Carlos Manuel Cecilio Rodríguez Santiago was a layperson of the Roman Catholic Church, who was beatified by the Catholic Church on April 29, 2001. He is the first Puerto Rican, the first Caribbean-born layperson in history to be beatified.
Background
Carlos Manuel Rodriguez Santiago was born on November 22, 1918, to Herminia Santiago and Manuel Baudilio Rodríguez, a small business merchant. He was one of five children of a deeply religious Catholic family. One of his brothers became the first Benedictine abbot on the island and one of his sisters is a Catholic nun. Rodriguez was an altar boy at his local parish in Caguas, a city near San Juan. Many of Rodriguez's biographers have traced his religious vocation to the faith of his grandmother Alejandrina Esteras, a deeply devout woman.
Education
As a child, Rodriguez attended the local parochial school in Caguas and Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic School in Miramar. He eventually graduated from the José Gautier Benitez High School in Caguas. In school, Rodriguez was a bright student who excelled in religious courses and in classes related to the humanities. An enthusiast of sacred and religious music, Rodriguez taught himself to play the piano and organ, and organized and participated in several choirs in his local parish.
On his graduation from high school in 1939, Rodriguez worked in several clerical positions in both Caguas and San Juan. In 1946 he enrolled at the University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras, where he studied humanities for a year. Even though he excelled at his studies, he had to leave the university because of illness.
Rodriguez's stay at the university is significant because it marks the beginning of a strong association with the institution and the launching of his most significant ministry. Noticing the lack of religious activities and spiritual counseling at the university, Rodriguez became a leader within the Catholic Student Center. His friendliness, accessibility, and love of God made him a popular religious leader with the students.
Career
One of Rodriguez's religious interests was liturgy, the way in which God is exalted at religious sendees. He organized a liturgical circle in his Caguas parish and became an ardent proponent of the reinstatement of the Easter vigil ceremonies. During the Inquisition and the Crusades, some factions within the European Catholic church had taken shelter in caves and catacombs to avoid persecution. As part of the Easter services, they held an Easter vigil where they conducted sendees and offered baptism to people seeking refuge in the church. These liturgical ceremonies were banned by the Catholic Church at the beginning of the twentieth century. Rodriguez became an ardent supporter of the restoration of the services on the island.
After his death, the Second Vatican Council recognized the importance of his claim and ordered churches from around the world to restore these services, which are generally held on the eve of Easter Sunday.
Despite constant bouts of colitis, Rodriguez continued to spread the Christian faith vigorously among scores of students and professors at the university and among parishioners in Caguas. By 1962 Rodriguez's health had deteriorated significantly and he underwent major gastric surgery to alleviate his colitis, which had evolved into an aggressive and terminal cancer. While recovering from a painful surgery, he told his priest brother that he had developed cracks in his faith and that he was not ready to die. According to many theologians, this sudden doubt is a common behavior found in among many other saints. In fact, they have used that statement to help validate his sainthood. After a long period of meditation, his faith was restored and he declared himself ready to die. (In fact, many people have affirmed that he predicted the day of his death.) He died on July 13, 1963.
Politics
The process of being declared a saint by the Catholic Church is complex. The church requires that the person not only live a glorious or sanctified life but that a verifiable miracle be attributed to the candidate. While studying Rodriguez's life, Father Mario Maza from San Juan's San Juan Marco parish, discovered that there was a significant miracle attributed to Rodriguez. In 1981 Rodriguez's friend Deli Santana de Aguilo was diagnosed with a lethal form of cancer known as non- Hodgkins lymphoma. The disease had spread to her lungs and her head. Her doctors advised her that the cancer had metastasized and that there was nothing that they could do for her. She prayed to Rodriguez to intercede with God and her cancer suddenly vanished, she fully recovered, and is still alive today. Her medical records were submitted to a panel of notable medical scholars that included Dr. Norman Maldonado, former president of the University of Puerto Rico and a cancer specialist and hematologist. The panel concluded that there was no scientific reason to explain her recovery.
After seeking permission from the San Juan Catholic Archdiocese, father Meza presented a comprehensive case to the Vatican for the Rodriguez's beatification. (A beatification allows Catholic followers to venerate Rodriguez and ask for his intercession before God.) In 1997 the All Saints Commission from the Vatican met and certified the validity of the miracle attributed to Rodriguez. In 1999 it was recommended to the Pope that Rodriguez be blessed or beatified. His body was exhumed from its original burial place and taken to Rome for examination. The Pope declared Rodriguez to be blessed in a ceremony at St. Peter's Square in Rome attended by more than 2,000 Puerto Rican Catholics. His remains were returned to Puerto Rico, where they now rest at a place of honor in Caugas' Sweet Jesus Cathedral. To elevate Rodriguez to the status of saint, another major miracle must be attributable to him.