Cardinal E. Corripio Ahumada, 88; helped renew Vatican ties
MEXICO CITY - Cardinal Ernesto Corripio Ahumada, who helped establish renewed Vatican relations with Mexico's government, died yesterday at his Mexico City home. He was 88.
Cardinal Corripio died from complications of heart problems, thrombosis, and diabetes, said the Rev. Hugo Valdemar, spokesman for the Mexico City Archdiocese.
The archbishop was known for his skill at balancing relations between the church and the state and was the country's most visible cardinal when Mexico reestablished formal diplomatic relations with the Vatican in 1992 after decades of conflict.
Underscoring those changes was the fact that Cardinal Corripio had to wear secular clothing when he greeted Pope John Paul II on his initial trip to Mexico in 1979 because federal law prohibited public use of clerical garb. That law was later abolished.
Cardinal Corripio was born in the Gulf coast port of Tampico. He served as a priest in the northern state of Tamaulipas from October 1942 to December 1952, when Pope Pius XII elevated him to the post of bishop at age 33.
He was then the youngest bishop in the world, according to a biography distributed by the archdiocese. He was elevated to cardinal on June 30, 1979, and retired in September 1994.
Cardinal Corripio moved easily among both rich and poor, according to Elio Masferrer, a religion specialist.
"He knew how to balance his relations with the powerful and the popular sector, the workers," Masferrer said.
Cardinal Norberto Rivera, the archbishop of Mexico City, said in a written eulogy that Cardinal Corripio's death "leaves an emptiness that will be impossible to fill, but among us he will live on in his teachings and in the example of his faith and Christian life."
