Luis Rafael Zarama
Luis Rafael Zarama Pasqualetto was born on November 28, 1958, in Pasto, Colombia, where he attended the conciliar seminary and the Marian University for philosophy and theology before earning a canon law degree at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogota. For eleven years he taught philosophy and theology in schools in Colombia, including a military school. Recruited for the Archdiocese of Atlanta, he was ordained a priest there on November 27, 1993, and became the first Hispanic priest named a pastor in that archdiocese, at St. Mark in Clarkesville and St. Helena Mission in Clayton.
He rose through Atlanta's administration as vicar general from April 2006 and judicial vicar from 2008, and on July 27, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI named him auxiliary bishop of Atlanta and titular bishop of Bararus; he was consecrated on September 29, 2009. In Atlanta he was a bridge figure to the Hispanic community and from 2012 took part in the Santa Marta Group, the anti-human-trafficking task force established at Pope Francis's encouragement, bringing bishops together with security leaders. His motto is Deus caritas est, God is love.
On July 5, 2017, Pope Francis appointed him Bishop of Raleigh, and he was installed on August 29, 2017, at Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, the first Hispanic bishop of Raleigh and the first Colombian to lead an American diocese. In September 2018 he knelt through a homily of apology at a Mass of reparation for victims of clerical abuse, asking forgiveness in the name of the Church.
- 2021-10-12Letter to diocesan priests implementing Traditionis custodes: the reformed Missal to take priority as the principal celebration every Sunday and weekday; the existing monthly 1962 Sunday Masses at Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, Raleigh, and the Basilica Shrine of St. Mary, Wilmington, may continue; 1962 Masses may continue at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Rocky Mount (Sundays, no earlier than 1 p.m.), Sacred Heart, Dunn (Sundays, no earlier than 1 p.m.), and St. Catherine of Siena, Wake Forest (monthly Wednesdays); readings to use the Revised Roman Lectionary or the New American Bible, Revised Edition; only priests holding his personal faculties, exercisable only in the prescribed places, may celebrate the 1962 Missal; Fr. Paul Parkerson confirmed as his delegate. Effective January 1, 2022. ↗
- 2022-01-01Zarama's prescriptions took effect. CNA's report of the letter adds that the weekday Latin Masses previously offered at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Rocky Mount, were suppressed under the implementation; the letter itself authorizes only Sunday Masses at that parish, which is consistent with the weekday suppression but does not name it in terms. ↗
Bishop Zarama's Traditionis custodes implementation is one of the most fully documented in this batch, because his October 12, 2021 letter to his priests survives as a diocesan primary text. He directed that the reformed Missal take priority as the principal celebration every Sunday and weekday, while permitting the existing 1962 provision to continue on narrowed terms: monthly Sunday Masses at Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral in Raleigh and the Basilica Shrine of St. Mary in Wilmington, Sunday Masses at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Rocky Mount and Sacred Heart in Dunn beginning no earlier than 1 p.m., and a monthly Wednesday Mass at St. Catherine of Siena in Wake Forest. The prescriptions took effect on January 1, 2022.
Two further conditions make this a reduction rather than a preservation. First, the readings at 1962 Masses were ordered to be taken from the Revised Roman Lectionary or the New American Bible, Revised Edition, displacing the Missal's own readings. Second, the faculty to celebrate the old Mass was declared a personal privilege of the bishop, exercisable only in the prescribed places, not a right belonging to any parish or community. CNA's contemporary report adds that the weekday Latin Masses previously offered at Rocky Mount were suppressed; the letter itself, which authorizes only Sunday Masses there, is consistent with that reading.
The posture is therefore reduced, at high confidence: five venues survived, but with later hours, a changed lectionary, personal and place-bound faculties, and the loss of the weekday Mass. What cannot be asserted is the present-day count: a current diocesan services listing for the cathedral shows a first-Sunday 4:30 p.m. Mass in Latin whose form (1962 or reformed Latin) is unestablished and is not counted, and only Sacred Heart, Dunn, is re-verified as a 1962 venue in a 2026 directory. The other three venues are not re-verified in this pass, so sites_now is left null rather than guessed.