Cardinal Cristóbal López Romero is a Spanish-born Salesian prelate currently serving as the Archbishop of Rabat, Morocco, where he has dedicated himself to dialogue with Muslims and the well-being of migrants.

A fervent supporter of the Synod on Synodality, he has said he believes the synodal process goes further than democratizing the Church, and that anyone who disagrees with its decisions is “morally obligated” to support them.

Born on May 19, 1952, in Vélez-Rubio, Spain, López Romero joined the Salesian order at a young age, taking his first vows at 16 and his solemn vows at 22.

After completing his philosophical and theological studies at the Salesian seminaries of Girona and Barcelona, López Romero was ordained priest on May 19, 1979. His early ministry focused on serving marginalized communities in Barcelona.

In 1984, he embarked on a journey that would shape his career, leaving for Paraguay where he engaged in youth pastoral care and held various leadership positions within the Salesians.

López Romero’s international experience is extensive. He spent nearly two decades in Paraguay (1984 to 2003), then moved to Morocco where he directed a professional formation center in Kénitra from 2003 to 2011. He returned to Latin America as the Salesian provincial superior in Bolivia from 2011 to 2014, before heading back to Spain to lead the Salesian province of María Auxiliadora from 2014 to 2017. During these assignments he also served as director of pastoral and scholastic ministry.

In 2017, Pope Francis appointed López Romero as Archbishop of Rabat, and two years later elevated him to cardinal.

Cardinal López Romero has been a strong advocate for interreligious dialogue, particularly between Christians and Muslims, given his leadership position in Morocco, a Muslim-majority country. He has praised Pope Francis for prioritizing this dialogue, despite criticism from some quarters of the Church. He noted in 2022 that Francis has deliberately created cardinals who promote interreligious dialogue.

A significant event in his career was hosting Pope Francis during his visit to Morocco in March 2019, which marked the eighth centenary of the historic encounter between Saint Francis of Assisi and Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil. After the visit, Cardinal López Romero took several steps to build upon its momentum including launching a diocesan synod to encourage the Catholic community in Morocco to more fully live out its mission of “encounter and dialogue.”

López Romero considers migration not to be a “problem” but “to be the consequence of many problems,” and sees its root causes being poverty, wars, famines, climate change, and economic inequality, which he says all need to be addressed. The cardinal has proposed dedicating a synod specifically to migration, which he sees as a worldwide phenomenon requiring reflection by the entire Catholic Church.

He has expressed concern about the lack of compassion shown by some Christians towards migrants and other vulnerable groups, and stated that he suffers when people, after attending Mass, ask him not to “send migrants from Morocco anymore.”

Cardinal López Romero has been a strong supporter of synodality and took part in the Synod on Synodality.¹Some observers criticized the cardinal for breaching canon law by attending a synod press conference dressed in an open neck shirt and jacket and looking as though he had been defrocked.

In November 2024, days after it had ended, he made headlines by saying that those who disagree with its decisions are “morally obligated” to support them. He also said he believed synodality was a “prophetic sign” that could “enlighten the world because it is not just about bringing democracy to the Church, as many have stated, but it goes much further.”²“When a decision is made, even those who disagreed are morally obligated to support something that has been decided after a process in which we have all been able to participate and express opinions and even pray together to ask for the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit,” he said. “In the end, it is the pope, the bishop, the parish priest who, after having listened to everyone, and not capriciously, makes a decision and everyone goes that way. Democracy is little, we want more: we want fraternity, joint work, search for the common good.”

The cardinal launched his own diocesan synod in the archdiocese of Rabat, indicating his alignment with the Church’s current emphasis on synodal processes.

Given his preoccupation with interreligious and migration matters in Rabat, he does not appear to have spoken out on many other issues.

Cardinal López Romero speaks Spanish, his native language, French, and potentially some Arabic, though this is not confirmed.