Manuel Ureña Pastor

Manuel Ureña Pastor (born 4 March 1945) is a Spanish prelate of the Catholic Church who became a bishop in 1988 and served as ordinary in Ibiza, Alcalá de Henares, and Cartagena before becoming Archbishop of Zaragoza, the position he held from 2005 until he retired in 2014. He resigned citing health problems, though later reports demonstrated his mishandling of a charge of harassment against one of his priests.

Biography Manuel Ureña Pastor was born in Albaida, Valencia, on 4 March 1945. He attended the Escuela Nacional de Albaida from 1951 to 1959 and then entered the Metropolitan Seminary of Valencia in Moncada. He earned his licentiate in dogmatic theology at the Pontifical University of Salamanca in 1973. He was ordained a priest on 14 July 1973 in Valencia. He was a pastoral vicar for three years and then earned a doctorate in philosophy at the Pontifical University Angelicum in 1984.

On 23 July 1991, John Paul named him the first Bishop of Alcalá de Henares, newly created from the Archdiocese of Madrid, and on 1 July 1998, he was made Bishop of Cartagena though the appointment was not announced until 2 April, hours before John Paul's death. (The announcement was unusual in that the date of an appointment normally coincides with the date of the press release, unless an appointment takes effect at a future date.) In this instance, the 2 April press release announced 12 March as the date of Ureña's appointment and his predecessor's retirement. Ureña had several surgeries in recent years, The Archdiocese admitted the payment and said it was not related to Ureña's resignation because of his health.