Norberto Cardinal Rivera Carrera

Archbishop of Mexico City and Primate of Mexico

“The encounter with Our Lady of Guadalupe is and will be an encounter with Christ, the living God.”

 
Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera
Primate of Mexico

Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera is archbishop primate of Mexico and guardian of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on St. Juan Diego’s tilma. Cardinal Rivera has been a member of Leo XIII Council 3443 of the Knights of Columbus in Tehuacan, Puebla, for nearly 20 years, serving as Mexico state chaplain from 1996-2005.

Recalling the canonization of Juan Diego, Cardinal Rivera points to “the simple and humble Indian who contemplated the sweet and serene face of the Virgin of Tepeyac.”

Cardinal Rivera Carrera was born to Ramón Rivera Cháidez and Soledad Carrera de Rivera on June 6, 1942, in La Purísima, Tepehuanes, in the Archdiocese of Durango, Mexico.

In 1955, he entered the seminary of Durango, earning a doctorate in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He was ordained a priest on July 3, 1966, by Pope Paul VI in St. Peter’s Basilica. After serving as a curate in Rio Grande, he taught dogmatic theology for 18 years at the major seminary of Durango, where he was also prefect of discipline. He taught sacred scripture and pastoral and spiritual theology, and in 1982 became professor of ecclesiology at the Pontifical University of Mexico.

He was appointed bishop of Tehuacán, Puebla, in 1985, and from 1989 to 1995 served as chairman of the Mexican Episcopal Conference’s Commission for the Family. He was also a member of the superior council of the Pontifical University of Mexico. From 1993-95, he headed the Family Section of the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM).

In 1995, he was installed as archbishop primate of Mexico. Three years later, he was elevated to cardinal. He is currently a member of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments as well as the Congregation for the Clergy.

It was in Cardinal Rivera’s archdiocese, in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 2002, that Pope John Paul II celebrated the Mass of Canonization of St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, the first Indian ever canonized.