Norberto Rivera

MEXICO CITY -- Cardinal Norberto Rivera has ministered for 10 years to this sprawling capital city at the heart of a predominantly Roman Catholic nation, toeing a conservative line on church doctrine while taking more progressive stances on social issues.

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The 62-year-old archbishop of Mexico, appointed by Pope John Paul II, opposes abortion and artificial contraception while speaking out against globalization, government corruption and election fraud.

The church has become more openly involved and aggressive in socio-economic and political issues during Rivera's tenure thanks in part to a change of government policy, which until 1992 banned church-run schools and public religious processions.

"He very clearly believes that government's policy has been inadequate to improving the standard of living of the ordinary faithful," said Roderic Ai Camp, a religion expert who teaches at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif. "Implicitly, he's been critical of economic globalization."

As Mexico's foremost cardinal, Rivera is given an outside chance of becoming the next pope if the conclave of cardinals opts for a Latin American, although prelates from Brazil and Honduras are considered stronger contenders.

Rivera has maintained a high profile in Mexico's news media, officiating at celebrity weddings and commenting on current affairs during and after Mass at the Mexico City Cathedral -- which happens to face city hall and the Presidential Palace.

He recently weighed in on the debate over Mexico City's popular, left-leaning mayor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, declaring that "there is no room (in Mexico) for a populist government."

While winning praise for defending human rights, Rivera also has cooperated closely with socially and politically conservative groups in Mexico.

In addition to Spanish, he speaks Latin and Italian -- a virtual requirement for a pope -- as well as some English.

However, he may not have enough of the natural charisma his colleagues may looking for to succeed the dynamic John Paul, according to the Rev. Manuel Olimon, a professor of religious history at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City.

"Something that is very important is the personal charm," Olimon said. "His manner is not very agreeable or pleasant. And you could say he is not flexible in his speech, but abrupt."

Born in La Purisima in Mexico's northwestern Durango state, Rivera joined the local seminary at 13 and was ordained a priest 11 years later.

The cardinal, whom colleagues describe as a workaholic, emerged as an extremely traditionalist church leader who sided with Rome on the most controversial of political and theological questions. He made international headlines by continuing to condemn birth control at a time when Mexico's population was growing at a high rate of 2 percent a year.

In 1985, while serving as bishop of Tehuacan in central Puebla state, he irked many clergymen by refusing to rethink sermons that preached an inflexible theological line at a time when the "new church" and its liberation theology were in vogue.

But his pro-Vatican views won him the favor of church officials in Rome and he was named Mexico City's archbishop by John Paul II in 1995.

Since his arrival in the capital district, home to 20 million people, Rivera has worked to cultivate closer relations with Jews and Muslims in a country where about 90 percent of the population is at least nominally Catholic.

Working in Mexico City, Rivera has been somewhat removed from the fast-growing Protestant evangelical movement in the countryside -- and from the Catholic Church's controversial decision to suspend training of Indian lay deacons, despite an apparent shortage of priests.

Despite his conservative background, Rivera is credited with a supporting role in mediating a dispute in the mid-1990s between the Vatican and the outspoken former bishop of San Cristobal de Las Casas, Samuel Ruiz, who was accused by the government and conservatives of fomenting Indian rebellion in the poor southern state of Chiapas. The Vatican had been prepared to expel Ruiz; instead, he stayed on until 1999, when he retired at the age of 75.

Rivera "would probably have been critical of Ruiz personally but not critical of the church supporting the interest of the indigenous peasants in Chiapas," Ai Camp said.