Archbishop of Guayaquil
Cardinal Luis Gerardo Cabrera Herrera, O.F.M., Archbishop of Guayaquil, Ecuador, was born in Azogues on 11 October 1955. He attended the Franciscan Minor Seminary in Azogues and Quito, and studied philosophy and theology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador. He was awarded a doctorate in philosophy from the Pontifical University Antonianium of Rome. He was ordained a priest on 8 September 1983. He has held the following offices: assistant to the master of novices O.F.M. and master of the novitiate in Riobamba, member of the Provincial Council of the Order, head of vocational pastoral care and the formation of aspirants of the Franciscan province, director of the Card. B. Echevería Philosophical-Theological Institute of Quito, and secretary of the Section for Ecumenism of the Episcopal Commission of the Magisterium and Doctrine of the Ecuadorian Episcopal Conference. In August 2000, he was elected provincial minister of the Franciscans of the province of Ecuador, and vice president of the Conference of Religious. From 2003 to 2009 he was definitor of the Franciscan Order and delegate of the Minister General for the Franciscan provinces of Latin America and the Caribbean. On 20 April 2009 he was appointed Archbishop of Cuenca, receiving episcopal consecration the following 4 July. In the period 2011-2014 he was vice president of the Ecuadorian Episcopal Conference. Since 24 September 2015, he has served as Archbishop of Guayaquil, Ecuador. He was created and proclaimed cardinal by Pope Francis in the Consistory of 7 December 2024 and was assigned the titular church Sacra Famiglia di Nazareth a Centocelle. Member of: · Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.