Charlie Rodríguez, the first contemporary layman beatified in the Americas

Today, July 13, commemorates the feast of a dynamic and enthusiastic Catholic layman born in the Caribbean who was beatified by the Pope Saint John Paul II in 2001.

Known as “Charlie”—shortened to “Chali” in his inner circle—from childhood Carlos Manuel “Charlie” Rodríguez exuded a gift and fervor for communicating the tremendous value and vitality of the Catholic faith.

“He lived by the maxim: ‘Zeal for your house consumes me,’” recalled the renowned Puerto Rican endocrinologist. Dr. Francisco Aguilówho was one of the young people deeply impacted by Charlie’s apostolate on the main campus of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) in Río Piedras in the 1950s and early 1960s.

“This is how he always insisted that the Christian should feel the life of the Church for his Church, understood as the mystical body of Christ, as well as for the Liturgy,” Aguiló added in his 1994 book titled “A Puerto Rican saint?”.

Aguiló, along with his wife, the UPR chemistry professor Carmen Delia “Delí” Santana, were both instrumental in leading the effort that led to Charlie’s cause for canonization. In his book, Aguiló recounts Charlie’s short but fruitful life, including the “ordeal” and “dark night of the soul” he suffered before dying in “smell of holiness”. He died of cancer in 1963 at the age of 44.

The chronic colitis that afflicted Charlie for much of his life and prevented him from completing his studies at the UPR, did not prevent him from achieving a notable intellectual level or, more importantly, from sharing his attractive experience and knowledge of the faith with others. .

“We never saw him so openly happy as when he referred to the psalm: ‘Our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with shouts of joy,’ and he immediately described the feeling of the Israelite with his heart and lips full of joy as he approached Zion. ”, members of the Carlos M. Rodríguez Circle (his former disciples), led by Aguiló, in the process that led to his beatification in 2001. “And he told us about the greatest joy of someone who, having sown with tears, was happy to reap his harvest in the heavenly Jerusalem.”

He was known to be a voracious reader. Making the most of his innate ability and extraordinary memory, he became a self-taught Catholic intellectual. His thinking was deeply influenced by the writings of saints and luminaries such as Saint Teresa and Saint John of the Cross, Saint Charles de Foucauld, Cardinal John Henry Newman, GK Chesterton and Saint Edith Stein.

Impact of your teaching

Charlie focused his catechetical work not on apologetic issues, but on communicating to others the personal and collective effectiveness of the liturgical life of the Church. His primary concern was to encourage the full understanding and participation of the laity in the holy sacrifice of the Mass and all the events and spirituality that take place in the life of the Church throughout the liturgical year.

Charlie intensely promoted the Easter Vigil as the defining moment of Christian spiritual life. He emphasized the definitive triumph of Jesus Christ in the redemption of human beings and the world, manifested by the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus.

With well-developed bilingual skills in Spanish and English, gained while attending Catholic schools in both his hometown of Caguas and nearby San Juan, Charlie translated “Of Sacraments and Sacrifice” y “Preparation for Easter” del P. Clifford Howell, SJ.

The liturgy interested him enormously, but not only for its external aspects. “Charlie made us understand that the true meaning of ‘liturgy’ comes from its Greek roots: ‘leiton’ (people) and ‘ergon’ (work). It is the most important work for the people: the redemptive action of Christ and his continuity in the Church,” the members of the Carlos M. Rodríguez Circle would later testify.

Fr. Oscar Rivera, abbot of Monastery of San Antonio in Humacao, Puerto Rico, who served as advisor to the Carlos M. Rodríguez Circle, notes that the Christ-centered and Easter spirituality that characterized Charlie and his students was at that time “unique in much of the Church, not just in Puerto Rich, but all over the world.”

Rivera also observes that Carlos Manuel was the prototype of a proactive layman. The way in which he advocated for innovation within the established doctrine and tradition of the Church, Rivera adds, “constituted a challenge for both the laity and the religious, a challenge that remains valid.”

university apostolate

The most impactful years, in the 1950s and early 1960s, of Charlie’s lay apostolate took place at the University of Puerto Rico, where his brother Pepe and sister Haydee worked as professors.

During most of this time, Charlie worked as an office worker at the UPR Agricultural Experiment Station. Along with a handful of faculty and students, Charlie met with Father Antonio Quevedo, SJ, to discuss the need to revitalize the campus’ Catholic University Center.

With the full support of Father Quevedo, Charlie took the initiative to organize the Christian Culture Circle at the Catholic University Center. In its statement of purpose, the Circle, which aimed to help its members become authentic apostolic Catholic intellectuals, stated: “We need Catholics who live in the present, who are awake to the current moment and who at the same time know how to use everything the good of the present without falling into modernism. Catholics who are nourished by both the past and the present, but with an eye toward the future… Catholics who know how to take advantage of the present time, and who know that the ultimate and most transcendent development has been manifested to them through the sacraments.”

Communication of the Christian life

Through the organization of discussion and study groups, along with days of reflection, social activity and the almost solitary publication of materials such as the magazine Cultura Cristiana, during more than a decade of apostolic work at the Catholic University Center of the UPR , Charlie dedicated himself to communicating—to students and teachers alike—the vitality, coherence, and relevance of faith.

More than half a dozen religious vocations were the fruit of his labors, including those of his brother Pepe and his sister Haydee.

Promotion of the cause

Although Charlie’s disciples would continue to meet sporadically in the years following his death, it was not until 1987—the year Pope John Paul II declared the “Year of the Layman”—that the group decided to organize, with the enthusiastic approval of the late Cardinal Luis Aponte Martínez of the Archdiocese of San Juan, the process that led to the beatification of Carlos Manuel.

The Circle’s feelings toward Charlie were summed up by Professor Santana, who stated: “I hope he will be canonized, not for his benefit but because the Church needs models of contemporary holiness, especially from lay people who have done nothing extraordinary in this world, but “who have done ordinary things with a great love for God and his Church.”

Approval of the miracle

After an intense investigation process both in San Juan and Rome, in 1997 Pope John Paul II declared Carlos Manuel “Venerable.” This title was the result of having confirmed that he had lived all the theological virtues (faith, hope and charity) as well as the cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance) in a heroic way.

In November 1999, medical authorities at St. John’s and the Vatican confirmed that in 1981—seven years before the cause for Carlos Manuel’s canonization began—Delí, who had been diagnosed with malignant lymphoma, had been suddenly and completely cured. and that in the absence of a medically founded reason for the cure, the only explanation left was Charlie’s intercession requested by Aguiló.

His future canonization as a full saint now awaits certification of a second miracle.

The example of Charlie’s beatification has subsequently helped to stimulate the causes of sainthood of other exemplary laymen and religious throughout the world. The beatification of this humble and charming contemporary lay apostle is, without a doubt, a well-deserved distinction for Puerto Rico and a source of inspiration for Catholics around the world.

Translated and adapted by ACI Prensa. Originally published in CNA.