Cristóbal López Romero (born 19 May 1952) is a Spanish prelate of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

who has served as the Archbishop of Rabat since March 2018. He is a member of the

Salesians The Salesians of Don Bosco (SDB), formally known as the Society of Saint Francis de Sales (), is a religious congregation of men in the Catholic Church, founded in 1859 by the Italian priest John Bosco to help poor and migrant youth during the ...

and before becoming a bishop devoted himself to pastoral work in Latin America while taking on administrative responsibilities within his order. Pope Francis raised him to the rank of

cardinal Cardinal or The Cardinal most commonly refers to * Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **''Cardinalis'', genus of three species in the family Cardinalidae ***Northern cardinal, ''Cardinalis cardinalis'', the common cardinal of ...

on 5 October 2019.

Biography

Early life and studies

Cristóbal López Romero was born on 19 May 1952 in

Vélez-Rubio Vélez-Rubio () is a municipality in the province of Almería, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. History There have been people living in the region for 30,000 years. The present location is from the 15th-16th centuries, when Mo ...

, Spain. He joined the Salesians in 1964 and studied at the Salesian Seminaries of Gerona and Barcelona, studying philosophy from 1973 to 1975 and theology from 1975 to 1979. He earned a licenciate in information sciences, Journalism section, at the

Autonomous University of Barcelona The Autonomous University of Barcelona (; Spanish: ; ; UAB) is a public university mostly located in Cerdanyola del Vallès, near the city of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain. , the university consists of 57 departments in the experimental, lif ...

in 1982. He took his first vows as a Salesian on 16 August 1968 and made his solemn profession on 2 August 1974. He was ordained a priest on 19 May 1979. His career has combined pastoral ministries with administrative positions within his order, mostly in Paraguay. From 1979 to 1984 he was minister for the marginalized in the La Verneda area of Barcelona; from 1984 to 1986 Youth Minister at the Salesian College of Asunción, Paraguay; from 1986 to 1992 Provincial Delegate for vocational youth ministry in Asunción; from 1992 to 1994 a parish priest in Asunción; from 2000 to 2002 head of the Salesian community and teacher in the College of Asunción; from 2002 to 2003 a minister in the missions in Paraguay. He moved to Morocco in 2003, where he was director of the Salesian community, of parish and scholastic pastoral care in the vocational training center in

Kénitra Kenitra (, , , ) is a city in northwestern Morocco. It is a port on the Sebou River with a population of 507,736 as of 2024. It is one of the three main cities of the Rabat-Salé-Kénitra region and the capital of the similarly named Kénitra P ...

. Within his order, he was director of the Salesian Bulletin in Asunción from 1991 to 1992. He was provincial of the Salesian Province of Paraguay from 1994 to 2000; he headed the Salesian Province of Bolivia from 2011 to 2014; since then he has led the Salesian Province of María Auxiliadora in Spain.

Archbishop of Rabat

On 29 December 2017, Pope Francis named him Archbishop of Rabat. He received his episcopal consecration on 10 March 2018 from Cardinal

Juan José Omella Juan José Omella y Omella (also Joan Josep; born 21 April 1946) is a Spanish prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He has been serving as the archbishop of Barcelona since his installation on 26 December 2015 and as a cardinal since 28 June 20 ...

, Archbishop of Barcelona. Anticipating the visit of Pope Francis to Morocco in the spring of 2019, he described the Church in Morocco as "vibrant" and "young": "More young than old people come to our churches, more men than women, more black than white people." He emphasized its international character, caring for migrants from countries south of the Sahara with Church personnel drawn from more than forty countries. On 24 May 2019, Pope Francis named him

Apostolic Administrator An apostolic administration in the Catholic Church is administrated by a prelate appointed by the pope to serve as the ordinary for a specific area. Either the area is not yet a diocese (a stable 'pre-diocesan', usually missionary apostolic admi ...

of the Archdiocese of Tangier. On 5 October 2019, Pope Francis made him

Cardinal Priest A cardinal is a senior member of the clergy of the Catholic Church. As titular members of the clergy of the Diocese of Rome, they serve as advisors to the pope, who is the bishop of Rome and the visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. Ca ...

of San Leone I. López inaugurated on 8 December of the same year the monastery of Tazert, a community of Franciscan nuns in his diocese. He was made a member of the

Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue The Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, previously named the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue (PCID), is a dicastery of the Roman Curia, erected by Pope Paul VI on 19 May 1964 as the Secretariat for Non-Christians, and renamed by ...

on 21 February 2020. In 2022 he participated in a ceremony at the tombs of the monks of the

monastery of Toumliline The Monastery of Toumliline (French language, French: ''Monastère de Toumliline'') was a Benedictines, Benedictine monastery in Toumliline, Morocco. It was the only Benedictine monastery in Morocco and hosted the ''International Meetings'', an a ...

, which had held international interfaith dialogue conferences in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

2025 papal conclave

Lopez participated as a

cardinal elector A cardinal is a senior member of the clergy of the Catholic Church. As titular members of the clergy of the Diocese of Rome, they serve as advisors to the pope, who is the bishop of Rome and the visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. Ca ...

in the

2025 papal conclave A conclave was held on 7 and 8 May 2025 to elect a new pope to succeed Pope Francis, Francis, who had died on 21 April 2025. Of the 135 eligible Cardinal electors in the 2025 papal conclave, cardinal electors, all but two attended. Cardinal Piet ...

. In advance of the conclave, the

National Catholic Reporter The ''National Catholic Reporter'' (''NCR'') is a national newspaper in the United States that reports on issues related to the Catholic Church. Based in Kansas City, Missouri, ''NCR'' was founded by Robert Hoyt in 1964. Hoyt wanted to bring t ...

considered him ''

papabile ( , , ; plural: ; ) is an unofficial Italian term coined by Vaticanologists and used internationally in many languages to describe a Catholic man—in practice, always a cardinal—who is thought of as a likely or possible candidate to be ...

'', one of the potential candidates to become pope. The conclave ultimately elected Robert Francis Prevost as

Pope Leo XIV Pope Leo XIV (born Robert Francis Prevost, September 14, 1955) has been head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State since May 2025. He is the first pope to have been born in the United States and North America, the fir ...

References

External links