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S i d e b a r
Model of Faith
By Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda
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In 2001, Pope John Paul II beatified a Hispanic layman little known outside his place of birth. Few Catholics are aware that Carlos Manuel Rodriguez (1918–1963) from Puerto Rico was the first lay U.S. citizen to be beatified. Known simply as "Charlie" by his family and friends, Rodriguez was only the second lay person on the American continent to be beatified, the first being Juan Diego, to whom Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared in 1531.
"He is a model, giving prominence to laypeople," said Bishop Ruben Antonio Gonzalez of Caguas in the Puerto Rico Herald. "He was a normal, ordinary man who dedicated his time to teach the name and ways of Jesus Christ."
Born in 1918, Rodriguez actively criticized his country’s increasing departure from Catholic values during the island’s quick transformation from an agrarian society to an industrial one in the 1950s. He quit his office job in the late 1950s to teach liturgy full time in San Juan’s University Catholic Center and later organized discussion groups across Puerto Rico. He helped found a religious order called the Sisters of Jesus the Mediator and, for his work in encouraging Catholic worshipers to assist in services, came to be known as the "lay apostle of the liturgical movement."
For more information, go to www.osb.org/gen/saints/carlos.html or, in Spanish, www.corazones.org/santos/carlos_manuel_rodriguez.htm.
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