Fernando Sebastián Aguilar
Fernando Sebastián Aguilar CMF was a Spanish cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and the Archbishop Emeritus of Pamplona y Tudela. Pope Francis elevated him to the rank of cardinal in a consistory on February 22, 2014.
Biography and Education
Sebastián Aguilar was born in Calatayud, Province of Zaragoza on 14 December 1929.He entered the Congregation of the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and made his religious profession on 8 September 1946. After completing his studies in philosophy and theology in the seminaries of the congregation, he was ordained a priest on 28 June 1953. Sebastián Aguilar obtained a doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum in 1957 with a dissertation entitled “Maternitatis divinae diversa ratio apud Didacum Alvarez et Franciscum Suarez”.
He became a member of the Sociedad Mariológica Española in 1959 and served as director of the Revista Ephemerides Mariologicae in 1966. In the same year, he founded the Iglesia Viva journal, which he directed until 1971. Sebastián Aguilar also taught dogmatic theology in his religious congregation in Valls and Salamanca. He then served as professor, from 1967, and subsequently rector, from 1971 to 1979, of the Pontifical University of Salamanca.