Fernando Vargas Ruiz de Somocurcio

Fernando Vargas Ruiz de Somocurcio (8 March 1918 – 8 December 2003) was a Peruvian Jesuit who served as the Metropolitan Archbishop of Arequipa.

Fernando Vargas Ruiz de Somocurcio S.J.
Archbishop of Arequipa
Church	Catholic Church
Archdiocese	Archdiocese of Arequipa
In office	26 September 1980 – 2 March 1996
Predecessor	Leonardo José Rodríguez Ballón
Successor	Luis Sánchez-Moreno Lira
Previous posts	Archbishop of Piura (1978-1980) Bishop of Huaraz (1971-1978)
Orders
Ordination	17 December 1949
Consecration	13 November 1971 by Luigi Poggi
Personal details
Born	(1918-03-08)8 March 1918 Arequipa, Department of Arequipa, Peruvian Republic
Died	8 December 2003(2003-12-08) (aged 85) Lima, Peru

Biography

Monsignor Fernando Vargas Ruiz de Somocurcio was the son of Alberto Vargas Carbajal and Carmen Ruiz de Somocurcio. He did his studies at the Colegio San José, where he would later be the headmaster.

Episcopate

In 1972 he was named Bishop of Huaraz, working for the reconstruction of the zone that was devastated by a powerful earthquake in 1970. On 12 January 1978, he was named Archbishop of Piura y Tumbes.

On 26 December 1980, he was assigned Archbishop of Arequipa by Pope John Paul II, an office that he would occupy for 15 years. Among his works, the creation of the Archbishop Archive and the organization of the First Congress of Ecclesiastical History stood out. He designed and published the First Pastoral Plan of the Archdiocese. In 1980, he allowed the return of the clergy of the Congregation of Camillus of Lellis, who assumed religious duty in the Honorio Delgado Hospital in the Parish N.S. del Pilar, taking charge of the directing of the play "La Posada". In 1984, he invited the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae to work in Arequipa.

On 21 April 1986, at the request of Prebendary José Francisco Peña y Pbro, Nicolás Factor Herrera Herrera canonically declared the clerical jurisdiction of the new Sanctuary of Chapi as the Archdiocese Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Candlemas of Chapi through Decree N 023-C-ARZ-86.

In 2000 he was named Vice President of the Council for Peace.

In 2002 he was the mediator between the government and the citizens of Arequipa in the conflict over the privatization of the company Egasa.

In 1996 he retired due to the age limit and resided in the Parish of Our Lady of Fatima of Milaflores, the place where he would die of a heart attack the morning of 8 December 2003. His remains were transferred to the city of Arequipa, where he received the farewell from the faithful and the authorities led by the mayor Juan Manuel Guillén in a mass officiated by Bishops Bambarén and Piñeiro, to later be deposited in the Sacristy of the Basilica Cathedral of Arequipa.

Awards and recognition

• Gold Medal of St. Toribio of Mogrovejo (2002)
• Emeritus Archbishop of Arequipa

See also

• Roman Catholicism in Peru

External links

• Archbishop of Arequipa Archived 2012-05-04 at the Wayback Machine(in Spanish)