Gregorio Rosa Chávez

Gregorio Rosa Chávez (; born 3 September 1942) is a Salvadoran Catholic prelate who served as Auxiliary Bishop of San Salvador from 1982 to 2022. He was a close collaborator of St. Óscar Romero.

Pope Francis made Rosa a cardinal on 28 June 2017, the first cardinal from El Salvador and a rare instance for any auxiliary bishop; the ordinary of a diocese typically is afforded that distinction when it is granted. As such, in archdiocesan affairs the Archbishop of San Salvador had precedence but Rosa ranked higher in the larger Church structure.

Life Gregorio Rosa Chávez was born on 3 September 1942 in Sociedad to farmers. His initial education was spent in Sociedad and later at Jocoro. He underwent both his theological and philosophical studies in San Salvador at San José de la Montaña (1957–61) before he studied communications (obtaining a licentiate) in Louvain at the college from 1973 to 1976. He continued his studies from 1966 to 1969 before serving as an episcopal aide for the diocese of San Miguel from 1970 to 1973. His education in communications began his lifelong interest in media communications as a tool of evangelization. He was ordained a priest at the San Miguel cathedral on 24 January 1970 and he was pastor of the El Rosario church in San Miguel from 1970 to 1973 while serving as the diocesan director of social communications from 1971 to 1973. Rosa served as the spiritual assessor for some religious movements from 1970 to 1973 and was rector of San José de la Montaña from 1977 to 1982. Under his close friend Óscar Romero from 1977 he headed the archdiocesan communication's office until 1982. He received his episcopal consecration at the church of María Auxiliadora in San Salvador on 3 July from Archbishop Lajos Kada, apostolic nuncio to El Salvador.

On 21 May 2017, Pope Francis announced that he would make Rosa a cardinal. He received the news at 5:00am in a telephone call and later told the press: "I thought it was a joke. I never thought that this could happen to me".

Rosa has been outspoken in the past about government abuses and once named alleged killers of six Jesuits as well as their housekeeper and her daughter slain in 1989; he received death threats following this and was accused of being a communist.

Óscar Romero Rosa first met Óscar Romero circa 1956 while Romero was a priest and the former was a seminarian. He worked for Romero following the conclusion of his philosophical studies for around twelve months and the two became good friends.

Rosa has been a vocal advocate for the canonization of Óscar Romero and attended his beatification in mid-2015.

He confirmed on his Facebook page in a post that he had an evening discussion with Pope Francis who alluded to the fact that he might visit El Salvador in 2018 to canonize Romero. However, Rosa Chávez later confirmed in a recording the archdiocese released not long after that the post was false and that he did not have social media pages. He said that no papal visit nor canonization was scheduled.

Coat of arms The new coat of arms for Rosa Chávez was unveiled in the week leading up to his elevation as a cardinal. The shield is split into quarters with a golden star representing his devotion to the Mother of God in the upper-left. There is a palm frond in the upper-right meant to depict the Salvadoran martyrs since a palm represents martyrdom.

The bottom-left depicts rosemary which acknowledges Saint Óscar Romero who used that image on his own coat of arms. The bottom-right has two hands shaking one another as a means of depicting an option for the poor which is a dimension of the social magisterium that appeals to Rosa Chávez.