the number of priests dropped so precipitously from 2013 to 2016 I double checked to make sure the boundaries of the Archdiocese hadn’t changed, but apparently none of that concerned Pope Francis enough to stop him from transferring Archbishop Cabrera to the nearby Archdiocese of Guayaquil, making him spiritual head of Ecuador’s main port and largest city, and yes, Quito is not the largest city in Ecuador, though it is where most of Ecuador's Cardinals have historically served. But the fact that there has never been a Cardinal as Archbishop of Guayaquil didn’t stop Pope Francis from adding Archbishop Cabrera to his list of new Cardinals last month. And yes, well-informed hypothetical pedant, Bernardino Echeverría–the one the institute was named after–was nearly an exception, but by the time of his elevation he was no longer Archbishop of Guayaquil.
In any event, whether Pope Francis keeps Cardinal-Elect Cabrera in Guayaquil or moves him to Quito, or does something else entirely, remains to be seen. For now we do know for sure that Ecuador is expected to have a Cardinal-elector for the first time in over a decade, ending a fairly significant drought for a country with its profile and Catholic demographics.

After he is officially elevated on December 7th, Luis Gerardo Cardinal CABRERA HERRERA will be eligible to participate in future conclaves until he turns 80 in 2035.

Today’s episode is part of Cardinal Numbers, and there will be another one of the new Cardinals next week. Thank you for listening, God bless you all! Thanks, Joe!