Cardinal Rodríguez of Honduras was in England last week to lobby for more aid for Africa – because ‘charity has to be global’. Isabel de Bertodano went to meet him
GIVEN that Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, comes from one of Central America’s poorest nations, you might think he has more than enough to keep him busy in Honduras without concerning himself with poverty in Africa.
But he was in London last week to lobby the British Government on the need to support Make Poverty History, the campaign to improve aid to the continent and alleviate the staggering debts of the African countries. But to the Cardinal, it was entirely natural that he, a Latin American, should become involved in campaigning for Africa. He sees the continents and their problems as inextricably linked and believes that they depend on each other for their future.
“We are one world, so charity has to be global,” he said. “As soon as the G8 leaders can concentrate on alleviating poverty it will come out that there is also terrible poverty in Latin America.”
In common with Chancellor Gordon Brown, Prime Minister Tony Blair and many others, Cardinal Rodríguez has been infected with a sense of urgency, which convinces him that this year is critical in the effort to change the situation of poverty in Africa, and particularly to try to influence the gathering of the wealthiest countries of the world at the G8 summit in Scotland on 2 July.
“This time it’s different, I’m convinced,” he said. “I’m convinced. We have a big chance now. G8 is a big opportunity.”
Although his attention is currently focused on Africa, the Cardinal has also single-handedly raised international awareness about Honduras in the past few years. It is hard to think of another Honduran that anyone outside Latin America has heard of. Yet a lot of people in Europe are talking about the energetic, intelligent, media-friendly Cardinal Rodríguez, particularly since he was strongly tipped as papabile and a possible successor to Pope John Paul II.
This is the first time that there has been a Honduran cardinal, and having held their breath in excitement following the death of John Paul, his compatriots could barely disguise their disappointment when Cardinal Rodríguez was not elected pope. Welcoming Benedict XVI, the Honduran President, Ricardo Maduro, told his people that they should be proud that Cardinal Rodríguez had at least been mentioned as a possible successor to Pope John Paul II. However, the respected television journalist Joaquín López was not so magnanimous, commenting that the Vatican would now continue to look towards Latin America only when it needed vocations. “They have very little interest in us,” he was quoted as saying bitterly, in the daily newspaper La Prensa.
Tags: Advocacy
