First Posted: 2/21/2015
DAYTON (AP) — A Vatican official who leads a global Catholic Church aid network will be honored next month at the University of Dayton.
The Catholic school in southwest Ohio said Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras will receive the Archbishop Oscar Romero Human Rights Award. The March 10 evening presentation is free and open to the public.
He is president of Caritas Internationalis, an umbrella for 160 charity organizations working on six continents. In 2013, Pope Francis appointed him coordinator of the Council of Cardinals for the Study of the Organizational and Economic Problems of the Holy See.
He also served as a Vatican spokesman to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank on developing nations’ debt. His name has also been mentioned in the past as a potential pope.
The award is named for the martyred Salvadoran archbishop, who spoke out for the poor and disenfranchised, gunned down in 1980 while celebrating Mass.
“Thank you to the University of Dayton for this great honor,” Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga said in a statement. “Oscar Romero is the one person who has inspired the work of Caritas the most. He was an inspiration to the poor throughout the world. His teachings are so rich that you can always find the new insights that support our work on social justice.”
The university created the Romero award in 2000.
Mark Ensalaco, director of human rights research for the University of Dayton Human Rights Center, said the cardinal is being honored “for his lifetime of human rights advocacy, and especially the way he continues to challenge leaders of prosperous nations to increase aid to poor countries.”
Al Staggs will perform “Romero: A Martyr’s Homily” the evening of March 9 at the school.
