Fr. Angel Fernandez Artime Re-elected Rector Major

Fr. Angel Fernandez Artime 

Re-elected Rector Major

(ANS – Turin – March 11) – The 28th General Chapter of the Salesian Congregation has re-elected as Rector Major the incumbent, Fr. Angel Fernandez Artime, for 2020-2026. The election was decided at the first round of voting.

Fr. Fernandez, 59, was born on August 21, 1960, in Gozon-Luanco, Asturias, Spain; he made his first profession on September 3, 1978, and his perpetual vows on June 17, 1984, in Santiago de Compostela. He was ordained on July 4, 1987 in Leon.

Originally from the Leon Province, he has been youth ministry delegate, director of the school at Ourense, member of the provincial council and vice provincial and, from 2000 to 2006, provincial of Leon.

He has a Doctorate in pastoral theology and a Licentiate in philosophy and pedagogy.

He was a member of the technical commission that prepared General Chapter 26 (2008). In 2009, he was appointed provincial of South Argentina, one of two Salesian provinces created from the consolidation of five Argentine provinces. Thanks to this position, he also got to know and collaborate personally with the then-archbishop of Buenos Aires, Card. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, today Pope Francis.

On December 23, 2013, not having completed his term in Buenos Aires, he was appointed provincial of the new province of Mary Help of Christians in Spain (the result of the consolidation of six Spanish provinces into two). That was an office he couldn’t take on, because the 27th General Chapter on March 25, 2014, elected him the tenth successor of Don Bosco.