֎Daniel Fernando Cardinal STURLA BERHOUT ”Daniel Sturla”, S.D.B.

LINKS

Vatican bio of Cardinal STURLA BERHOUET: https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/documentation/cardinali_biografie/cardinali_bio_sturla-berhouet_df.html

Cardinal STURLA BERHOUET on FIU's Cardinals Database (by Salvadore Miranda): https://cardinals.fiu.edu/bios2015.htm#Sturla

Cardinal STURLA BERHOUET on Gcatholic.org: http://www.gcatholic.org/p/47571 

Cardinal STURLA BERHOUET on Catholic-Hierarchy.org: https://catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bstbe.html 

2015 Salt and Light Media write-up of the then-Cardinal-elect: https://slmedia.org/blog/meet-the-cardinals-daniel-fernando-sturla-berhouet 

Archdiocese of Montevideo on Gcatholic.org: http://www.gcatholic.org/dioceses/diocese/mont1.htm?tab=info 

Archdiocese of Montevideo on Catholic-Hierarchy.org: https://catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/dmovi.html

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TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to Popeular History, a library of Catholic knowledge and insights brought to you daily.

To help make this library as useful as possible, this episode includes show notes with links and a transcript. You might notice that some of those words in the transcript are in capital letters. Those are either flags for me to make sure that I link back to them when I have my audio glossary set up to help you with terms, or they might be my weird phonetic way to help myself with pronunciation as best I can if I forgot to delete those. Either way, enjoy that!

Today *isn't* a Saturday, but as we missed our normal Saturday modern cardinal coverage last week due to the consistory, I thought I'd go ahead and bring you the next episode in that ongoing series today, so we don't fall behind our originally planned pacing, because I know a slippery slope when I see one and I am determined to get these cardinals discussed before the next Conclave, whenever that may be.

Daniel Fernando Sturla Berhouet was born on July 4th, 1959 in Montevideo, Uruguay. Located on the southern coast, Montevideo is Uruguay's capital and largest city.

When Daniel was still a fetus, Uruguay had the news of its first Cardinal, but this isn't a Rugambwa situation, they have totally different names. I just wanted you to have a sense of some of Uruguay's Catholic history. By all accounts, Catholicism is the largest religion in Uruguay today, though it's not as dominant as you might think– I've seen it noted that Uruguay is actually the least Catholic Latin American country, with Catholics representing between 75 and 45 percent of the population today, depending on who you ask. Uruguay is a smaller country, about half the size of Germany and covered under one archdiocese, that of Montevideo, which we'll be seeing again.

Getting back to young Daniel, he was the youngest of five children, and by sixteen he was an orphan. I didn't see a note on who took care of him at that point, my money is on his siblings, some combination of his three sisters named Maria and the oldest, his brother Héctor, who was 22 by that point and would later become a prominent politician.

His brother's political involvement would have to wait though, because from 1973 to 1985 Uruguay was ruled by a military Junta of the sort that were common in Latin America during the latter stages of the Cold War.

That situation impacted Daniel quite personally when in 1975, he was among the five Jesuits and 33 lay Catholics abducted by soldiers in Montevideo on Good Friday. That's coming from an article by Salt and Light media I have linked in the show notes which is itself based on a book by Italian journalist Nello Scavo. According to Scavo, the situation was resolved with the assistance of an Argentinean Jesuit priest named Jorge Bergoglio, yes, as in the future Pope Francis.

As for Daniel, he signed up with the Salesians, joining the order in 1979 and after some theology training- and a bachelor's in civil law- he was ordained a PRIEST on November 21st, 1987. I don't usually check back in with family members after the first few sentences of these episodes, but it's worth noting that in 1990, his brother Héctor reached the peak of his political career with his one-year term as the President of the Chamber of Deputies, which is the Lower House of the General Assembly of Uruguay. Héctor would pass away within a couple of months of the end of his term.

Getting back to Fr. Sturla, he carried out a number of roles within the Salesians, many of which were connected to education and new members, including directing the school where he had studied when he joined the order. He also served as a professor of Church history and earned a licentiate in theology from the Soler Theological Institute in 2006.

On May 27, 2009, he was elected president of the Conference of Religious of Uruguay (CONFRU), and on December 10th, 2011 he was elected as an AUXILIARY BISHOP for the Archdiocese of Montevideo.

In 2014, the previous ARCHBISHOP of Montevideo retired and bishop Sturla became Archbishop Sturla.

In 2015, he became the Second Cardinal in Uruguayan history, when Pope Francis elevated him to the rank of Cardinal-Priest and assigned the TITULAR CHURCH of Saint Galla to him.

Later that year, he was named member of the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life; and of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization.

On March 18, 2020, Pope Francis named him member of the Cardinalitial Commission of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, which definitely has its own backstory I'll be getting into at some point here, and on June 1, 2022, the holy father also named him member of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

Cardinal Sturla is eligible to participate in future conclaves until he turns 80 in 2039.

That's enough for today. I'm sure tomorrow will be a banger as we finally, at long last, return to the main narrative and learn more traditions surrounding Deacon Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch for us to analyze further.

Thank you for listening, God bless you all.