Diego Rafael Padrón Sánchez was born in Montalbán, Venezuela, on 17 May 1939 and ordained a priest for Valencia on 4 August 1963. He took a licentiate in Sacred Scripture at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome with studies in Jerusalem (1979–83), and for decades taught Latin, Biblical Greek, and biblical theology in the seminaries of Valencia, Caracas, and Maturín. Appointed auxiliary bishop of Caracas in April 1990 (consecrated 27 May by Cardinal Lebrún), he became Bishop of Maturín in May 1994 and Archbishop of Cumaná on 27 March 2002 — the Holy See biography's “7 May” appears to conflate the Maturín date with the Cumaná bulletin date — serving until 24 May 2018.
From 2012 to 2018 he presided over the Venezuelan bishops' conference, the Church's institutional voice through the country's political crisis, and in August 2024, with Cardinal Baltazar Porras, issued a joint statement on the disputed election, denouncing “the obvious fraud, the manifest usurpation, and disregard of the unequivocally expressed popular sovereignty.” Francis created him a cardinal on 30 September 2023, with the title of San Gaetano. Now retired, he serves as parish priest of La Inmaculada de Camoruco in Valencia.
Consequential Quotes
Our role as pastors is, above all, to defend the truth, to feel we are part of the people and to accompany them. We must be and seek to be impartial, living and acting with the truth. We are not and cannot be neutral…
Major Works & Initiatives
President of Venezuela's bishops
The Church's institutional voice in the crisis years.
Archbishop of Cumaná
Sixteen years in the eastern coastal archdiocese.
The Scripture professor
Decades teaching Latin, Greek, and biblical theology.
Controversies
On the record
No significant public controversies reported.