Aquilino Bocos Merino CMF

Aquilino Bocos Merino was born in Canillas de Esgueva, Valladolid, on 17 May 1938. He made his religious profession as a Claretian Missionary in 1956 and was ordained a priest on 23 May 1963. With a degree in philosophy from Salamanca and a diploma in clinical psychology, he spent his ministry in the world of religious life: directing the magazine Vida Religiosa (1971–80), co-founding Madrid's Theological Institute of Religious Life, and from 1980 serving as a general counsellor of his congregation.

In 1991 he was elected Superior General of the Claretians — the Missionaries, Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary — serving two six-year terms until 2003, during which he expanded the congregation into new frontiers in Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe. He sat in the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life (1994–2004) and took part in three Synods of Bishops. Francis named him a cardinal on 28 June 2018; in anticipation he was ordained a bishop — titular Archbishop of Urusi — on 16 June 2018 in Madrid, at eighty years old. His deaconry is Santa Lucia del Gonfalone. His motto is Ut vitam habeant — “that they may have life.”