José Rodríguez Carballo

José Rodríguez Carballo was born on 11 August 1953 in Lodoselo (Sarreaus), Spain.[1] He entered the Minor Seminary of the Franciscan Province of Santiago de Compostela in Zamora in 1964. The next year he studied at the seminary Herbón, A Coruña. He made his novitiate at the Convent of Ponteareas, concluding with his profession of temporary vows on 9 August 1971.

He moved to Jerusalem in 1973 where he continued his theological studies, earning a BA in 1976. He made his solemn profession of vows on 8 December 1976 in the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth and was ordained a priest on 28 June 1977 in Jerusalem at the Church of San Salvatore.

Beginning in 1976 he attended the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum of Jerusalem, earning a degree in biblical theology in 1978. He then enrolled at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in 1981 and obtained a degree in sacred scripture.

Archbishop Carballo in 2011

He returned to the religious province of Santiago de Compostela, where he was Master of postulants and treasurer. In 1989 he became Rector of the Guardian and Convent of St. Francis in Santiago de Compostela and Master of the Friars of temporary profession. He was a professor of Sacred Scripture at the Diocesan Seminary of Vigo from 1982 to 1992, and at the Center for Theological Studies of Santiago de Compostela from 1985 to 1992 he taught the Theology of Consecrated Life.

He was elected Provincial Minister of Santiago de Compostela in 1992. From 1993 to 1997 he was also President of the Union of the Franciscan Provincial Ministers of Europe. On 5 June 2003 he was elected Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, the 119th successor of St. Francis of Assisi. On 4 June 2009 he was elected to another six-year term.

On 6 April 2013, Pope Francis appointed him secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, filling a position that had been vacant for several months, and named him Titular Archbishop of Bellicastrum.[2] Some years earlier, in 2006–2009, the same post had been occupied by Archbishop Gianfranco Gardin, who as Father Agostino Gardin had been in the years 1996–2002 the 117th a former Minister General of the Order of Conventual Franciscan Friars, and was later appointed Archbishop-Bishop of Treviso.

• The government of the Order (with an image of Carballo)