The Salesian Cardinals

Don Bosco’s Sons Who Became Cardinals

Abp. Antonio Ignacio Velasco Garcia (1929-2003)

(ANS– Rome – Sept. 20, 2023) – In the 1st consistory of the 3d millennium, February 21, 2001, Pope John Paul II appointed two more Salesians as cardinals, both Latin Americans: Venezuelan Antonio Ignacio Velasco Garcia and Honduran Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga. Today we remember the former of the two: a distinguished scholar, active in the Salesian Congregation as a provincial and regional councilor, then a zealous and dynamic pastor.

Ignacio Antonio Velasco García was born on January 17, 1929, in Acarigua, Venezuela, to José Antonio Velasco Rangel and Ramona Garcia de Velasco. After elementary studies in his hometown, he met the Salesians at the Colegio Don Bosco in Valencia. He attended the Salesian aspirantate in La Vega in 1941 and entered the Santa Maria novitiate in Los Teques in 1944. He made his 1st religious profession on August 25, 1945.

After studying philosophy in the Boleita house in Caracas, he was sent to complete his philosophical and pedagogical studies at the Pontifical University in Turin, obtaining both degrees, and on June 30, 1951, he made his perpetual vows in Valdocco. He then studied theology between 1952 and 1956 at the Pontifical Gregorian University, and also obtained a degree in this subject. He was ordained in Rome on December 17, 1955.

Returning to Venezuela, he rendered his pastoral service as a catechist and teacher at the San José high school in Los Teques (1956-1958) and at the school where he had grown up as a boy, the Colegio Don Bosco in Valencia (1958-1963). He then became director of the house in Valera and the San José Center in Los Teques, before participating in the 20th General Chapter of the Congregation (1971-1972) and being appointed provincial of Venezuela.

He completed the 6-year period of government and animation of the province in 1978 and, after a year of theological updating in Rome, returned home again as director at Colegio Don Bosco in Valencia, until 1984. He was selected as a delegate to the 22d General Chapter (1984), and during that assembly he was elected councilor for the Latin American Pacific-Caribbean Region and, as such, a member of the general council of the Congregation.

He carried on this assignment until October 23, 1989, when he was appointed by Pope John Paul II as vicar apostolic of Puerto Ayacucho and titular bishop of Utimmira, receiving episcopal ordination from the hands of John Paul II at St. Peter’s in Rome on January 6, 1990.

Because of his pastoral skills, on May 27, 1992, he was also appointed apostolic administrator ad nutum Sanctae Sedis of San Fernando de Apure; and exactly three years later, on May 27, 1995, he was appointed by John Paul II as archbishop of Caracas, replacing Cardinal José Ali Lebrun Maratinos.

As archbishop of the Venezuelan capital, he did not miss any opportunity to confirm the flock entrusted to him in the faith. He founded the Ignacio de Antioquia Formation Center for adult vocations (1996) and the Redemptoris Mater Missionary Seminary in Caracas (1998). To intensify evangelizing activity in the city and give a boost to the pastoral renewal of the archdiocese, in 1997-1998 he promoted the Mision de Caracas. He was also attentive to the media as a vehicle for evangelization, and therefore in 1988 he founded and became president of the television network of the archdiocese of Caracas (Valores Educativos TV, Vale TV, Channel 5). And in the meantime, faithful to his academic interests, he also took care of higher education, both as chancellor of the Andres Bello Catholic University, and by founding, also in 1998, the Santa Rosa de Lima University in Caracas, of which he was also Chancellor.

And he also served the national episcopate, becoming president of the Episcopal Commission for Education (1996-1999), as well as 2d (1996-1999) and 1st vice president (beginning in 1999) of the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference.

Created a cardinal by John Paul II, as mentioned, in 2001, he was honored with a church of Salesian origin, St. Mary Domenica Mazzarello, in the Don Bosco district in Rome.

The difficult situation that Venezuela was going through in those years made the physical suffering suffered by the cardinal even more serious. On several occasions he was subjected to harsh oral attacks from President Hugo Chavez. And a grenade was thrown at his residence as part of the social tensions of the time, on November 12, 2002.

After battling cancer for a long time, Cardinal Ignacio Antonio Velasco García died on Sunday, July 6, 2003. Commemorating the life of this “zealous and devoted pastor,” after his death Pope John Paul II wrote a telegram in which he observed: “His generous and intense ministerial work, first as a Salesian religious, then as a youth educator, as a priest and finally as vicar apostolic of Puerto Ayacucho, and until the moment in which he was asked to take on this important task [in the archdiocese of Caracas—ed.], testifies to his great dedication to the cause of the Gospel as well as his personal qualities.”